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The Slash style moderation system seems to work pretty well even in heated discussions thanks to the MetaMod review process. Wish we had it here.

Netcraft confirmed it! This can only mean one thing! BSD is a zombie OS! Run for your lives!

There are plenty of inux distributions out there. If I'm already running a more "advanced" distribution like archlinux, which gives me complete freedom over my computer, should I really look into FreeBSD?

I've been running PC-BSD as my main OS since October 2013 starting with the PC-BSD 10.0 preview. Before I installed PC-BSD I was distro-hopping around the Linux universe never quite finding something that felt comfortable (Arch was close, still have an Arch install that is not used much).

Basically I came to PC-BSD (and by extention FreeBSD) mainly for zfs and stayed due to the cohesiveness of the whole system and the great community. BSD Now episode #49 gives a quick tour of the PC-BSD GUI tools, a good place to see PC-BSD in action. After watching the podcast I would suggest checking out the PC-BSD Handbook

Humans have a morbid fascination for rubbernecking

Fair enough - but you don't usually go to all the work to add code, just to not eventually release it. Plus, it seems they believe they are solving a real problem in a way that (cough, cough) just happens to earn them some money. On a fresh install, a newly opened tab will have 8 links on the page, but no browser history available in order to present you recent, frequently visited sites. What to do? Oh yeah, sell real estate.

I think Opera does this too, by the way. That allows me to ding Firefox twice: once for this bad idea, and a second time for copying Opera. :)

Maybe that's not so bad. Opera's preset "speed dial" choices are what helped me discover Reddit, which, believe it or not, i'd never heard of.

Took me a minute to figure out "do what I mean." I was thinking, "Deal with it, motherfu ..." Although they're not far apart.

Well, I'm still waiting for the ultimate RISC CPU, with only one instruction: dwim. That's the only instruction you should ever need.

Install NoScript. It's a long time since I've last cared about the availability of the global option.

Write about:config into the url bar. Then write javascript into the search field.
Probably it could be done from their standard GUI also if you dig deep enough into their option dialog.

Get piwik
It is google analytics without google

Super customisable. Right.How does one disable JavaScript in firefox these days?

Bah. Editing on mobile there. LF are stripped.. and html on a phone is difficult :)
I was hoping for more suggestions ... anyone else have a beef with Windows which would need to be resolved before it is acceptable?

So static links without tracking in Firefox, in an effort to get out from under Google's thumb... or the peverse tracking of Chrome.

Anyone who uses Chrome an complains about ads is a moron.

First off, let's not forget that this is nightly and not an actual released build, so, probably (if they are sane) they're not going to include it. If the do for some reason, it can be turned off. Lets not forget that one of the big draws of Firefox is that its super customizable. Having it on by default is uncool, but not the end of the world. Ubuntu had the same controversy with their in OS advertising. I understand why people are pissed at Mozilla, but I still think they're a good group trying to do good stuff. Everybody missteps.

I suspect this is going to come down to Coke vs Pepsi. Dr pepper wins anyway.

Yep, I agree with your forecasts (even though they are just forecasts and we can be wrong). I do not see why Google would continue sponsoring Mozilla (except for a bit of openwashing marketing), not only because Firefox market shares decrease, but mostly because now that Google has locked such a large number of users in their system/services, these users will choose Google as search engine / start page even if it is not the default proposed by the web browser.

Me too. I've got an aging Bold 9900 and it's some of the best hardware I've ever used. Still love the keyboard, and they've thought out lots of things in the interface and the hardware that even the best Androids haven't even touched.

You can charge it just by sitting it in a dock, for example, whereas my Samsung Note III dock is just a plastic thing with a micro-USB plug sticking up. The blackberry design is so better thought out.

Give me the 9900 with a taller screen, better browser, Android app store, and then take my money!

I'm not sure there's going to be much to watch while you munch on your popcorn. Firfox users are getting sick of all the bullshit and will start deserting the platform. Then they'll limp along a bit until Google decides to stop paying them the few million a year they pay to make Google the default browser.

Then Firefox will use DuckDuckGo as the default browser and try to make that choice into some sort of "power to the people' decision when the reality is that they got screwed.

Then when they can't hire developers, the platform will stagnate, fall behind on security features, and rot away.

