Submitted by The first release candidate for PC-BSD has been released. It is based on FreeBSD 6.0, includes an improved installer and new Network Manager. This release also sees the upgrade of KDE to 3.4.3, and Linux-compatibility layer is installed by default allowing Linux PBI’s to be run without having to install the compatibility layer first. Read the changelog here and the release notes here, then go here to download. Update by AS: Screenshots courtesy OSDir.
for SMB shares and web serving and SMB printing?
I don’t think many people would, they would use FreeBSD for that.
You’re forgetting that PC-BSD has a full FreeBSD 6.0 system under the hood
http://www.pcbsd.org/?p=pcbsd
I had thought it was a great idea to sync their 1.0 to 6.0. Can’t wait for 1.0.
Though I am a bit confused about the packaging system. Is it like the fbsd ports that I am used-to so much? Or does it place files on different locations as where installing from ports would have placed it?? I just want to know if I install xxx from their packaging system would give the same result if I install xxx from ports.
Edited 2005-11-11 02:11
No, PBI’s are completely seperate from the ports / package system. This is by design, so that you can keep an entirely “clean” os, and remove / add PBI’s without touching anything on the base install. Of course, if you want you can also use the standard FreeBSD ports in addition to this. Try it out though, see how easy it is to install Opera 8.5 with Flash 7, and then install the Java JRE. In 1 minute, you have a browser with both flash & java support
Does it really make sense for the PC-BSD story to have the new FreeBSD logo. The cartoon daemon is recognized as a distro neutral method to identify BSD based systems, where as the FreeBSD logo, is used exclusivily by FreeBSD.
I think PC-BSD represents 95% of FreeBSD’s code, so we show PC-BSD is FreeBSD’s little baby
Here’s how PC-BSD looks like with the FreeBSD icon:
http://www.pcbsd.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=10826#10826
The FreeBSD icon set can be found here:
http://www.auriance.com/docs/pcbsd/freebsd-logo/
I would definately encourage people to give PC-BSD a whirl, even if it’s just for fun
This is great news. I gave it a run on my test box a while back (not 1.0rc1, but whatever was available at that point), and was very impressed. I’d need several months to get used to the bsd toolchain, but overall, I was very impressed.
I can’t be sure anymore because the old roadmap is gone, but I think there was supposed to be another release or even two before getting to 1.0 RC! If I’m correct and they were able to skip a version or two, that’s a very good sign – it says a lot about both stability of FreeBSD 6.0, and solid shape of PCBSD.
This is one excellent project – I will definitely get 1.0 when it comes out.
…a bit more, for KDE 3.5 release I think. 1.0 would feel more “complete” having both the signifant 6.0 update and the kde update incorporated.
KDE 3.5 Release if due on Nov 23rd – Can’t wait
23rd?? i hope kris will move to kde 3.5 in the final 1.0 release…pleaaaaase!!!
ehm…what about the desktopBSD project? been quiet since thier rc1…i think they should join forces with pcbsd!!
so ports users can use their portsGUI
Edited 2005-11-11 10:53
DesktopBSD seems also very nice – and has a slightly different target audience I think. I will do a review of both when I’ll a little time, even though they are not for me (I’m using FreeBSD, and I’m confortable with it).
I think PC-BSD is for absolute *nix newbies. It strives to achieve the click-appinstaller – next – next – finished kinda software installation (which is good!) with easy to use graphical tools for sysconfig. PC-BSD is for those who are not really interested in unix or the system layout or whatnot. It amazes me how good they are at what they are doing, with probably fewer resources that any “user-friendly” linux distro has at its disposal. Personal Computing served up BSD style – one thing anyone notes using BSD for a while is the level of integration of system utilities, tools, configuration and whatnot. PC-BSD takes this to the desktop level by treating KDE as part of the OS – I think that is what BSD-style refers to. Someone should do a GNOME version for those who don’t like KDE (like the ubuntu/kubuntu line) – because there is little point of talking about PC-BSD and not thinking of the desktop (KDE) as an integral part of the OS.
DesktopBSD, on the other hand, seems to be FreeBSD with a nice skin. DesktopBSD seems to be aimed at those who sooner or later want to learn more about the unix way. Not that this is not possible with PC-BSD, it is just that DesktopBSD is more suited to do that. They provides an interface for the standard FreeBSD tools for configuration and package management. Ports remains the underneath (if I know correctly) system, but every ports gotcha (java install for instance) is solved via educating the user about the problem and offering immediate solutions.
Both of these projects are my dreams come true. Actually, I’ve been thinking for some time about the possibilities of a QT-based interface for ports + config tools (I was thinking along the lines of cooperation between KDE and BSD for better integration of ports into existing tools, like kpackage…) A PC-BSD idea also occured to me, and my dilemma was: which is the better approach. And lo and behold: both ideas were realized! Now if only someone would bring ports to slackware (not the crap that portage is, true FreeBSD ports!)
