Comment by michaelpb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelpb | Hacker News Reader

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Sincere question: Why FreeBSD?

I'm not against the choice, and I can imagine some valid reasons to choose it, but in the helloSystem docs I read so far I only found some common criticisms of desktop Linux UI (bloated, unfriendly, disorganized etc). Whether true or not, I really don't see how the kernel choice impacts the graphical experience they are imitating. This seems more of a criticism of distros, poorly followed or non-existent HIG for DEs, or even just the general ad-hoc nature of FOSS projects. That's why I don't see how basing a new free software project on FreeBSD would solve any of that -- it seems completely orthogonal.

I mean, either way it seems they are basing it on KDE, which they could have also built on top of a Linux kernel: https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/developer/architecture.ht...

Also, I get a lot of their criticisms of existing DEs, but it seems they are tossing a lot of work out without a viable replacement with buy-in, e.g. "XDG specifications are considered overly complex but insufficient and should be avoided, but may be acceptable as legacy technology for compatibility reasons". There's plenty of valid criticism of XDG, but until there is any support behind helloSystem, it reminds me a bit of this classic xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/

All in all I'm actually excited about the project, since regardless of the kernel, I'm sure the DE they are developing will get ports elsewhere (e.g. to mature desktop Linuxes and BSDs), and any effort that helps macOS users jump to FOSS-world is also super appreciated!

because macOS is BSD based not Linux Based seems a damn good reason to make one that's going to feel similar to macOS, especially to the type of geeks who would switch to a *nix clone.

You'll have the same command line libraries built in instead of the GNU ones. Now, I'm not saying i _want_ the BSD tools instead of the GNU ones, but it makes a LOT of sense if you're trying to keep the same behavior.

See, preferring BSD userland would be a rationale I would at least understand, but I didn't find that motivation in the documentation -- at least what I read of it. Instead I just saw a lot of criticisms of user experience and development experience of unrelated graphical (userland) software that are common to all the free desktop OS's.

Modern FreeBSD is probably closer to Linux than it is to MacOS.

> Why FreeBSD?

Thoughts on the underlying OS · Issue #37 · helloSystem/hello https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/37

More recently:

FOSDEM 2021 - hello... again? https://fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/hello_bsd/

– expect a recording at https://www.youtube.com/user/fosdemtalks in due course.

My guess, probably because they’re idiots.

“ A lightweight, standard publish/subscribe mechanism should be identified; possibly something like MQTT (which would have the added benefit of allowing for network-wide communication). In the meantime, the use of D-Bus as a legacy technology may be acceptable (even though it is considered obscure, convoluted, and closely linked with various other Red Hat technologies.”

This sort of sums it up right there. I mean I think dbus is a trash fire, but not because it is tied to RedHat, and “something something” hand wavy MQTT isn’t a real solution.

This seems to be more of a project driven by Linux hate then actual design principals. The former is not so much a problem as the latter

> ⋯ seems to be more of a project driven by Linux hate ⋯

Not really. I never hear Linux mentioned in everyday chat.

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