Re: Can I use NetBSD as a desktop system?

["Thomas Mueller" <mueller6725%twc.com@localhost>]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 03:03:47PM -0300, SOUL_OF_ROOT 55 wrote:
> Can I use NetBSD as a desktop system?

> I used it for a few years, starting with NetBSD 4,  and was pretty happy about it.
        
> Now I don't use because:

> - My wifi is not supported, after my hardware changed. (NetBSD has been
    historically weak with atheros.)

You mean athn?  I have MSI Z77 MPOWER motherboard with onboard Realtek 8111E/8168 Ethernet and Atheros 9271 (quasi-)USB wifi.

I have used this Atheros 9271 wifi with NetBSD, but most of the time it failed to load firmware.  Now I have to disable athn through either userconf or kernel config, or boot hangs.

But Realtek Ethernet works; I use 25 ft Ethernet cable because of physical location of the computer.  I have to use ifconfig and route directly because dhcpcd and dhclient don't work.

Generic kernel just reboots immediately, no chance to even get to userconf.  So now when I update from source, I don't build the generic kernel.
        
> - There are nagging issues with laptop touchpad making it impossible to
    even type smoothly. This may not be a problem for a desktop though.

> - This is a problem for some, wasn't for me: No chromium browser. I could
    make do with firefox. I still use firefox though I use Linux now.

I noticed chromium browser in FreeBSD ports but not pkgsrc.  I'd like to try it some time, on FreeBSD or Linux.
        
> - This may or may not matter: I use user space file system encryption with
    incremental backup using cryfs which is not available on NetBSD. (There
    is a thread on this on this list.) There are alternatives on NetBSD, but
    they do not meet my requirement as aptly as cryfs does.

> Mayuresh.

But I got a good desktop on NetBSD-current (8.99.1) amd64 including Firefox and Seamonkey, have been able to watch YouTube videos, which is not to say I would be successful with all YouTube videos.

Tom