*BSD as a "main driver" for average users

I looked a wubuntu, life cycle is 3 years. Unless I read that wrong...

Cheers

I've had four replies, thus far, each with a *different* BSD solution (which doesn't speak well of "concensus" :< ).

So, I pulled out 4 boxes and will install a different version on each and let her decide where she is most comfortable (I suspect the "management" will be similar for each)

She's annoyed that things keep changing (updates even after wiring down all the update policies). Lately, she complained "Where is the pin for me to keep my downloads visible?" (in Edge)

And, as I don't run W10, I end up poking around looking for it (daring not to say she IMAGINED it being there) only to discover that it *was* there -- but is now gone... due to an update that "shouldn't" have occured.

I received several recommendations (all different, of course :< ) from colleagues. All FBSD-based. I dug out a bunch of AiO's that I had lying around and started clean installs on each of them (so you can compare side-by-side... instead of having to install another solution OVER something)

My file servers are FBSD-based so its not too much of a strain to support them in addition to my NBSD workstations (for software development). I wouldn't dream of throwing CDE at her on a SPARC.

She uses Tbird and Firefox -- which seem to run much "snappier" under FBSD (e.g., a 1.6GHz i5 FBSD box outperforming a 3.1GHz i7 W10 box -- *noticeably*!) The same versions as on the W10 box.

I think being able to view "videos" (VLC) and PDFs are likely the only other things she needs on *this* machine.

And, I imagine it will be a lot easier to install a (legacy) printer than under Windows! More of the MS tax at work...

Anything else will stay on her desktop machine. *That* was tedious to build as she has stuff from her W2K days that she wanted to keep running, there (several complex "databases" and reports)

Depending on how this works out, I may also update her laptop (used exclusively for financial interactions)

NBSD seems to "just work" -- pulling the drive out of one machine and installing it in another (very handy when you want to retire a machine but not its contents).

The W10 move was necessitated by outdated browser support on W7. A *day* installing and downloading updates. For that machine AND the aforementioned laptop.

I have an old toolkit here, somewhere. A guy who worked with me on supplying laptops to kids was an Apple person for the city. But, I suspect it is the sort of thing that is "regularly updated" as new models come out.

I was playing with XFCE under 14.3 just an hour ago and it seemed "mutable enough" that she could step into using it without too much grief. The GUI looks a bit more "cartoonish" but that's not important.

We don't use WiFi for anything so NOT having support for it (on a laptop) wouldn't be a loss. I try to keep everything cabled.

Ah, Great! Thanks. She often has to download videos for her art classes. They try to make this difficult (out of fear someone will DL all the videos and *publish* them, thereby avoiding the course fees -- kilobucks).

That's the targeted environment. pkgsrc works decent, for me (though I tend to build from sources, having my own local "pkg factory" with an offline distfiles).

I want to keep her usage on *this* machine and her laptop restricted to things that don't need to be backed up as they are on a separate network so would require a separate backup facility (to remain isolated from the unrouted machines). Mail and URLs are relatively easy to handle, in that regard.

As long as things don't change, she is usually capable of working on her own. The constant W10 updates are what is prompting the abandonment of MS (the W7 machine she uses for her desktop hasn't seen an update in years! And, doesn't NEED any as it isn't routed)

And, of course, two bugs in the installer. (sigh) Why is it that installers seem to be so bug-ridden? They all seem to expect you to install things THEIR way (despite the fact that there is nothing in the systems design that imposes such a requirement!)

Thankfully, I've found workarounds (though time consuming)

That may be tricky... video sites like to use DRM to prevent users doing things they don't like. Widevine DRM is common - that needs to be compiled for an 'official' OS, which of course FreeBSD isn't. Netflix among others uses Widevine - there are different levels based on how much cryptographic assurance there is of your OS being official.

It seems like it can be used under FreeBSD with a browser compiled for Linux:

OTOH it's possible that there's no actual DRM and the websites just obfuscate the raw video stream. Youtube is one of those - at least some of the video streams are available without DRM and there are plugins to un-obfuscate and download them (and third party apps, although can't vouch for any under FreeBSD).

Thep

I don't think there is any DRM involved. If there is, they've scripted it in the web-page as the browser has DRM disabled.

That's what I think it is -- though I have not looked into it beyond finding an extension that seems to work properly with them.

