PC-BSD 1.2 has been released. “PC-BSD software is pleased to announce the immediate availability of PC-BSD 1.2 for x86 based processors. PC-BSD 1.2 now utilizes the FreeBSD advanced ULE scheduler and is compiled with optimizations for 686 processors (all support for 386, 486 and 586 microcode is disabled in kernel). This release of PC-BSD ushers in a new era of stability and simplicity for desktop operating systems based on UNIX, making it a solid release for home and business usage.”
I may already posted this demo but I think it is good example what modern operating system like PC-BSD is capable for. This flash demo demonstrates how easy it is to add / remove self containing software packages (PBI- Pc-Bsd Installer) under PC-BSD.
http://www.pcbsd.org/?p=pbiflash
For more information about supported hardware, features and who is actually responsible for this project, please visit our forums:
http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?t=4233
I have been running it for two days now and so far it has been rock solid. I have installed the Nvidia drivers, the flash player, Xmms, K3B, and the Codecs Package. Everything worked perfect. In my humble opinion the pbi package manager is just about the best package installer I have run across in any O/S.
I am very impressed and may just switch from Slackware as my primary o/s.
To be honest, the fact that they still have a concept of “installation” kind of turns me off. It’s not terribly hard to create self-contained applications; hell, OS X has it, as does Rox, although I suspect they somewhat hack around the configuration file issue by still using configuration files in $HOME.
AFAIK ULE sheduler is unstable and unmaintained. I had stability (and also performance) problems with it on FreeBSD 5.4. My friend told me that problems weren’t solved in FreeBSD 6.x. I wonder why they decided to use it.
That’s heresay and nothing more.
It WAS unstable and unmaintained around the time of the 5-release cycle. So much, in fact, that they removed the capability to build it into your kernel completely. At some point after that, it was picked up by one of the devs who decided to maintain it. I was using it early on in the version 5 days and had problems to say the least. Since then, I have been using the old scheduler and have been reluctant to try again. If PC-BSD is using it though, perhaps it’s stable enough to use again?
AFAIK ULE sheduler is unstable and unmaintained. I had stability (and also performance) problems with it on FreeBSD 5.4. My friend told me that problems weren’t solved in FreeBSD 6.x. I wonder why they decided to use it.
You have point, but it is perfect for desktop usage:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2006-May/12105…
Without proper testing we’d never know how good it is. Hope we can help FreeBSD development in desktop area.
I purposely rebuilt my PC-BSD FreeBSD 6 kernel to change it to ULE. It ran fine. I actually did not see much of a difference. I actually felt that it seemed more responsive in some cases and less in others. This for that, so to speak.
PC-BSD is great. I have already said recently that I wished I had a PC to run it on, again! That and NetBSD… I wish someone would create a “PC-BSD” version of NetBSD. How flippin’ cool would THAT be.
Quote: “I wish someone would create a “PC-BSD” version of NetBSD. How flippin’ cool would THAT be.
”
Please have a look at http://ecbsd.sourceforge.net/index.php?lang=en
HTH, Daniel
Heh! I should have known. I will be requesting a CD in the future sometime, for sure. Bookmarked that site. Thanks!
Wow, this is a really good and solid system, I’m amazed how simple it is to install stuff. Very nice OS, congratulations! Everything works very well and fast. Everything is so easy to use. I would recommend it to anybody.
If the OS didn’t freeze with me when I was playing a file from the DVDROM then it would have been my first OS of choice even before Fedora. But this crash still is happening and I would not know where is the true problem. This stability issue didn’t happen at all for me with my current hardware with any of linux OSs I have tried not even solaris snv beta versions; so the problem pinpoint itself to PC-BSD itself but where, I don’t know!
Otherwise this OS approach is the best I have ever seen in OSS, especially the ease of use of the installer.
Were You using Kaffeine? I think Kaffeine is not up to the expectations… Crashes here with DVDs’ sometimes.
Yes, Kaffeine is unstable, I’d recommend to install KMPlayer for video- more robust and rocksolid- never crashed here and amaroK for audio. You can install em from ports (FreeBSD standard way of installing from source) or PBI.
I’m keeping an eye on this exciting and fast moving project. I still have 1.1 running on my test machine…I’m going to start over with a fresh install of 1.2 once I’m done moving my lab up in my office…this is a WAY cool project…
I have had no problems with Kaffeine or Flash.
Maybe this is the year of the BSD Desktop?
(I just couldn’t resist saying that.)
The header says it is optimized for 686? Has anyone run any benchmarks that would compare it to another OS? Is it indeed faster and optimized?
Has anyone run any benchmarks that would compare it to another OS? Is it indeed faster and optimized?
Here it’s quite fast. It’s faster than Linux in any case. I’m a long-term Linux user, and I’m thing about turning PC-BSD into my desktop of choice, overall system is better than Mandriva that I use right now. Also, they have some nice application: http://www.pbidir.com
How is it faster than Linux? Can you explain how (with valid benchmarks) or are you spewing up crap?
I am a hard-core user of Linux. I also use BSD when the need arises. I downloaded the 1.2 version of PCBSD and say I am highly impressed.
The only spare maching I had was an old cranky PIII at work with limited memory. It’s preformance was excellent on this machine. I can only imagine what it would be like on a fast machine.
The next item that impressed me was the overall thought on the KDE. Aside from the cartoonish dragon – It’s business oriented.