Nice work, Mozilla, you bunch of asshats.

Dammit, I do not have any popcorn left!

Sites I regularly visit at the moment:
Hacker News
Phoronix
Liliputing
Linuxgizmos
LWN

Site I used to visit:
EETimes

And for non-UK (and non-US and other non-UK-colonies) people, websites in our own languages. Would be linuxfr.org for me, for example.

The Lumina desktop will also provide BSD-specific features through its file manager, like full ZFS snapshot restore capability.

That's a good feature. I am running OpenZFS under Linux, but manage my snapshots through the terminal.

It always is!

Off-hand, I'm not sure you'd have to make any compromises at all, other than learning where BSDs put things. On BSD, /bin is for system stuff, and everything you install after initial OS installation goes into /usr/local. So if you build an Apache server, it's in /usr/local/bin and the configs are in /usr/local/etc/apache/ . Meanwhile, sendmail, being part of the initial system, winds up in /bin and /etc/mail/.One interesting question is using cmake and gcc now that FreeBSD has moved to Clang/LLVM. But I'd think those packages are in the ports, so you install them and then work away. According to https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?&t=10076 Matlab is available in the ports collection too. Doesn't look like you'd be affected at all, and there are dozens of WMs to choose from, from Ratpoison all the way up.

I heard it was to spend more time with his family.

There's also the fact that the BSDs are traditionally server, not desktop OSes

I'm aware of that but I thought that PC-BSD was precisely the more desktop-oriented version of FreeBSD. My usual workflow involves vim/cmake/C/bash/git/Matlab and I usually stay in userspace (so no low-level kernel dev). I also have some personnal LAMP projects. All of which I thought as mostly OS agnostic things.

What compromises would I have to make if I were to use PC-BSD or FreeBSD with another DE* for such a R&D desktop ? (i.e. as opposed to a personal computer, for which I'd probably stick to Linux for now)

*certainly not Gnome 3, mind you ... ;-)

Linux distros are giving you a lot more than an OS, as is Windows. The install media's size isn't what you should be worrying about.

What you should be worrying about is the system resources to require to actually run the OS. Linux in general will still run on an i486, and with a Pentium 2 or so, you can even run X. Windows 7 takes HOW many GIGABYTES of RAM?

You can go for a minimal install of Linux or Windows if you want a small hard drive footprint, but the bloat is in the resource requirements to run.

Got citations on the "many times"?

I knew of once that was a particularly problematic hole within a week or so of EOL, but nothing since then outside of support for those who pay (through the nose) for it, like the IRS (your tax dollars at work!).

I think I'll also ask Bryan - HEY, I just did! - for some kind of dashboard where editors, or maybe everyone, can see how many articles were clicked on or something like that. Most CMSes provide some kind of similar functionality already.

That's kind of what is happening now. Have a look at the history of the feed and note that 80-90% of the articles were submitted and then posted by me. The site currently represents - for better or worse - my interests.

That's a problem, actually. It would be great to have people posting other stuff. In the meantime, hope you guys like astronomy, security, BSD, Bodhilinux, and openSUSE, because that's what you're going to get: ;)

Probably better than it did a year ago. I've just updated a FreeBSD server from 9.0 to 10.0 and one of the major changes is the new package management system: pkgng or something ("next generation"). I'm still finding my way around it, but initial impressions are favorable. I very infrequently have to compile packages these days, so the pkg system is almost indistinguishable from apt-get. I have yet to find a busted port, but give me time, if I try ...

The distro articles are always enjoyable.

I'm confused - is it still on?

I'd love to get the good tech articles from soy. Then I could finally toss that feed (and its huge noise/volume ratio) off my rss list.

For BlackBerry, as I really like QNX and it's Hub/message center.... it's too bad there isn't a good way to try before you buy for these new competitors though, as one of the main obstacles for me is buying a new phone that is off the radar.

There's a somewhat good discussion of it here: https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?t=45658 and here: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-May/100411.html

There's also the fact that the BSDs are traditionally server, not desktop OSes, and Gnome3 is a very unfriendly, heavyweight desktop with lots of packages and dependencies and high resource demands from the hardware. That makes it unsuitable for servers.

