It probably has a lot to do with FreeBSD having a much more focused niche. FreeBSD is really tuned primarily for servers. You can use it on your desktop, but that's not really it's main purpose. Linux on the other hand, has really branched out. It has desktop distros, server distros, embedded distros, and probably a couple other areas I haven't thought of.
You think so? I dunno, it seems to me that FreeBSD suits the desktop role really well; I use it for preference. Especially when you consider that the only OS with more packages is Debian, it makes sense that it can fit a desktop role extremely nicely.
How many of those packages are desktop packages? Seems like a odd metric to just compare the number of packages as to how well an OS is suited to the desktop.
Well, I don't think I've ever installed any package from anything other than the ports system. Lots? I know I've installed everything from Gnome, XFCE and KDE, through OpenOffice and a bunch of stuff in between.
You're right that mere numbers of packages is a weird metric, but what else can we offer? FreeBSD has great performance, and has everything necessary to be either a good server *or* a good desktop. It's much like Gentoo that way -- it doesn't focus on being either one or the other, it focuses on be
The reason I started using FreeBSD was because I went to the store and bought a wireless card, a linksys something or other. I got home and SuSE couldn't detect it. Neither could Ubuntu (this was around the days of Ubuntu 5.something) nor Debian. I had a friend who was a FreeBSD nut who walked me through the install and my wireless card worked straight away.
Whether desktop drivers are a good metric really depends on what hardware you own. Sometimes what you need just ain't there.
You don't have to be Kreskin (Score:-1, Flamebait)
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You're right that mere numbers of packages is a weird metric, but what else can we offer? FreeBSD has great performance, and has everything necessary to be either a good server *or* a good desktop. It's much like Gentoo that way -- it doesn't focus on being either one or the other, it focuses on be
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Re:You don't have to be Kreskin (Score:2)
Whether desktop drivers are a good metric really depends on what hardware you own. Sometimes what you need just ain't there.