 Visitor Reviews |
helloSystem
|
Reader supplied reviews for helloSystem
Average rating
4.8 from 6 review(s)
Version: 0.8.1
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-08-01
Votes: 51
|
Booting from the live image is painfully slow, but once installed on bare metal, it works well and is a stable, pleasant enough desktop. It boots, connects, surfs, and sleeps fine and looks good. Sure, it's aspirational and is no macOS, but it's a great demonstration of a Freebsd spin that will be of interest to enthusiasts.
The developer seems motivated and responsive to feedback. It would be good to see the project continue to develop and help the broader community and upstream with useful refinements here and there.
|
Version: 0.8.1
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-04-19
Votes: 49
|
This project has so much promise!
I keep this installed on my secondary computer - it’s not ready as a daily driver, nor does it claim to be. While aesthetically very pleasing, there are some rough edges. The main issues I run into are in fact FreeBSD issues that I get also on GhostBSD with the Linuxulator - trying to run Linux applications. For example, SublimeText is not fully functional, and has to be restarted after installing plugins. The VSCode menu doesn’t work in the global menu, so I have to use the window menu.
I first installed this due to the promise of a creator oriented system. It’s a long way off from that goal, mainly due to a misbehaving Linuxulator - again, all FreeBSD issues. It appears some work is being done on that aspect, I’m looking forward to both that and the possibility of being able to use AppImage on FreeBSD which has a notoriously limited repository.
|
Version: 0.8.1
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-03-18
Votes: 0
|
Having waited 8 minutes for the system to boot on a machine that Xubuntu Linux boots in 45 seconds I began to feel lumpy.
Badly stymied setting up internet connexion (couldn't).
No 'dock' down the bottom.
Awfully sorry, but that is as far as I got before I reverted to Xubuntu.
Until the boot time is significantly reduced and WiFi connexion is as easy as it is in Debian derivatives
I am not coming back.
This is a great shame as I have been wanting to experiment with a UNIX sort of system for years, and, to date,
never found one that is easy to set up and get started with.
Of course, the main problem may be that the HELP system is not up to scratch: even if I only looked for internet connexion setup . . .
|
Version: 0.8.1
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-03-12
Votes: 2
|
At its current stage, helloSystem is close to unusable. There is zero progress towards the declared lofty goals of binary compatibility with macOS and offers little else. It's not in some kind of awkward development state. The project's entire premise is deeply flawed.
Something I'm missing from all reviews of helloSystem this far is that the macOS lookalike desktop is a mess. It is an affront to anyone who has spent any time with macOS. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the design goals of the macOS desktop.
Design is not what it looks like, it's how it works. As is, there is nothing but a shallow skin on top of X. This skin does not serve any purpose except looking like an absurd bizarro world distortion executed by someone lacking taste and sensibility. There's simply no point to it. One would be better off using Gnome, XFCE or one of the other purpose-built, coherent desktop environments. This is unlikely to ever change, as X is not only officially deprecated, it's fundamentally unsuited for cloning anything even resembling macOS.
Combined with the stated goal of eventually being able to run macOS software on this FrankenOS, one has to wonder how realistic even a fraction of those goals are. To ever get any traction, you'd have to start at creating a new window manager, a new desktop environment similar to Aqua, somehow find a way to use launchd and plist files and translate untold numbers of system calls. Ultimately, you'd have to bend FreeBSD into Darwin and then build alternatives to everything else macOS from scratch. Even if you eventually succeeded, decades later, you'd still lack the integration features that make macOS so relatively smooth and valuable to end users.
ReactOS is the closest comparison, an attempt to do a clean-room implementation of Windows. The fact that after 25 years of development there's still no stable release should give an indication regarding to what kind of work is involved in reaching binary compatibility with a distinct operating system.
In my opinion, helloSystem is the worst of all worlds. It looks bad, works so-so, solves nothing and messes up a lot. The project's goals are overambitious and its execution severely lacking. Not only is it no alternative to macOS, it's not an alternative to anything.
|
Version: 0.8.0
Rating: 5
Date: 2023-03-03
Votes: 1
|
It's hard to rate this as a competitive OS at this point in time because it's still going trough its growing pains.
Interesting vision in regards to simplicity. security and package/app portability...it's maybe what OpenDarwin could have strived to become if it wasn't laid to rest.
Long way before anyone would want to use this as their daily go to OS, and I don't mean this in a negative way just stating the facts.
It's great to see that there are people devoting their time and talents to make this a very different and unique BSD based system.
It has potential to become something new and original and I will definitely keep an eye on it's development.
I’m not going to go into details about what issues I’ve encountered but I will simply say to give this project some time and re-visit it in maybe a year or so. It’s hard work building an OS from the ground up pand I can appreciate all of the work that goes into making someting like this into reality.
|
Version: 0.8.0
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-02-25
Votes: 0
|
It looks promising, with a really sleek (good) FreeBSD base compared to Linux with systemd. Also the graphical system is sleek and fast, even on my old laptop. It runs many important tools and programs, like gimp. It runs on the super robust ZFS file system, which is hardly noticeable because it runs fast. The internet browser is also fast and sleek, additionally Firefox is available. For stability it seems to be recommended to install it first. Which should be done on an empty SSD (internal or external). To me it's fine but it's not finished yet so there are some rough corners around.
|
|
Latest Reviews
Project: helloSystem
Version: 0.8.1
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-08-01
Votes: 51
|
Booting from the live image is painfully slow, but once installed on bare metal, it works well and is a stable, pleasant enough desktop. It boots, connects, surfs, and sleeps fine and looks good. Sure, it's aspirational and is no macOS, but it's a great demonstration of a Freebsd spin that will be of interest to enthusiasts.
