| Sysop: | Amessyroom |
|---|---|
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I am going to do something I almost never do, and that is
to speak for someone else: in this instance, Warner.
Warner and I and a number of other people have been attempting
to remain calm and patient in the middle of various ongoing
stressful issues within FreeBSD.
This kind of snide attack is exactly the kind of "reward"
we do not deserve. For me, an insinuation that some
regression was deliberate is insulting and demotivating.
This is exactly the kind of attitude that drives volunteers
away from any organization.
Please consider your words more carefully next time.
mcl
Dear Warner,
after upgrading my desktop 13.5 to 14.3, it suddenly stared at me
with ascii-art, and in single-user with a horrifying 80x25 resolution.
I started to experiment. I need a proper resolution to at least get a
chance to read what the kernel tells me when booting (the mixup in log/messages and log/console is usually not intellegible).
The functionality of the graphics options in loader.conf has always
stayed obscure to me. Between options like "kern.vt.fb.modes.HDMI-A-1"
or "vbe_max_resolution", which are hardware dependent and frequently
change, and multiple different monitors that cannot be switched off
(because even when unplugged from mains, they still babble to the
system), it is really a matter of luck to get to something useful.
So, in short, when graphics didn't appear, I started to search for my
own mistake. That it could have been turned off deliberately, was unimaginable to me.
Only when I finally gave up that approach, and started the radical
way, install six clean new systems for analysis (13.5 and 14.3
each with MBR, GPT and EFI), I noticed that EFI would work in 14.3
(the machine is old, I didn't know it could even do EFI).
Then I started to read the published documentation, very thoroughly,
to finally find a small kind of sidenote that *might*, with some understanding, be interpreted as a change in the singleuser hi-res.
It still didn't tell people what to do about it, but instead send
them on a paper chase into the source configuration, solveable
only for those already used to build from source.
I don't know how long it took me to read all the stuff, but I do know
that I started to put 14.3 onto the desktop around 2300, and it was
0600 when completing the hunt.
This is not acceptable.
I would have expected a prominent notice in the release notes (that
is, in each of them, not only in a single minor release), like so:
"Single-user graphics have been removed from loader. If you
have a graphics screen and still want to read your kernel messages
on-screen, do this-and-that..."
And *AT LEAST* I would have expected an elaboratory notice in UPGRADING.
Cheers,
PMc
As for your blaming other people for the exodus of volunteers. Sorry,
but that's a strawman argument.
On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 07:44:52AM -0500, Mark Linimon wrote:
! I am going to do something I almost never do, and that is
! to speak for someone else: in this instance, Warner.
!
! Warner and I and a number of other people have been attempting
! to remain calm and patient in the middle of various ongoing
! stressful issues within FreeBSD.
!
! This kind of snide attack is exactly the kind of "reward"
Sorry, what kind of "side attack" are You talking about?
! we do not deserve. For me, an insinuation that some
! regression was deliberate is insulting and demotivating.
What regression are You taking about?
I am not insinuating anything, since the commit logs clearly state
that this was done fully deliberate, after an educated evaluation
about how best to save some space.
But Your reaction now is very typical for a certain kind of people
all busy to protect those in power against those considered plebs,
even if it requires "alternate facts".
! This is exactly the kind of attitude that drives volunteers
! away from any organization.
What in God's name are You talking about ???
! Please consider your words more carefully next time.
Sorry, but why, and in what regard?
I am not speaking about any regression of any means, nor have I
intended any insinuation.
I only spent a night sleepless, to finally find out that it all
was done deliberately. I don't understand the reasons - there
certainly are some. But still I want to give as much feedback as
that this does really hurt. And obviousely I am not amused.
During the night I was in the process of filing a bug report, but
I thought I should first do careful and extensive research, like
testing all the possible combinations, and reading all the documents
from since 14.0. So I did that, and only by that I could figure out
that this is a deliberate action, and so I cancelled the bug report.