That said, it's apparently running on OpenBSD, which is somewhat of a minor miracle.

How well does Ports handle dependencies these days with different apps and with uninstalls and such?

Kind of cool that even though he is was a high-up manager, he was also somehow involved in the XWindow system! That's kind of amazing.

We use Win7 at work. Win7 seems to have LTS status similar to WinXP -- I tend to ponder whether it will be Win8 that loses Microsoft's attention first given 8's uptake issues in the general marketplace.

Just to chime in with what seems to be a significant revelation from this experiment. We don't comment often, but enjoy many articles and other's comments on subjects familiar and unfamiliar to us. Editors need some kind of gauge to let them know what we like and don't like, but they only have a small pool of comments to guide them. Some other metric we can supply... e.g. the suggested Like/Dislike input... even from ACers like me could go a long way to steering the editors towards stuff we want.

Mac solution: occasionally dedicate a new release to slimming-down, rather than adding features

Linux solution: lightweight distros (Fluxbuntu, Lubuntu, Puppy, DSL)

Windows solution: ...? I guess you could buy an Xbox One, or a Windows Phone :P

many desktops now depend on Linux-specific functionality that makes the port almost impossible.

As a Linux user considering a move to *BSD someday, apart from Gnome dependency on systemd, are there other Linux-specific functionalities that I should be aware of ?

Besides, rumor has it that OpenBSD would start development of an api-compatible systemd replacement to solve that specific issue, but I haven't seen any news on that topic yet.

Microsoft will hire you. Maybe. How are you at chair throwing?

Yep, I like Friday Distro! :D

I like astronomy as well :D Maybe people like the article or subject, but they don't feel competent enough to post discussion on it. Maybe an article rating system would be nice, but isn't that how the articles get published to begin with? People thumbs up what they want published from the pipe?

It amazes me how exponentially crazy the size of OSes have grown as well, especially Windows. I realize there is added functionality in each new version (ok, this could be argued :D), and increased resolution in packaged images, but why the many GB in increase? Why the bloat? Linux seems to be outgrowing the CD now with many mainstream distros requiring a DVD (if you don't count minimal CLI installs), but would it kill to focus more on efficiency in software size and even function?

+1If Friday Distro goes I will miss it

Ha.There's a good poll topic. "What will it take for you/your company to embrace Windows 9 as the primary OS?"1. Nothing. We have Linux / other2. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just, no. Never. Ever. Ever.3. Nothing. Waiting for Windows 10.4. Only when xp/Windows 7 is no longer an option5. Start menu 6. No start screen7. No Metro8. Price = free9. Removal of Windows 8 mouse gestures hot spots and related annoyances10. When there is absolutely no other choice11. Over my dead body12. When required by those who hold the purse strings13. When Windows 9 can be modified to look and act like Windows 7/XP14. I don't care15. CowboyBrian chooses my OS for me

Our second dupe? Sweet - when I get to five dupes, Bryan gives me a free cup of coffee. Only 3 to go, c'mon!

Yeah, I think that article was standing to close to all the stuff that came in from Soylent and got washed out to sea in the purge.

OK, glad to hear it! The last few ones had few if any comments and I was thinking no one is reading this stuff. Seems like some way of people indicating if they liked or did not like a story is useful as it shows interest in a subject even if no one comments.

That said, the value of this site over an RSS reader of your choosing is the commentary. If you like the articles about distros, you could just as easily subscribe to Distrowatch's RSS feed and be done with it. The idea of posting it here is to elicit commentary and opinion from our readers. If no one bothers to comment, what's the point? You could simply replace this site with a few RSS feeds and save everyone else the trouble.

This place only works if the articles lead to interesting and informative discussion, and beyond that every reader should make an effort to get the word out to friends and colleagues so the place grows. Link to articles at other places where possible - readers aren't going to find us just by luck. I'm in the habit of linking recently posted articles to Google+ because I don't/won't use Facebook (I'm https://plus.google.com/100052614455936939751/posts at G+ if you're interested), and hope others can do the same on places like Reddit and 4chan and techdirt and so on.

Yeah, thanks for all the stuff you've already submitted to the pipe. I unfortunately don't have the time to go visit Soylent and hand scrape your articles to this site. I barely have time to submit what I already have put into the queue.