gemini://gemini.tuxmachines.org/n/2022/12/02/The_Foundation_and_the_FreeBSD

The Desktop experience can be formative. I got my first PC in 1990 as an 8th Grade graduation gift. (Thanks Dad!) It helped instill my interest in computers and it got me through high school. I used it mostly for playing Zork, Jeopardy and, of course, writing papers on Word Perfect. The interface was rather clunky, but for the purposes of a small town high school student in the 90s, it worked quite well. Once college came about, a new machine came my way and a GUI that made things work so much better. Using a computer became part of everyday life. In fact one of the selling points of my university was that every dorm had its own desktop. Fast forward 20+ years and the standards for a usable desktop are quite high. Intuitive, fast, pretty graphics, and speedy wi-fi are all expected. FreeBSD’s desktop experience over the years definitely has had its ups and downs. Twenty or so years ago FreeBSD and Linux were mostly neck and neck in terms of desktop usability. Unfortunately, as time went on, FreeBSD did fall behind. The desktop experience became a lower priority. However, catch up eventually ensued and within the last 10 or so years, focusing on the desktop has increasingly become of greater importance for many members in the community. To help understand more about the Foundation’s work on the desktop experience, we sat down with Ed Maste, Senior Director of Technology.

Unsurprisingly, one question the Foundation often gets is where does the desktop experience fall in our list of priorities. The answer: Well, it varies. Because the Foundation’s main goal is to support the Project in technical areas that aren’t being fully addressed by the community, the desktop sponsored work ebbs and flows. When work stagnated about 10 years ago and the Project began to fall behind in terms of hardware support, the Foundation funded Kostik Belousov to work on Intel Graphics Drivers. More recently though, the Project has moved to using the Linux Kernel Interface (KPI) to help keep drivers up-to-date. The Foundation funded Bjorn Zeeb to work on the wireless side and about 2 years ago, they funded Emmanual Vadot to work on graphics drivers.

The Foundation and the FreeBSD Desktop