It's well known that I use FreeBSD as a platform at both JohnCompanies and rsync.net. However, it may be surprising to learn that I also use it as my desktop and laptop operating system.
In the eight years that FreeBSD has been my operating environment, I have had surprisingly few issues with hardware compatibility or application support. This is not surprising, as I run almost nothing but xterms and Opera.
However, two issues are becoming more and more difficult to work around:
1. I need an up to date vmware. I have been using an extremely old Vmware 3 license in Linux binary compatibility mode since 2002. Although I continue to make do with this old version today, I would really like a modern version of Vmware - especially now that Vmware 6 has 3d virtualization.2. I need Flash 9 to work with Opera. The mob has spoken and apparently every site on the web needs yet another unnecessary layer of complexity and gimmickry, and I just can't work without flash anymore. I am currently using linux-flashplugin-7.0r69 with Opera 9.20 but there are more sites every day that require at least Flash 8.
The first problem was addressed earlier this year when I included "Vmware 6.x on FreeBSD" in the 2007 rsync.net Code Bounties. At the time of this writing, Orlando Bassotto, who was responsible for the original Vmware3 port in FreeBSD, has taken on the project and reports that it is moving forward. I hope to have Vmware 6.x running on FreeBSD (in Linux binary compatibility mode, of course) in the first quarter of 2008.
I will now address the second problem here with a new bounty:
I will pay $200 to whoever can compose a working and stable recipe for running Adobe Flash 9 inside of the FreeBSD native version of Opera 9 on FreeBSD 6.x. This shouldn't be that hard - in fact, there is already a linux-flashplugin9 port. The trouble is, even if you do convince your browser to use the plugin, it crashes frequently and generally "doesn't work". I think a good proof of success would be the ability to play arbitrary content on YouTube without complication, or perhaps use all of google maps / google finance without crashing.
If you would like to contribute funds to the bounty, add your name, email address and a dollar amount as a comment below. The more money there is in the pot, the faster things get done...