OS name explanation

JDV

Hi everyone,

I'm a very new user here and I have another noob question. Why is the OS called Ghost BSD? I'm sure there's a very good reason for it but I can't immediately see an obvious answer.

Also from a marketing perspective, was it carefully considered and agreed by the community that Ghost BSD would be a compelling brand name to further expand this excellent FreeBSD solution? I only ask because for me personally the name evokes images of invisibility, obscurity and mystery. Probably a very apt name for a very secure OS.

I've always liked Solaris, Sun and Oracle's name for its own OS, with its celestial theme that conjures up images of powerful energy and radiant light. Following on from that theme, I always thought that its own Open Source solution would have been better suited to a name like Lunaris; and on that celestial and planetary theme I really like the name of Saturn's moon named Tarvos. It sounds secure, protective, and always present like a sentinel in OS form.

TarvOS.
Stable. Robust. Secure.
Where innovation meets liberation.
Your Open Source desktop. Built on FreeBSD, the worlds most secure OS.

So why is GhostBSD the chosen name? Thanks

Robin

The answer is here and it reads:

Why is it called GhostBSD?

GhostBSD was developed as an operating system to hack Gnome using FreeBSD technology. After a while, it became what was referred to as (G)nome (host)ed by Free(BSD), which means that Gnome is hosted on the FreeBSD system. Today GhostBSD’s name is still relevant to the past since MATE is a continuation of Gnome 2.

When Gershwin becomes the official desktop one day, the project can continue as (G)ershwin (host)ed by FreeBSD so the name will still fit!

JDV

Robin thank you. It makes a lot of sense now. Does Gershwin and Hello System share the same desktop environment? That's going to be the next big update isn't it?

Robin

I don't know the answer to that, since I'm a Xfce boy (using the community edition) and only rely on some similarity between screenshots of the two. Gershwin is still experimental on GhostBSD and looks like it still needs a lot of work to become the equal of either MATE or Xfce. But I'm looking forward to getting away from dependency on both GTK and Qt with all the big changes they're making so rapidly, messing stuff up in the process.

I'm also looking forward to getting away from Gnome apps I currently depend on, and using apps that are not only independent of GTK and Qt, but also independent of big "woke" boards of directors that insist on making sure that every little bit of code gets polluted with their ideology. FOSS has become a zoo, right down to the Linux kernel itself. That's why I'm here... driven as much by ethics as I am by usefulness and simplicity in my OS.

mameko

Robin That's why I left Linux after more then 20 years. Zoo is a good description. And in a big cage between all the distros are the wild flatpaks...

champion

I used to think it meant they were shadowing [following] FreeBSD with a desktop, but then I saw the official explanation. I always liked the idea of Tux, a penguin, being a south-pole mascot, with BSD being a north-pole mascot, such as a harp seal or a walrus/polar bear/arctic hare/arctic fox, but no one ever ran with it.