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Forgetting the history of Unix is coding us into a corner [The Register]
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this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Seriously, I don't understand the point of the article, if there is one.
It seemed more like a confused enumeration of systems which are POSIX conform and in the end it talks about Wayland.
Is the point that Wayland breaks compatibility with X11/X.org and is mostly a Linux thingy? (AFAIK FreeBSD is working on a Wayland port, but no one else.)
Anyway, I am a happy Wayland user for several years now, although I am of course unhappy about the split with the *BSDs, OTOH most 'NIX software nowadays uses so many Linux APIs, that Wayland is IMHO no big game changer when talking about portability anyway.
FreeBSD isn't working on a Wayland port, that's already happened. The Plasma Wayland session has supported it for quite a while... KDE even runs a CI job on FreeBSD for every merge request, where kwin_wayland autotests are run.
Considering the amount of complaints we got when something broke recently though (which is to say, none), it doesn't look like it has a lot of users
Good to know that FreeBSD pulls Wayland off! :-)
It is a pity, that FreeBSD is not more utilized for desktops.
Is anyone even running anything besides maybe FreeBSD on desktops? Most advantages of BSD over Linux seem to be relevant for servers, but not really for typical desktop usage.
Additionally, apps use toolkits anyway, which provides backends for Wayland and X11. If at some point X really isn't viable anymore, people will put in the work and port Wayland from FreeBSD to other BSDs.
In my impression OpenBSD is used at least as much as FreeBSD on the desktop, if not even more.
Nowadays I agree with your point, that for the 'typical desktop usage' the BSDs are not very viable (I try from time to time and always have to give up, because of missing hardware support or missing software.).
Still, IMHO it is a great loss that the BSDs are not really an alternative on the desktop for most users. BSDs are extremely good engineered, when hardware is supported, it just works(TM), the base system is clean and has great documentation.