A lot of pain, bugs and dissapointment in an attempt to get a functional desktop

[unix-enjoyer at tilde.institute]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 06:25:50PM -0600, John Marino (DragonFly) wrote:
> Okay, so there is a lot to digest here and a lot of misinformation.  I'm
> not going to address all of it, only things relating to Ravenports.
> 
> > Would it be possible to compile ravenports with clang, flang and
> gnat-llvm? The only reason I think it will fail is, again, a lack of
> gnat for gnat-llvm. Also,
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/hacadacompiler/ might be of use to
> you... if you have an ada compiler. It's under an MIT license and might
> work too, I guess.
> 
> Where is this question coming from?
> By design, Ravenports has a specific ports compiler for all platforms,
> which is currently gcc 11.2.0.  This includes gnat and fortran.  The ports
> compiler is a key design feature of Ravenports, so the question above
> doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Some ports do use clang though, but
> it's used a port dependency in those specific cases.
> 
> > The docs are not finished, I get it, but the help command + quickstart
> guide were sufficient to figure out basic usage.
> 1. The last pre-built image I was able to find for ravenadm is for
> Dragonfly 5.8.
> 2. When I try to compile any package with ravenadm build, only the error
> message about needing to rebuild ravenadm or update the ravenports
> package pops up.
> 3. So I decided to build ravenports from source. And... I can't do that
> because gnat is not available in repos. I am stuck. I have to compile
> gnat, but since gnat requires an older version of gnat to work, I can't
> compile it.
> 
> So 6.2 packages were produced recently, but I reviewed the quickstart guide
> and realized that there is no way for somebody to realize that.  I inserted
> a new step,
> https://github.com/Ravenports/Ravenports/wiki/quickstart-df#quickstep-3-determine-latest-available-repository
> , to show how to determine the latest repository and how to set ravensw to
> use it.
> Ravenports is essentially a binary repository and there's almost no reason
> to build from source.
> The only real reason is to use some non-default build options.    All the
> questions above are based on some misunderstanding.  Hopefully my wiki
> addition helps clear that up.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 11:09 AM <unix-enjoyer at tilde.institute> wrote:
> 
> > Hello. I decided to try out DragonflyBSD as a desktop system, and had a
> > lot of problems. If you want to know why I decided to try Dragonfly
> > specifically, read the next paragraph, otherwise, skip.
> > Windows is not an answer for me because the last reasonable version was
> > 7. After that, the design was unbearable. 7 is now unsupported by most
> > software. Besides, I'm not willing to fight proprietary software anymore
> > after I learned about Linux. Linux distributions also have a share of
> > design problems, which led to me switching from Linux Mint to Debian,
> > Garuda and finally Void. What happened in all cases: my programs just
> > broke after unfortunate package management. I wasn't surprised since I
> > knew that most of this code was not written to be good and stable. It
> > was to get paid by Redhat/Google/Microsoft/any other corporate Linux
> > contributor. By that point I was sick of the same corporations that
> > control Windows controlling my Linux boxes and decided to trade Wine and
> > inconsistent Linux interfaces for security, cli minimalism, stability
> > and documentation of OpenBSD. It works just fine. I was a little sad
> > that virtualisation is limited to single-core with serial console.
> > FreeBSD also looked like an interesting alternative, though I have heard
> > horror stories about desktop usage + I'm paranoid about OpenSSL
> > security, in light of Heartbleed and this recent bug which also affects
> > everybody. Once I learned more about Dragonfly, I figured that this
> > might just be a perfect fit for my usecase. I live in an area where
> > short power outages just happen, and you have to cope with it. Hence why
> > I use an additional battery-powered power supply just in case. However,
> > my main PC power supply  sometimes fails, soon to be replaced. The
> > usefulness of CoW hammer2 (or ZFS/btrfs/bcachefs on Linux) is obvious.
