[tyho]

Does anyone really use an X GUI on BSD?

[hnlmorg]

Yes. Lots of people do. There are even BSD OSs that primarily target desktop use, such as DragonflyBSD.

[crote]

How does "lots" quantify, though? There are billions of desktop Windows users. There are tens of millions of desktop Linux users. I expect desktop BSD to go beyond the thousands, but does it reach the hundreds of thousands?

I've always felt like from a purely user perspective desktop BSD doesn't really distinguish itself from Linux. The software stack is essentially the same, and they're both FLOSS so that's not a reason to switch either. Maybe I'm wrong, but the Linux/BSD choice looks a lot less relevant than the Windows/Linux choice.

So if people use desktop BSD because it essentially gives them slightly fuzzier feelings, and they are essentially a rounding error in their user base, is it really fair to criticize Linux developers for not focusing on portability? You can only spend your time once, so do you use it to work on something benefiting your tens of millions of existing Linux users, or something benefiting your thousands of potential BSD users?

[wkat4242]

Oh yes. It's my daily driver. KDE on FreeBSD (with X11 stack still)

[pama]

It is good to occasionaly display windows from a remote linux onto a macbook client. I wouldnt say I use it regularly but it certainly helps.

[badgersnake]

I use sway, so no.