But as You don't want such thoroughly researched feedback - so why
don't you just make the commit logs a secret we ordinary users are
not allowed to read? Then we can no longer understand what was done
on purpose, and must file a bug report for everything.
cheerio,
PMc
It is about a deliberate decision to change system defaults in a
way as certain commercial powers want it, no matter whether that
implies beating up some ordinary users like me.
On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 03:01:54PM +0200, Danilo Pecher wrote:
! I'm not trying to put too fine a point on it, but it might be worth
! thinking why there are so many 'stressful issues' within FreeBSD
! lately. Ever since FBSD12 the system has been the IT equivalent of
! gambling. You might get lucky, you might not. If a new version ends up
! working is a complete crap shoot, even on systems that are several
! years old and should therefore be supported. This lack of reliability
! is the reason why I walked away from it.
Sorry, Danilo, but You didn't get the point. This here is not about "stressful items" or whatever.
It is about a deliberate decision to change system defaults in a
way as certain commercial powers want it, no matter whether that
implies beating up some ordinary users like me.
Sorry, what kind of "side attack" are You talking about?
while still on topic slightlySpeaking to the reactions to monitor switching. This is largely due to the OS/drivers polling your hardware and should be expected. Back in the "old days" most
on 13.*, in bios mode in console. i have red cursor, the bold kernel messages can
be sometimes yellow, and i had to switch from new vt back onto deprecated sc because video liked to reset every time i switch consoles. like video turned off,
display went i to standby and the came back on after few seconds
what are all those 3 bugs or features? just my hw? i have never seen anything like
this in any of my machines before. or it's a feature? limitation of something?
that also made me somehow pissed because this was cosmetic but annoying error
On 2025-09-17 12:09, Sulev-Madis Silber wrote:
while still on topic slightlySpeaking to the reactions to monitor switching. This is largely due to the >OS/drivers polling your hardware and should be expected. Back in the "old days" most
on 13.*, in bios mode in console. i have red cursor, the bold kernel messages can
be sometimes yellow, and i had to switch from new vt back onto deprecated sc >> because video liked to reset every time i switch consoles. like video turned off,
display went i to standby and the came back on after few seconds
what are all those 3 bugs or features? just my hw? i have never seen anything like
this in any of my machines before. or it's a feature? limitation of something?
that also made me somehow pissed because this was cosmetic but annoying error
drivers weren't as sophisticated and commonly simply kept the same resolution. >This is not a bug. :)
--Chris
---8<-------8<-----
On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 07:52:55AM -0700, Warner Losh wrote:h
! On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 6:45=E2=80=AFAM Peter 'PMc' Much <
! pmc@citylink.dinoex.sub.org> wrote:
!
! > Sorry, what kind of "side attack" are You talking about?
! >
!
! Hot button political issue causing professional info warriors to launch
! harassment campaigns against members of the project. Needless to say,
it's
! a bit stressful, even though I'm not in the main path of these attacks.
You
! never know what the other fellow's day has been like.
Okay, then I'm probably not involved, since my political issues mainly
circle about building bicycle lanes in our village...
! Also, I hadn't intended anything I did around the boot loader to be
secret.
! I made a mistake in not documenting the change thoroughly enough, thoug=
! it's easily remedied by building a custom loader. In hindsight somebody
! should have caught it.
Well, from the viewpoint of the observer it appears quite strange:
One finally finds this brief release note, which typically was skipped
for irrelevance on first read, and notices that it actually is very
relevant.
Then one starts to wonder: sponsored by Netflix? This is not a
development or bugfixing effort needing sponsorship. It is just
changing a compile time option.
Is Netflix now uncapable of compiling the sources by themselves with
whatever options they would like to have? And do we all have to
follwo along the changes they impose, only because they can wave
with a chequebook?
come up from the available input (or lack thereof).
In fact, I for my part have no idea what the majority of users
might prefer to have in the loader. I don't even know any longer what
the majority is actually doing.
In the last century we had user-groups, we were meeting once a week,
we talked about and knew almost everything - but this has gone away
with the advent of "social media" :(
cheerio,
PMc