> > Program snapshots would allow me to put simple programs like mupdf to
> > disk to easily continue my reading/watching/editing session when I want
> > to. I tend to prefer very basic programs after all of the bad experience
> > I had with complicated ones. Virtualisation will allow me to play some
> > of my favourite games, I'm not interested in AAA. A little sad that Wine
> > isn't ported yet, but not a big deal. LibreSSL in base provides at least
> > some network security, even though ports still use OpenSSL (surprised
> > that ravenports have an option of compiling everything with LibreSSL).
> > So, what's up with the title?
> > I have two devices I tried Dragonfly on. Both attempts failed to meet my
> > requirements of being a stable desktop. A reasonably good browser that
> > doesn't spy on me like chromium or default firefox, mpv video player, a
> > terminal emulator, and a vis text editor is all I need for my everyday
> > existense. I prefer vis to (neo)vim or regular vi because it's just much
> > less complicated for me to use. Structular regular expressions are more
> > comfortable than macros for me. Anyway, let's start with the first
> > attempt, which I assumed to be a success at first.
> > Dell Inspiron 3542 with 2 core Haswell Pentium 1.4 GHz, 4GB RAM,
> > 1366x768 IPS screen (replacement for the old dead one), 128 GB SSD in
> > the main slot + 512 GB HDD on rails in the CD slot. No dGPU, dead
> > battery.
> > The installation went ok. Although the installer is not very flexible,
> > e.g. I had to mount my HDD in my home directory after installation, but
> > that's a non-issue for me.
> > 1. Docs (https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/handbook/X/) don't explain
> > that I need to install and enable appropriate graphics drivers in
> > /etc/rc.conf (the "outdated" page does half of the job, explaining the
> > need for installing drivers, but failing to mention rc config
> > https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/how_to_get_to_the_desktop/#index7h3).
> > They also don't explain how to enable mouse, and that my user should be
> > in the video group. They don't point me to the appropriate manpages or
> > FreeBSD documentation.
> > 2. At least both the touchpad and the built-in (PS/2?) keyboard worked.
> > However, USB mouse & keyboard didn't work in Xorg regardless of moused,
> > devd, or udevd being enabled. In console, USB keyboard works just fine,
> > however.
> > 3. Xorg has a long startup (about 5-8 seconds). I stare on a black
> > screen for a while instead of doing something. I still have no idea why
> > this is the case. I see no error messages in logs.
> > 4. I can't switch to the console with the usual Ctrl+Alt+n, where n is
> > the tty I wish to switch to.
> > 5. Qutebrowser starts slowing down after one or two restarts, and
> > crashes randomly.
> > 6. Netsurf browser crashes when I go into Edit/Settings.
> > 7. Otter browser crashes for unknown reasons.
> > 8. xterm starts slowing down after restarts.
> > 9. htop reports wrong cpu usage. Over 9000% wrong, actually. It was
> > pretty amusing to watch, but it doesn't provide any useful information
> > now that the percentages are screwed.
> > 10. Something I don't understand in BSD's is why the vis(1) program
> > needs to be on my hard drive and not in ports. Not a big deal, it's one
> > rm command away from being fixed for me.
> > 11. So I tried to compile vis-the-editor
> > (https://github.com/martanne/vis) from source. It failed to find curses
> > even though ncurses was explicitly installed. So I built it without
> > curses. I receive a lot of epileptic flashing when I edit anything in
> > xterm, but overall the program works ok.
> > After declaring the initial testing on this laptop a relative success
> > (at the time I thought I fixed qutebrowser by fiddling with it's config
> > file), I decided to install Dragonfly on my main PC: Intel Ivybridge
> > Xeon, 4 cores/8 threads, 12 GB RAM, Radeon RX 580, 512 GB SSD + 1 TB
> > HDD, 2 1920x1080 displays.
> > 1. In console, USB keyboard worked fine. When I later tried my PS/2
> > keyboard, it could only produce some weird sequences (^A, >, etc.) and
> > nothing more.
> > 2. Xorg said no. No matter what input device I try, nothing can be used
> > in Xorg. At first I thought that it just hangs my GPU, but no, that
> > wasn't the case. Tried cwm and wmii, and noticed that in wmii, the panel
> > still displays stats and time in realtime, so that's how I know.