I don't watch on-line videos so have little interest in how they are delivered -- beyond making sure *she* can see them.

(And I imagine a screen recorder would neuter any sort of encoding scheme as human eyes and ears interact via pixels on the screen and sound waves from speakers)

Hi John,

That's a useful data point. We are still sat on the fence right now. Proponents of other flavours will have their say tomorrow.

I'm hoping that tomorrows meeting might result in a clear agreed path forward for all of the UK Repair Cafes <fx>crosses fingers</fx> so that we can minimise how many different flavours have to be supported.

It could easily degenerate into a herding cats problem...

My money is on MS caving in again and extending the life of Win10 by yet another year but just in case they don't we need to have a plan. Last year we made a crib sheet on how to extend Win10 support and test if your PC could run Win11 (sadly a lot fail that arbitrary test).

Incidentally did anyone here go with Opatch? (which claims to offer Win10 support to 2030)

I thought MS was already allowing folks to "sign up" for security updates for an additional year (the amusing point being, is that a year from the day of your install? or, a *computed* year based on the date the message is displayed?)

Chasing MS always leads to replacing hardware. You *may* get another release cycle -- but likely at reduced capabilities. The "tax" is just too high, considering the lack of "productivity enhancement" that you're buying.

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"On 6/11/2026 4:44 AM, Theo wrote: | |> Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: | |[. . .] | |>> My biggest concern would be for add-in "extensions" that she | |>> relies on for Firefox. Is the extension API grounded in | |>> Firefox? Or, the host OS? | |> | |> They're typically written in Javascript so I don't think there should be a| |> problem running them on a different OS. They work on Firefox for Android | |> even though that's a completely different platform. | | | |Ah, Great! Thanks. She often has to download videos for her | |art classes." | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Avoid Chrome: "Why doesn’t Video DownloadHelper for Chrome allow downloading videos from YouTube ?

Google does not allow Chrome extensions to download videos from YouTube. If we made Video DownloadHelper for Chrome download YouTube videos, our extension would be taken out of the Chrome WebStore.

To download Videos from YouTube, you should consider installing Firefox then Video DownloadHelper for Firefox." alleges

I use a good version of Video DownloadHelper. I do not know if it works on FreeBSD. The last time I installed FreeBSD and NetBSD is the Year 2008 and I quickly replaced them with different operating systems.

yt-dlp can also be good (but YouTube obstructs it much more effectively than Video DownloadHelper).

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"They try to make this difficult (out of fear | |someone will DL all the videos and *publish* them, thereby | |avoiding the course fees -- kilobucks)." | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Perhaps you need to check a copyright law.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"[. . .] | |[. . .] The constant W10 updates are what | |is prompting the abandonment of MS (the W7 machine | |she uses for her desktop hasn't seen an update in years! | |[. . .]" | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

I use both Windows 10 and Windows 7 :( Microsoft does coerce updates to Windows 7 many times a year - e.g. it updated Windows 7 on me during this week. Microsoft is even worse at coercing updates to Windows 10 - it updates Windows 10 much more often and even when ordered to not update, it updates even when I am using it thereby interrupting a job which took hours, thereby forcing me to start a job again from scratch because an update left it in an ill defined status.

More complaining:

Good luck! You need it! (S.

Theo <theom+ snipped-for-privacy@Chiark.greenEnd.org.UK> wrote: |---------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"OTOH it's possible that there's no actual DRM and the websites just | |obfuscate the raw video stream. Youtube is one of those - at least some of| |the video streams are available without DRM and there are plugins to | |un-obfuscate and download them (and third party apps, although can't vouch | |for any under FreeBSD). | | | |Thep" | |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|

YouTube uses a technique which is other than obfuscation. Cf. for this post I ran a few seconds ago . . .

yt-dlp '

Video DownloadHelper and probably a new version of yt-dlp can download from YouTube.

(S.

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |"(And I imagine a screen recorder would neuter any sort of encoding| |scheme as human eyes and ears interact via pixels on the screen | |and sound waves from speakers)" | |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Screen recorders are good but inefficient even when they work.

Many websites obstruct screen recorders on Microsoft Windows (I did not check a screen recorder with a website on a different operating system).

An old version of BrightCove is not so awkward as a new version which many video websites now use. Cf. Message-ID: <215f0721-a50a-8ccc-4452-dbae983eb463@Strand_in_London.Gov.UK>

by me in news:alt.art.video from 1 year ago (reproduced below with added line wrapping).

