Is FreeBSD ready for desktop (Mozilla Flash)

From: Conrad (nospam_at_nowhere.com)
Date: 09/08/05 

Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 12:02:34 GMT

# note: all dates are in American format mm/dd/yy

# 09/05/05 Installed new FreeBSD - 5.4

This is the allegedly "stable" version - right?

OK, here's a simple run-through of doing somthing totally weird,
something totally outrageous, something so far out there that
only maybe 2 or 3 really superior humans in the world have ever
even attempted - let alone succeeded - getting Flash to work with
Mozilla - or Firefox... or anything.

First of all, my bleeding edge motherboard with onboard video is
not handled. What is this wonder of digital electronics? Some
bizarre prototype made by an experimental "skunk-works" group
in Area 51 that specializes in leaking alien technology into
mainstream human production? 'fraid not - it's a fairly boring
MSI Via motherboard - to be specific, a model K8MM-V. MSI
makes about 14-jillion motherboards per year. Not particularly
exotic - or "bleeding edge".

The install totally fails to figure out the onboard video, and
settles on selecting the VESA driver as the best possible driver.
(hint: some sort of attempt at the unichrome driver would have
been nice)

Of course, in spite of the fact that I also have a very generic
monitor, (an AOC model 7F), somehow the install fails to detect
such bizarre and weird parameters as the horizontal synch and
vertical refresh - which I must configure manually, in order
to even get an X desktop. (hint: basic identification of
generic hardware would also be nice)

OK, that may be an XOrg problem, but it's still a problem.

Next, having finally gotten an X desktop, I fire up Mozilla.
More bad news. The first site I hit tells me I have no Flash
support. OK, OK, in spite of the fact that when I installed
BSD I asked for a fairly complete X desktop, Flash is just too
new, too wild, too far out there to consider for inclusion.

So I go to the handbook. No, I go to ***THE HANDBOOK***. You
know, the one that every time you mention it, there are sounds
of heavenly trumpets in the background?

What does ***THE HANDBOOK*** say? I quote, chapter and verse:
"Macromedia Flash plugin is not available for FreeBSD. However,
a software layer (wrapper) for running the Linux version of
the plugin exists. This wrapper also supports Adobe® Acrobat®
plugin, RealPlayer plugin and more."

Cool. I mean, the Linux emulation on FreeBSD is highly praised,
right? The BSD developers have pulled a miracle out of their
respective butts, and against incredible odds have managed to
support one completely open-source *nix on another completely
open-source *nix. Nothing so trivial as supporting, say, a
completely obscure, closed source O/S. I mean any code weenie
could whip up something that would let users say, run MS Word
on their Linux desktop in a weekend. But supporting one *nix
on another *nix? That's bloody astounding.

We return to ***THE HANDBOOK*** (sound of heavenly trumpets).
I quote again "Install the www/linuxpluginwrapper port. This
port requires emulators/linux_base which is a large port. Follow
the instructions displayed by the port to setup your
/etc/libmap.conf correctly!"

OK, I need to install the linuxpluginwrapper port. I will
ignore for the moment the fact that documenting full
pathnames might be nice, i.e. /usr/ports/www/linuxpluginwrapper,
which is where I go to do a make install. Which fails.
Why does it fail? Because of a dependency on a very weird
and obscure piece of software that almost nobody has ever
heard of - Acrobat Reader.

The file required by the port...just...doesn't... exist.
Let me repeat. A plugin wrapper port that purports to install
a handful of the most common plugins in the known universe
just completely breaks because the right file is just not
available.

But that's OK - because I don't have a /etc/libmap.conf anyway.
so even if the port had built, I probably wouldn't have been
able to "Follow the instructions displayed by the port"

At this point, we have descended into google hell. A place where
there is a wealth of mis-information, out of date web pages,
which never had ANY date or version information put on them
by the authors who went to such pains to document their
particular agonies, and outright conflicting "solutions" by
gurus whose knowledge of the problem approaches the knowledge
of South American rain forest tribes' knowledge of neuro-surgery.

A modest suggestion, folks. Drop the desktop support. Just
get rid of it. It's clearly beyond your scope, which is
apparently devoted to niche server markets. This is coming
from someone who actually recommends, installs and supports
a number of FreeBSD servers performing valiant duty as web
servers, mail servers and file servers. I am pleased to
report that I have enjoyed maintaining servers that have
maintained collectively nearly a half century of uptime
with zero O/S-related downtime. There have been motherboard
failures, dead CPU fans, extended power outages, but never
an O/S failure.

In the face of such sterling server performance, it is
altogether too tempting to use FreeBSD on the desktop. The
headlines are grabbed by the question "Is Linux ready for
the desktop?" I propose another question "Does FreeBSD
know the desktop exists?" That question comes from someone
who PREFERS to use FreeBSD for the desktop. I find it more
responsive under load, it boots faster, it seems less likely
given identical software and hardware to descend into swap
hell... in short, it just feels better than that penguin
product.

But if FreeBSD is to provide desktop functionality, then
some attempt must be made to recognize at a minimum, what
should work on a desktop. When the most popular browser
on the planet (barring M$ Internet Exploiter) can't be made
to "just work" with the most popular plugins on the planet,
then, in my modest opinion, something is really, really,
wrong. And support doesn't just mean the desktop works -
it means providing correct documentation. It means putting
things in the right place. Should thing like libmap.conf
really go in /etc ... or should it be in /usr/local/etc,
or even, /usr/compat/linux/etc?

In the meantime, I can develop, say wxPython applications -
but I still can't hit a website with Flash content.

Cheers,

Conrad