The developer seems motivated and responsive to feedback. It would be good to see the project continue to develop and help the broader community and upstream with useful refinements here and there.
|
Project: helloSystem
Version: 0.8.1
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-04-19
Votes: 49
|
This project has so much promise!
I keep this installed on my secondary computer - it’s not ready as a daily driver, nor does it claim to be. While aesthetically very pleasing, there are some rough edges. The main issues I run into are in fact FreeBSD issues that I get also on GhostBSD with the Linuxulator - trying to run Linux applications. For example, SublimeText is not fully functional, and has to be restarted after installing plugins. The VSCode menu doesn’t work in the global menu, so I have to use the window menu.
I first installed this due to the promise of a creator oriented system. It’s a long way off from that goal, mainly due to a misbehaving Linuxulator - again, all FreeBSD issues. It appears some work is being done on that aspect, I’m looking forward to both that and the possibility of being able to use AppImage on FreeBSD which has a notoriously limited repository.
|
Project: helloSystem
Version: 0.8.1
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-03-18
Votes: 0
|
Having waited 8 minutes for the system to boot on a machine that Xubuntu Linux boots in 45 seconds I began to feel lumpy.
Badly stymied setting up internet connexion (couldn't).
No 'dock' down the bottom.
Awfully sorry, but that is as far as I got before I reverted to Xubuntu.
Until the boot time is significantly reduced and WiFi connexion is as easy as it is in Debian derivatives
I am not coming back.
This is a great shame as I have been wanting to experiment with a UNIX sort of system for years, and, to date,
never found one that is easy to set up and get started with.
Of course, the main problem may be that the HELP system is not up to scratch: even if I only looked for internet connexion setup . . .
|
Project: helloSystem
Version: 0.8.1
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-03-12
Votes: 2
|
At its current stage, helloSystem is close to unusable. There is zero progress towards the declared lofty goals of binary compatibility with macOS and offers little else. It's not in some kind of awkward development state. The project's entire premise is deeply flawed.
Something I'm missing from all reviews of helloSystem this far is that the macOS lookalike desktop is a mess. It is an affront to anyone who has spent any time with macOS. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the design goals of the macOS desktop.
Design is not what it looks like, it's how it works. As is, there is nothing but a shallow skin on top of X. This skin does not serve any purpose except looking like an absurd bizarro world distortion executed by someone lacking taste and sensibility. There's simply no point to it. One would be better off using Gnome, XFCE or one of the other purpose-built, coherent desktop environments. This is unlikely to ever change, as X is not only officially deprecated, it's fundamentally unsuited for cloning anything even resembling macOS.
Combined with the stated goal of eventually being able to run macOS software on this FrankenOS, one has to wonder how realistic even a fraction of those goals are. To ever get any traction, you'd have to start at creating a new window manager, a new desktop environment similar to Aqua, somehow find a way to use launchd and plist files and translate untold numbers of system calls. Ultimately, you'd have to bend FreeBSD into Darwin and then build alternatives to everything else macOS from scratch. Even if you eventually succeeded, decades later, you'd still lack the integration features that make macOS so relatively smooth and valuable to end users.
ReactOS is the closest comparison, an attempt to do a clean-room implementation of Windows. The fact that after 25 years of development there's still no stable release should give an indication regarding to what kind of work is involved in reaching binary compatibility with a distinct operating system.
In my opinion, helloSystem is the worst of all worlds. It looks bad, works so-so, solves nothing and messes up a lot. The project's goals are overambitious and its execution severely lacking. Not only is it no alternative to macOS, it's not an alternative to anything.
|
Project: helloSystem
Version: 0.8.0
Rating: 5
Date: 2023-03-03
Votes: 1
|
It's hard to rate this as a competitive OS at this point in time because it's still going trough its growing pains.
Interesting vision in regards to simplicity. security and package/app portability...it's maybe what OpenDarwin could have strived to become if it wasn't laid to rest.
Long way before anyone would want to use this as their daily go to OS, and I don't mean this in a negative way just stating the facts.
It's great to see that there are people devoting their time and talents to make this a very different and unique BSD based system.
It has potential to become something new and original and I will definitely keep an eye on it's development.
I’m not going to go into details about what issues I’ve encountered but I will simply say to give this project some time and re-visit it in maybe a year or so. It’s hard work building an OS from the ground up pand I can appreciate all of the work that goes into making someting like this into reality.
|
Project: helloSystem
Version: 0.8.0
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-02-25
Votes: 0
|
It looks promising, with a really sleek (good) FreeBSD base compared to Linux with systemd. Also the graphical system is sleek and fast, even on my old laptop. It runs many important tools and programs, like gimp. It runs on the super robust ZFS file system, which is hardly noticeable because it runs fast. The internet browser is also fast and sleek, additionally Firefox is available. For stability it seems to be recommended to install it first. Which should be done on an empty SSD (internal or external). To me it's fine but it's not finished yet so there are some rough corners around.
|
|
|
| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
|
| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
|
|
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
bc1qxes3k2wq3uqzr074tkwwjmwfe63z70gwzfu4lx 
lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhxarpw3jkc7tzw4ex6cfexyfua2nr 
86fA3qPTeQtNb2k1vLwEQaAp3XxkvvvXt69gSG5LGunXXikK9koPWZaRQgfFPBPWhMgXjPjccy9LA9xRFchPWQAnPvxh5Le 