A successful workaround is to disable GPU acceleration in a web browser. (E.g. Chrome, and I do advise against Chrome in an earlier contribution to this news:sci.electronics.design thread.)

E.g. I made this back up from a video with an old version of BrightCove for a website of a TV station in 2023:

The same website later upgraded to a BrightCove which makes this technique of screen recording impossible. Disabling GPU acceleration in a web browser makes screen recording possible again.

Newsgroups: alt.art.video,comp.os.ms-windows.video,rec.video, rec.video.desktop,uk.rec.video.digital,rec.video.desktop.toaster Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2025 10:38:44 +0100 Subject: ShareX and yt-dlp fail to save videos from . . . Message-ID: <215f0721-a50a-8ccc-4452-dbae983eb463@Strand_in_London.Gov.UK>

Dear Sir/Madam,

Sorry if I am sending this to an inappropriate newsgroup, in which case please direct me to an appropriate resource.

I emailed ShareX and Video-DownloadHelper persons like shown below. So far I got an answer only from a Video-DownloadHelper person.

I also considered contacting yt-dlp persons but GitHub shows an open issue about these unsupported websites in question since years ago. An example error message . . . yt-dlp --user-agent "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36" '

So I found webpages about recording BrightCove videos. Are they trustworthy?

Thanks in advance.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2025 09:46:18 +0100 From: [. . .]@downloadhelper.net To: Niocláiſín Cóilín de Ġloſtéir Subject: Re: Video DownloadHelper is excellent but fails to record those . . .

Hi, Thanks for the feedback. All I can say is that we are working on a new approach for downloads that might impact a lot of sites. But it will still take weeks. [. . .]

On Tue, Feb 25, 2025, at 11:12 PM, Niocláiſín Cóilín de Ġloſtéir wrote: Salut !

Alas ShareX and Video DownloadHelper and yt-dlp fail to save videos from  those websites

How can RTÉ-Player videos and TG4 videos be archived well?

Many programs are not able to archive videos from 

Such ineffective programs include PrtSc ( 

(However ShareX does record subtitles and audio. E.g. 

(These programs do not fail to record

I made an inefficient recording from 

(That RTÉ webpage expired afterwards, so you can test a different news  report hyperlined to from

Thanks!

Is mise le meas, Niocláiſín Cóilín de Ġloſtéir

(S.

They already built a *nix machine for the "average user", here it is:

They already built a *nix machine for the "average user", here it is:

Position a cell phone camera to record the screen. There is ALWAYS a way of subverting anything *in* the computer.

Note, I'm not talking about pirating movies (where the quality of the video and audio would likely be of concern to the "value" of the experience) but, rather, making a record of a *lesson* that was being taught.

If I was showing you how to tie a knot, would you care about the faithfulness of the color representation? Or, whether my narrative was in Dolby 7.1?

The problem MS is having is that less and less is being done using "traditional tools" on traditional platforms. We saw desktops give way to laptops. And, laptops giving way to cell phones.

MS is now trying to leverage use for *games*. In a market where there is less and less variety of product offerings.

I know very few "average joes" that use "productivity suites". I suspect businesses could drop MS with very little LONG TERM pain (thought he transition might be chaotic). Especially seeing the number of (identical) boxes that get tossed out regularly. USFF and AiO's are quickly becoming the norm as folks have decided that the space the machine occupies is more valuable than the functionality that it provides!

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: |---------------------------------------------------------------| |"Position a cell phone camera to record the screen." | |---------------------------------------------------------------|

Cf. this 3.69-GiB 30-minute recording:

FFMPEG compressed it to this 571-megabyte version:

mediainfo failing_via_old_equipment_in_Europe_to_show_Court_TV1_20260513_090155.mp4 General Complete name : failing_via_old_equipment_in_Europe_to_show_Court_TV1_20260513_090155.mp4 Format : MPEG-4 Format profile : Base Media / Version 2 Codec ID : mp42 (isom/mp42) File size : 3.69 GiB Duration : 30 min 37 s Overall bit rate : 17.3 Mb/s Frame rate : 30.000 FPS Encoded date : 2026-05-13 08:32:34 UTC Tagged date : 2026-05-13 08:32:34 UTC com.android.version : 8.1.0

Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : High@L4 Format settings : CABAC / 1 Ref Frames Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, Reference frames : 1 frame Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=30 Codec ID : avc1 Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding Duration : 30 min 37 s Bit rate : 17.0 Mb/s Width : 1 920 pixels Height : 1 080 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Rotation : 180° Frame rate mode : Variable Frame rate : 30.000 FPS Minimum frame rate : 15.005 FPS Maximum frame rate : 33.015 FPS Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.273 Stream size : 3.64 GiB (98%) Title : VideoHandle Language : English Encoded date : 2026-05-13 08:32:34 UTC Tagged date : 2026-05-13 08:32:34 UTC Color range : Limited Color primaries : BT.709 Transfer characteristics : BT.709 Matrix coefficients : BT.709 Codec configuration box : avcC

Audio ID : 2 Format : AAC LC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity Codec ID : mp4a-40-2 Duration : 30 min 37 s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 256 kb/s Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel layout : L R Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF) Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 56.1 MiB (1%) Title : SoundHandle Language : English Encoded date : 2026-05-13 08:32:34 UTC Tagged date : 2026-05-13 08:32:34 UTC

|-----------------------------------------------------------------| |"There is ALWAYS a way of subverting anything *in* the computer."| |-----------------------------------------------------------------|

Of course.

|---------------------------------------------------------------| |"[. . .] | |If I was showing you how to tie a knot, would you care | |about the faithfulness of the color representation?" | |---------------------------------------------------------------|

No.

|---------------------------------------------------------------| |"Or, whether my narrative was in Dolby 7.1?" | |---------------------------------------------------------------|

No. (S.

Bitrex snipped-for-privacy@example.net wrote: |----------------------------------------------------------------------| |"They already built a *nix machine for the "average user", here it is:| | | |

A new coworker arrived with an OS-X Apple Macintosh in 2005. I asked him is Apple OS X a BSD. He did not know. (S.

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"On 6/11/2026 3:32 AM, Martin Brown wrote: | |> On 10/06/2026 22:19, Don Y wrote: | |[. . .] | |> There is a UK seminar I'm on tomorrow dealing with how to get the great | |> unwashed safe from the demise of Win10 in October (if it | |happens). My guess is | |> that MickeySoft will back down again and extend support - there are | |way too | |> many Win10 machines still out there running quite happily." | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Do you really suspect that Microsoft will support Windows 10 again? I support an application for an old version of Windows (e.g. Windows

"The older VS versions are compatible with more older Oses, but that doesn't matter much to you (although I probably would avoid the most recent one if you want to be sure to run on Windows 10 since Windows 10 is officially out of support).

Hope this helps."

What do you think?

|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"She's annoyed that things keep changing (updates even after wiring | |down all the update policies). Lately, she complained "Where is | |the pin for me to keep my downloads visible?" (in Edge) | |[. . .] | |[She uses W7 on her desktop so isn't real keen on why W10 "does | |everything different"] | |[. . .] | |I received several recommendations (all different, of course :< ) | |[. . .] | |>> Anyone supporting someone using a *BSD desktop that can share | |>> their experiences with problems and incompatibilities? | |> | |> The main one seems to be things being in different places. [. . .]" | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

A different version of an operating system annoyingly forces a different presentation. A different version of a web browser (or a word processor) has a different presentation: e.g. a new version of a web browser has dots and right clicks instead of a menu which is always visible with "File" etc.

UNIX's pro-choice stance is overrated.

|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"[. . .] | |And, I imagine it will be a lot easier to install a (legacy) printer | |than under Windows! More of the MS tax at work..." | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

I recommend my "Canon Pixma GM4050 Printer Mono Print Multi-Function MegaTank Wireless". Canon offers supports therefor for Apple iOS (and Google Android and Microsoft Windows) - BUT NOT APPLE MACOS AND B.S.D.S!

I print thousands of pages of texts in 1 year. She probably wants a color graphical printer instead - a different Canon MegaTank printer may suit her.

|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"[. . .] | |>> Meanwhile, I'll build a FBSD box and see how she takes to the idea. | |>> (thankfully, building that box means I can just pull the drive to | |>> move it to a nicer platform -- unlike MS's braindead approach where | |>> you have to rebuild each new instance!)" | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Microsoft is not braindead to start off being not particularly rich to becoming very rich.

(S.