I agree that separation of concerns might bring better content but I can't afford buying multiple services in hopes of catching what I want.

(Actually, I can afford it but I'm ... frugal.)

There is no HTML5 other than a buzzword: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/dev/introduction.html#is-this-h...?

I owned a string of fast food restaurants. I had the ability to not hire anyone under age 20 if I didn't have to. When I did, the requirement was that they be in college but, in every case, I found that these kids, who returned for summer work every year, did a lot of growing up between the ages of 18 and 20.

In the era of dinosaurs, neither MASM nor Windows existed but we still did assembly or micro-coding (machine coding) or flipped switches.

Pre-MASM Dinos probably weren't doing xor ax, ax.

So you're saying KDE and Gnome and xfce and enlightenment and openBox, etc, are all desktops that run like the 90s? These current versions, and many more, run on FreeBSD.

No, I was talking mostly about perception of hardware support, package management, and a pre-systemd init system.

But which DE you run is entirely up to you. I'm writing this with FreeBSD running fvwm. On my laptops I run dwm.

Also:

> enlightenment

I haven't kept up with recent developments, but this is the most 1990s WM that ever 1990s'd.

It was early and I couldn't think of all the desktop names so I Googled for "popular Linux desktops" and that's one of them it gave me. Apparently Linux runs a "most 1990s WM that ever 1990s'd".

After you install the base system, install your favorite desktop by doing "pkg install <your_favorite_desktop>" and it's done.

What's so difficult?

"Before FreeBSD can render a graphical environment, it needs a kernel module to drive the graphics processor. Graphics drivers are a fast-moving, cross-platform target, which is why this is developed and distributed separately from the FreeBSD base system."

"To enable the driver, add the module to /etc/rc.conf file, by executing the following command: ..."

https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/

I get that this isn't brain surgery. But come on

And, again, "pkg install <your_favorite_desktop>" done. Quit pulling blurbs out of thin air when you don't know how it works.

The truth is that FreeBSD doesn't want casual users, though.

The Linux (Ubuntu, etc) install experience leads to a usable desktop. Heck, the installer disc boots to a usable desktop.

Also no unsophisticated users even know the name of their favorite DE. Or what a DE is.

Requiring a text login and a shell command, even one as simple as "pkg install KDE" is a big ask for a casual user these days. Also, that command line will probably fail. :)

I write these things as a very big fan of FreeBSD! I think not catering to casual users keeps FreeBSD in a better technical place overall, but Linux is obviously much more popular. This carries risks too.

Actually pkg install kde is exactly what you should do. Just not in capitals.

But in FreeBSD 15 it will be part of the installer. However even an installer is too much to ask of today's mainstream users. I don't want freebsd to become mainstream though especially because what mainstream users want (everything decided on by a vendor) is completely contrary to what FreeBSD stands for and what I want.

Casual users become experienced users become contributors

I'm not saying Make Everything Easy. If there's real reasons not to have easy x11 onboarding, if FreeBSD really is intended to be an OS for experts (and I get that it may well be, for a variety of historical reasons), then fine

Linking directly to documentation is thin air?

You don't have to reinstall with every software upgrade. Reliability and long term uptime are the norm.

These statements could equally describe Linux, macOS, or even Windows.

>>I believe that success Linux has had is because of copyleft, and *BSD are riding on the coat tails of that.

Apparently many here are unaware of the history and story as to what stalled FreeBSD in a long lawsuit involving ATT. You need to read up on that. Copyleft had nothing to do with it.

WOW! This is great!! What is it?

This is how my co-worker's son turned from a happy, energetic 8-year old into a 400 pound 20-something who does nothing but play games as soon as he comes home from work. It consumes his whole life.

I don't disagree at all. It's such a complicated problem, unless you have all the kids in your kid's circle prohibited from gaming the peer pressure is intense. I am starting to come to the conclusion that you can't really limit them (my kids were getting an hour on weekdays and two on weekends) but then my son especially fiends the rest of the weekend for screens and it is constant conflict. I'm at wits end. But they exploit any gaps in parent alignment and then you have predatory gaming companies where PM bonuses are tied to time in game. It's unhealthy for kids and families.

Steam? I'm not sure what you're referring to by "this". All they're recommending is a standard setup that millions of people have. If your co-worker's son turned into a 400 pound 20 something, that sounds like a separate set of problems, not based on Steam or using Linux.

Agreed. I think Linux is, 800% less predatory (I love Trump math) than Microsoft Windows. Just booting it up clean is inviting a salesperson shilling all kinds of junk to your kids.

If that was enough to change him that much, then something's really wrong. I doubt it was just games, personally.

That's a problem with the kid, not the games.