> > 3. Wayland is unusable on both devices. It stays there (just like Xorg
> > the first few seconds), but can't start due to some DRM error I can't
> > catch because it doesn't go into stderr, so redirecting it to a file is
> > not possible. I suppose I could record the process, but I have to have a
> > stable desktop to do it first, right? Tried hikari and wayfire.
> > 4. Arcan is outdated and also unusable on both devices. The issue seems
> > similar to Wayland. I would prefer to use Arcan over Wayland & Xorg if
> > it worked. It looks like future technology to me. I think embracing the
> > project might even help with some of your code bounties. Later about
> > that.
> > After experiencing these problems (which forced me to poweroff with a
> > button on my motherboard an uncomfortable amount of times) I decided to
> > compile my own kernel & packages from dports.
> > Kernel upgrade worked fine, and changed nothing. I can post my config if
> > you're interested.
> > 1. When compiling Dports in console, packages have broken menus that
> > hide options. You have to press arrow keys to inspect all of the options
> > because they get crammed in one tiny spot, and long descriptions can't
> > be read. Sometimes the issue resolves itself and packages display their
> > options properly, but most of the time it's broken and unreadable.
> > 2. Searching for a particular port proved tedious. On OpenBSD, it was as
> > simple as "make search".
> > 3. No matter what I tried to compile, be it xorg, wayland or arcan, I
> > had to rmconfig-recursive because something broke. Is there a better way
> > of handling my unfortunate choices? Reconfiguring my stuff every time is
> > very tedious and a lot of packages tend to break.
> > With no luck in dports, I tried ravenports.
> > The docs are not finished, I get it, but the help command + quickstart
> > guide were sufficient to figure out basic usage.
> > 1. The last pre-built image I was able to find for ravenadm is for
> > Dragonfly 5.8.
> > 2. When I try to compile any package with ravenadm build, only the error
> > message about needing to rebuild ravenadm or update the ravenports
> > package pops up.
> > 3. So I decided to build ravenports from source. And... I can't do that
> > because gnat is not available in repos. I am stuck. I have to compile
> > gnat, but since gnat requires an older version of gnat to work, I can't
> > compile it.
> > I suspect that building stuff with llvm might resolve some of my
> > compilation problems, a more modern compiler ~ better compatibility,
> > especially with freebsd ports which are compiled with clang after all.
> > After getting angry at constantly crashing browsers, extremely slow
> > xterm and epileptic editor, I switched my laptop back to OpenBSD and
> > currently write this email on it.
> > I have some questions:
> > 1. Why an outdated gcc instead of a recent llvm in base? gcc 8.5 was
> > discontinued a year ago, and you use 8.3. llvm is not that big of an
> > improvement in terms of code size (still millions of loc), but it is an
> > improvement in design and licensing compared to historical inconsistency
> > of gcc. I suspect that at least some of my problems come from outdated
> > toolchain which you use for unknown reasons.
> > 2. Would it be possible to compile ravenports with clang, flang and
> > gnat-llvm? The only reason I think it will fail is, again, a lack of
> > gnat for gnat-llvm. Also,
> > https://sourceforge.net/projects/hacadacompiler/ might be of use to
> > you... if you have an ada compiler. It's under an MIT license and might
> > work too, I guess.
> > 3. Is tcplay dead or just resting? Last update on github was 2.5 years
> > ago. I would be interested in TrueCrypt compatibility mentioned on your
> > website, some of those crypto algorithms seem to hold up well enough for
> > decades.
> > 4. nouveau port anytime soon? I don't know why only NetBSD bothered to
> > do it out of all BSD's, users of old-ish nvidia cards are still common
> > in desktop space, at least.
> > 5. tickless kernel anytime soon? energy efficiency suffers, performance
> > in virtualisation also suffers.
> > While waiting for my -j1 llvm15 compilation to fail, I skimmed through
> > your code bounties, and have some suggestions:
> > 1. usb webcam support & utf8 in console
> > both of those are solved in Arcan. See Arcan console
> > (
> > https://arcan-fe.com/2018/10/31/walkthrough-writing-a-kmscon-console-like-window-manager-using-arcan/
> > )
> > and libuvc, Arcan's dependency (https://github.com/libuvc/libuvc).
