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grahamjperrinon A Love Letter to FreeBSD

> The truth is that FreeBSD doesn't want casual users, …

I shouldn't overgeneralise.

https://github.com/orgs/FreeBSDFoundation/projects/1/views/3... … and so on.

grahamjperrinon A Love Letter to FreeBSD

The current expectation is that the desktop script, which was originally scheduled for inclusion with FreeBSD Installer for 15.0, will be included with 15.1.

A blocker, although this bug was not the reason for rescheduling:

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=290024

grahamjperrinon A Love Letter to FreeBSD

No, it's not done. You forgot configuration.

grahamjperrinon A Love Letter to FreeBSD

> yagni

TIL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_compared_to_other_dist... exists, but probably does not answer your question.

For Arch users of KDE Plasma and applications, are essential packages ever missing? <https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Installation>

From https://gist.github.com/grahamperrin/307b8cdef5d4dcd30f5fdc4... for FreeBSD:

> It's not unusual for a Tier 1 platform to have no package for a wanted desktop environment. Two platforms are at this tier: …

For example, kde for FreeBSD 15.0-CURRENT was recently missing for a few days for AMD64; is still missing for aarch64 (64-bit ARMv8).

This is not to criticise the maintainers of packages or repos. I do understand the constraints.

The absence of an essential meta package is, inescapably, an impedance when aiming to test installers and upgrades, especially with pkgbase.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

That's a tad dramatic, Daphne.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

> 's0ix' is bullshit.

False. S0iX is not bullshit.

> S3 suspend/resume worked just fine.

Not for me.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

OK, that's clearer.

In any case, I'll take additional advice; it's impossible to trust apparently authoritative statements from you.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

LSU context: the completeness is out of scope.

Current aims include enhancement of the installer for FreeBSD; KDE Plasma and applications as an option.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

Yep, the coherence is a strong point.

Unfortunately, we now have a few people complaining about predictable, consistent behaviour with packaging that is coherent. The base system, FreeBSD, packaged.

The complaints are about the effect of wilful force.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned.

When I force something with my eyes shut (ignoring warnings), I do expect the unexpected as a result of my ignorance ;-)

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

I took it to mean, a relatively short period of time after funding became available. Bear in mind, it's a report from the Foundation.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

Thanks.

I have a vague sense that kernel panics with iwlwifi should have been resolved before 14.3-RELEASE. Bugzilla should be fairly close to definitive, expect info to be copious but well-organised.

Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics], it's harder to find information.

I spent around a year trying to pinpoint the cause(s) of apparently random failures with different (older) hardware. After switching to Kubuntu on the same hardware, I suspect that the issue with FreeBSD was ACPI-related.

If you have crash files from kernel panics: it should be possible to identify, but not necessarily solve, a problem.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

Thanks for helping people to lose their preconceptions. New truths are good …

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

Side note: I wasn't aware that the title here was truncated. Sorry. It should have been:

Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 report from the FreeBSD Foundation

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

> … if you want to check at least several different guides ... but that covers only the encryption part. …

Reminder: I neither want, nor need, to check several different guides that cover only the encryption part.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

I have not yet needed a ZFS boot environment.

I'm considering alternatives. Not ZFSBootMenu in isolation. I'm in no rush.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

Which version of FreeBSD, exactly?

freebsd-version -kru ; uname -aKU

pkg repos -el | sort -f

pkg repos -e | grep url

I'm not familiar with the meaning of T14, sorry.

Does the Wi-Fi hardware use iwlwifi(4)?

A kernel panic when waking from sleep might relate to the graphics driver.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

LUKS-encrypted root on ZFS does not take hours. I chose encryption when I installed the OS.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

Kubuntu 25.04 here, root on OpenZFS thanks to the installer for Ubuntu.

How is OpenZFS second class on Linux?

<https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/> is not perceptibly FreeBSD-first.

grahamjperrinon Laptop Support and Usability (LSU): July 2025 Report

Not exactly a new laptop, but a few days ago I spent a similar period (around an hour) toying with FreeBSD on an HP EliteBook 660 16" (G11).

Very rough notes – things were rushed (squeezing as much as possible into the end of a Friday afternoon):

https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1mey64f/hp_elitebo...

grahamjperrinon Pkgbase Removes FreeBSD Base System Feature

I suspect that at least one of the numerous threads has sown seeds of confusion about the vital flag. Here's not the place to undo this … sorry.

grahamjperrinon Pkgbase Removes FreeBSD Base System Feature

I think, messe means that removal is _not_ astonishing, if removal is not simply requested.

Removal is forcibly requested.

The force means, remove more than what's normal. An abnormal removal.

grahamjperrinon Pkgbase Removes FreeBSD Base System Feature

The FreeBSD Project began providing official packages – for RELEASE and for CURRENT – in October 2023.

grahamjperrinon Pkgbase Removes FreeBSD Base System Feature

> … GPs point …

I'm slightly disoriented, who's the other GP?

(I'm a GP.)

grahamjperrinon Pkgbase Removes FreeBSD Base System Feature

You may be unaware of the numerous freebsd-update bugs that will never be fixed.

With regard to pkgbase,

> … Graham Perrin … not a finished mechanism. Very clearly not. (-:

My experience with pkgbase is clearly very different from your perspective. <https://lobste.rs/s/ikhfqq/pkgbase_removes_freebsd_base_syst...>:

"… I should describe the pkgbase caboodle as ninety-eight percent production-ready. The official packages for FreeBSD-RELEASE have always been _one hundred percent_ production quality. Very few aspects of pkgbase are experimental."

grahamjperrinon Pkgbase Removes FreeBSD Base System Feature

> https://github.com/freebsd/pkg/issues/2414

I wrote:

"2414 intrigues me, however there's not enough for me to tell whether it's a pkg issue.

"I do know that the big picture includes things being suitably prioritised; for this reason, and others, I have felt no need to bump 2414.

"If additional info is required, they'll ask me in due course."

– <https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1mct33f/comment/n6...>

grahamjperrinon Using Podman hooks to mount persistent ZFS datasets into ephemeral Containers

Very neatly presented.

grahamjperrinon The X.Org Server just got forked (announcing XLibre)

https://web.archive.org/web/20210202134702/https://drewdevau...

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/layh7k/im_tired_of_t...