Re: Leaving the Desktop Market

On Tue, 1 Apr 2014 15:10:22 -0700
Kevin Oberman <rkoberman_at_gmail.com> wrote:


> > > No, mutt, with vim as mail composer. :)
> >
> > +1
> >
> >         matthias
> >
> >         (FreeBSD since 2.2.5 and sending this from an EeePC 900,
> >         netbook, UMTS connected, KDE4 desktop, sound, webcam, vim, mutt,
> >         sendmail, ...)
> >
> 
> FreeBSD desktop since 3.3 (makes me a newbie!) 

FreeBSD server and desktop since 2.0 (replaced Ultrix 4.3 system). Does it makes me an
"oldie"? 

I'm stuck since with FreeBSD on private systems and a couple of years ago, I had no
problems even run servers based on FreeBSD for my department.

I dislike this unspecific terminus "desktop", since people seem to associate
entertainment systems with neat graphics, mouse and other interesting "human" stuff
(even audio). On the other hand, "server" seems hardcoded to unfancy 19inch rack-based
plastic-metal-based clumsy and noisy high-performance systems stored in a dark
air-conditioned cellar. 

But what is with the old-fashioned terminus "workstation"? In a more scientific
environment, systems with the performance needs of a "server" but with the exterior
habitus of a "desktop" were very often called "workstation".

Nowadays, we run a single remaining FreeBSD server and I kept my "desktop" system also
working on FreeBSD (11.0, recent hardware, by the way). We had to change the other
"desktops" (I prefer workstation) towards Linux due to the need of OpenCL in combination
with some expensive TESLA boards for numerical modelling and datellite image processing.
The software we used was mostly "home-brewn" so we didn't rely on commercial Linux-only
stuff and it would have been an easy task to run the software also on FreeBSD based
workstations - if the GPU could be used. 

Even the SoC platforms come with OpenCL support (also for the GPU) these days and i do
not see anything useful on FreeBSD (except POCL for CPU usage, but no GPU).


My contribution to 1st of April ...

Oliver