))
So: KUDOS to both projects!
This project is really maturing. I look forward to the 1.0 release. FreeBSD 6.0 has proven to me to be an excellent release. PC-BSD makes FreeBSD on the desktop an easy and polished experience. Congrats on all of the hard work on FreeBSD and PC-BSD. A nice secure, and user friendly OS will come out of this.
Anyone else notice that the entire world has adopted FreeBSD’s new logo when referencing this BSD, but its own website doesn’t even sport the new icon?
Also, does anyone know where to find the vector graphics version of the logo that was hinted at http://www.freebsd.org/news/newsflash.html#event20051101:01“>in
Edited 2005-11-11 04:27
I have tried the previous version of PC-BSD and I must say, I’ve found it very good to learn real Unix and BSD world. Some people find it hard to configure freebsd with X so this is a big chance to get hands on a userfriendly freebsd system with graphical user interface.
And now, since graphical tools like network manager and such start to appear, more newbies are going to feel at home. My only comaints about the system were about the look and feel and small glitches like resolution and system-wide locale selection, and these seem to be fixed now. Can’t wait to try out the new version now
Kudos to Kris for making such a great OS for us!
…I’ve been watching this with interest. I wish I still had a PC to install it on. :/ From everything I’ve read FreeBSD 6.0 is a huge step forward and it sounds like the 6.0 improvements translate into good performance for this distro. making it a viable desktop.
Maybe I will have to fork out the $$$ and buy a shuttle.
I wish them luck, FreeBSD 6 is more powerfull than Linux.
One thing I noticed, there is an entry remove programs, yet no entry add programs. It’s probably possible through update but I couldn’t test it as I had PCBSD running in virtual PC and no direct connection to internet.
Looks really good! If they keep it up perhaps BDS will make it to the business desktop before Linux.
I’m a huge enthusiast of PCBSD. Unfortunately, I don’t have a free box at the moment to play with it on.
Speaking strictly in usability terms, I’d like to add some comments to PCBSD (or *Nix for desktop in general for that matter).
What people seem to forget is that logic of naming lacks a lot in the *Nix world usability wise. Like Samba… what does that mean anyway? OH, it’s used to share things on the network. How about just renaming the Icon to “Network Shares” and stop focusing on the name Samba all the time??? Rather say, we enable sharing (look under sharing)… then under “About” or something, call it “File Sharing Component – Samba”. That would make things a whole lot more logical and then if CIFS it’d be named same thing “File Sharing Component – CIFS”.
That wouldn’t related only to file sharing but a whole lot of stuff. Say Konqueror (in case of PCBSD)… how about “File viewer – Konqueror” or something like that?
I know I’m not the first one saying this but I really think it’s important, especially for newcomers. Doing the middle way I talk about it doesn’t remove identity, it just makes things more logical.
There’s obviously more things to do but this is really a basic one which would do so much.
Just thougt i’d tell you it seems punjabi language support trigger some antivirus software(in my case avast) if you download cd2. It is recognized as “nutcracker family”, and apparently this is a common problem, so don’t panic – especially as it’s a windows only virus family
Heh. I’m typing from it right now, after installing it about six hours ago. It does indeed look very slick, and the included KDE is (generally, see below) the most responsive I’ve used in recent memory.
However, there are quite a few problems. Sound does not work out of the box, despite the fact that every single sound driver is loaded by default. I changed /boot/loader.conf to load only the driver for my sound card (as it was in FreeBSD 6, which worked fine), but still no sound.
Konqueror crashes hard every single time I’m in either GMail or Hotmail and attempt to add an attachment. That’s kind of irritating.
There is no firewall set up by default, and there are two open ports (internet printing protocol and Samba Server). I decided to set up IPFW as I’ve had it in FreeBSD 6 (modified from my DragonFly FW rules) and set up “the blackhole” for both tcp and udp. Once that was done, KDE would experience problems on logging in, taking several minutes to get to a usable desktop. To be fair, this is likely to be half my fault, for not knowing exactly how to set up the FW to KDE’s liking, but a BSD newbie is going to be completely naked, and won’t know how to do even the half-assed job that I did.
One problem common to both FreeBSD 6 and PCBSD on this machine is that nothing I do gets OpenGL apps running acceptably (they all work fine for me under DragonFly). The radeon drivers are loaded and the xorg.conf file is set up as properly as I can figure, so I’m at a loss as to what to do next.
Every now and then, Konqueror will freeze (like when typing this post). No idea what’s going on to cause that. It happens sporadically, and I only have one Konq window open, and Kopete running in the background.
Sure this is a RC, but just from my own experience here, I’d recommend that they have three or four more RCs, and add a decent out of the box firewall setup. This definately has potential, and I can see it being a real winner a year or two from now, but ATM, it’s really buggy software and as soon as my irritation with it becomes greater than my lazyness, it’s going to be replaced with good old FreeBSD.
Edited 2005-11-13 08:16