> > Durden (http://durden.arcan-fe.com/) is able to emulate the behaviour of
> > most traditional desktop environments. Pipeworld
> > (https://arcan-fe.com/2021/04/12/introducing-pipeworld/) is a
> > spreadsheet-shell-like zoomable window manager. Safespaces
> > (https://arcan-fe.com/2018/03/29/safespaces-an-open-source-vr-desktop/)
> > is a 3D & VR environment. These are lua scripts wrapped around an engine
> > developed for 15+ years. Letoram (main developer) is very interested in
> > userspace drivers, and already implemented cross-platform VR,
> > streamdeck(
> > https://arcan-fe.com/2019/10/30/interfacing-with-a-stream-deck-device/),
> > and USB video drivers. Arcan provides a stable alternative to Xorg and
> > Wayland while keeping compatibility with them through arcan-wayland and
> > xarcan. What I want to say is that there is an intersection between your
> > goals and Arcan:
> > - Migration of drivers to userspace
> > - Plan 9-like namespaces with your nullfs union mounting & remote
> >   hammer2 mounting, Arcan's network transparency, cfgfs & durden
> >   filesystem menu
> >   - Compatibility through virtualisation with nvmm, arcan's qemu
> >     frontend, arcan-wayland, xarcan.
> >     An interesting sidenote: the first desktop environment for Arcan was
> >     influenced by Amiga's UI (scroll to the bottom of
> >     https://arcan-fe.com/videos/). You all know what Dillon was working
> >     on in the 80's.
> >     Both you and Arcan might benefit from cooperation, and you certainly
> >     have similarities.
> >
> > 2. userspace vkernel on other os's
> >     cosmopolitan libc (https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan) allows C to
> >     run on unices & windows. The amount of implemented syscalls is
> >     limited, but I think that's the best option you have right now.
> >     3. reducing boot time
> >     I suggest to move on from single-core synchronious rc boot scripts
> >     to an asynchronius service manager: s6-rc
> >     (https://www.skarnet.org/software/s6-rc/). It starts services in
> >     parallel instead of one after another. It provides dependency
> >     management in case some services depend on others. It does not wake
> >     up every couple of seconds, so energy efficiency should increase
> >     too. Service scripts can be written in any scripting language, so
> >     migration shouldn't be a problem for anybody who still uses shell
> >     scripts instead of systemd.
> >     The rest of skarnet.org software might be of interest to you if you
> >     ever needed secure implementations of network utilities,
> >     non-interactive alternative to /bin/sh, small portable unix-ish
> >     utilities, or a portable systems programming C library that doesn't
> >     suck as much as others do.
> >     That's all, I wait for help & answers. I can transfer whatever logs
> >     you need using USB flash. I would like to have a functional
> >     DragonflyBSD desktop on my main PC, but if it's not possible, I will
> >     move on with my life.
> >

Thank you Marino!

Looking back, I should've rewritten my email a third time, actually. And
also triple-checked my points. This is a followup email to clear things
up a little bit. In my defense, I can only say that I should've made a
break instead of continuing to find solutions.
1. Docs mention the need for video drivers, I even remember how I wanted to delete the point that this is missing, but simply forgot to do so before sending the email. There is also no need to explain the need for installing graphics drivers as long as the user will install a full-featured xorg and not xorg-minimal.
2. I decided to compile ravenports from source because at the time my
brain almost turned off from frustration and I missed the fact that I
had to simply update the package with ravensw. But even after that,
ravenadm still complained about being outdated. Thanks for adding this
helpful section in the quickstart guide, I will test whether Xorg works
tomorrow. As for why I said this nonsense about gnat: I meant that gnat
is not available in dports, not ravenports, and again because my brain
turned off, the ravensw option did not cross my mind. As for the
question about clang, flang and gnat-llvm, it's coming from my sympathy
to the OpenBSD copyright policy of "the software is not free, if it
forces you to give code back". It's also related to the other question
about outdated gcc and lack of llvm in base, basically.