Re: NeXT GNU Homage Project Work

[Liam Proven]

On 16 November 2015 at 21:24, David Chisnall <theraven@sucs.org> wrote:
> This is not true.  We have working 3D on FreeBSD with the RPi.  The code for 
> the 3D accelerator on the RPi 2 was just updated:


I sit corrected, and my apologies for the disinformation.

Saying that, though, I reluctantly stand by the rest. Let's put it
this way: I've been working with, building and maintaining Unix
machines professionally since 1988. Systems I've designed, built and
maintained have handled reliably handled transactions of over half a
billion US dollars a day for years on end.

I am not a newbie.

I am unable to install FreeBSD on a generic PC and get it to a working
graphical desktop with Internet access. I have tried, repeatedly, over
the last decade and a half or more. My last attempt was with FreeBSD
9.x and it failed like all those before it.

My most recent attempt with a remix was last month, with Midnight BSD,
under VirtualBox. It has no GUI; the packages for X.11 are missing
from the repo. According to a reply on Google+ this is a known problem
with no workaround.

Initiates do not encounter this kind of problem, as they have the
requisite knowledge and cannot easily step into the mindset of someone
who lacks it.

FreeBSD is *substantially* harder to get working than Linux. The other
BSDs are harder than FreeBSD.

As such, except for the determined or the already highly-skilled, I do
not recommend them.

For curious Raspberry Pi owners, who have probably never seen anything
but Windows before, it is not a viable option.

-- 
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