Re: suggestions, feedback, and support

[matthew sporleder <msporleder%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 6:13 PM, Ilya Ilembitov <ilembitov%ya.ru@localhost> 
wrote:
> Wow, I thought this list was dead long ago...
>
> Actually, Desktop NetBSD must be a really interesting project, but I
> could not really find any way to track its progress. I am by no means
> any coder, but I could provide feedback.
>
> As for now, I would like to share some of my thoughts with you.
>
> 1. Publicity
>
> Like with many BSD projects, there is no proper source of information
> about Desktop NetBSD project and its current state. An official blog
> could be great, or at least a newsletter. The mailing list is dead, and
> lurking through the changes log doesn't help here. I am sure that many
> people outside of NetBSD actually think that the project is dead.
>
> 2. Do not use GNOME. Use E17!
>

E17 was vaporware for at least five years so I'm not sure it's more
active than xfce.  It probably would be easier to get fully integrated
than gnome, though.

> It looks like Desktop NetBSD will need quite some time to reach a mature
> train anyway. So, why go for GNOME when you can pick a better option? Go
> for E17! It's BSD-licensed. It's really active (unlike XFCE) and it's
> innovative (and there is no major BSD/Linux distro shipping E17 by
> default). It's all C (no Vala, Python, Mono and AFAIK even no C++) - so
> perhaps, one day one will be able to build it with PCC. Samsung supports
> E17 and EFL at the moment, and so it's really active these days. It even
> gets the initial versions of native apps ATM, like a Web-browser,
> multimedia center, PDF-reader, a network manager, etc.
>
> 3. Get Xenocara (?)
>
> OpenBSD's X.org build framework is believed to be an outstanding
> product, so why not switch to it?
>


I can't really say I know better, but the netbsd xorg build framework
is really, really awesome as it is pkgsrc-based AND cross-buildable.