I just upgraded my 1.11 box to 1.2 via pbi update and I have to say, I am impressed. A popup window came up saying an update was available and I clicked download and it downloaded and installed 1.2 and rebooted automatically. Everything still works perfectly, still seems rock solid stable, and not only that, It didn’t screw up my Nvidia drivers for which I am quite impressed.
The PcBSD developers are really doing great work, if you have a spare box or partition, you should really give this one a spin.
Hold on, am I understanding that there is now an install/uninstall system for programs in linux etc systems now?
I was looking at that demo on the first post. I havn’t been keeping up to date on these things. If it’s what I think it is, that’s awesome.
Also, are there many programs available for it?. I understand this is BSD, where would I find more information?.
“Hold on, am I understanding that there is now an install/uninstall system for programs in linux etc systems now?”
This is kind of confusing, most Linux distros, and the BSDs have install/uninstall systems, They are just not the “self extracting, vomit files all over the place, stand alone installers” They are usually an application or applications that allow you to manage what installed on the system, and can usually do all sorts of useful things like manage dependancies.
This is kind of confusing, most Linux distros, and the BSDs have install/uninstall systems, They are just not the “self extracting, vomit files all over the place, stand alone installers” They are usually an application or applications that allow you to manage what installed on the system, and can usually do all sorts of useful things like manage dependancies.
Have you read anything about PBI? PBI files are created to be as self-contained as possible. Each program will include the various libraries and programs necessary for operation (libraries are placed in same directory as program “/Programs/Opera9/lib”, you can use older/newer library instead, not using already installed one in base system. That’s why older PBI packages can be installed in much newer OS). From the developer’s standpoint, this just requires one extra step of making sure that your PBI file contains the files necessary for your program’s operation, but for end users the process is seamless. Packages can be added and removed at will, without any fear of breaking other software installed on the system.
Edited 2006-07-14 12:12
I know about PBIs, I was just responding to the statement “Hold on, am I understanding that there is now an install/uninstall system for programs in linux etc systems now? ” It sounded like the original poster, Sodapop, thought that all apps were installed by compiling from source, and I was addressing that.
Here it’s quite fast. It’s faster than Linux in any case. Faster than Linux doing what, booting? running Gnome? Playing MP3’s? We need benchmarks and cold hard facts to compare.
unavailability of flash is still a showstopper for me
I am certain you can run flash in linux compatibility mode? I am sure I had flash running on it when I was using it. I could be wrong, but… no, I am always right!
Well, there is flash but it’s v6 only.
The other turnoff is that it works only for Konqueror (Firefox and Opera don’t like this version of flash).
Using Konqueror, one can browse through most Flash and Java sites (there is a Java package as well)
That’s not PC-BSD’s fault though… (I’d really like to see Adobe behave twards Foss projects)
Hope Gnash comes upto speed!
Here is the proof:
http://www.pbidir.com/packages.php?code=262
I haven’t tested PC-BSD 1.2 yet, but I found it more responsive as a Desktop than Linux in the 1.0x series.
The header says it is optimized for 686? Has anyone run any benchmarks that would compare it to another OS? Is it indeed faster and optimized?
In the same way people said there is not complete prof that Gentoo, Arch or any other i686 (or better) optimized distro is faster than Debian, or Fedora, but anyone who has used those different systems will agree that 686 optimized systems feel faster and more responsive at least for the desktop.
I am amazed at the simplicity of installing packages, but they aren’t up to date. If you want me to run this OS, they need to crack the whip on their maintainers.
You can install bleeding edge software from ports- PC-BSD system tool already got portsnap utility in menus for easy ports database up to date keeping. Or you can update from command line:
example of installing intel 2200BG wireless drivers:
# portsnap fetch extract
# pkg_add -r portupgrade
# rehash
# portinstall ipw-firmware
# echo “if_iwi_load=”YES”” >> /boot/loader.conf
# reboot
to upgrade all installed programs that is newer from source:
# portupgrade -Nra
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.htm…
With PCBSD being around, I’d imagine many Linux users will switch. BSD is known for being consistent, and with the simplicity PCBSD offers on top of that, it must simply be unbeatable for everyday desktop use in the *nix world (excl. OSX).
I’m confident that user numbers will grow dramatically in a not so distant future. Hope servers will hold =)
Hope servers will hold =)
We are testing bittorrent distribution and I hope next release would be better available than just from our 27 mirrors
Perhaps hell has frozen over for *nix clones. I just tried the vmware image and not only is it fast, looks good (interface is consistent and attractive) you can actually add and remove programs. You can download and double click and have a logical, graphical installer that doesn’t require the command line.
job well done. The focus on the customer is obvious.
morglum
About command line:
%su –
Password:
PCBSD# cd /mnt/PBI/
PCBSD# ./Opera9-PV1.4.pbi -text
Installing Opera
Running install script…
Installation complete!
P.S. This feature would be useful for batch installation.
Edited 2006-07-14 13:53
While I love my SuSE 10.1 Linux, if PC-BSD keeps improving the way it has, I may have to switch. If I were MS I’d be much more worried about PC-BSD than I would be any Linux simply because PC-BSD’s interface and install scheme makes it a practically drop in replacement for Windows. Once they get either aiglx or xgl working, then this will be the true Vista killer.
I’ll try upgrading to this version tonight. I hope it works on my laptop, 1.1 did not, but it worked fine on my desktop. So either way I still get to use it
Come on folks. If you have to go to the command line to install up to date applications please do not compare PCBSD to Windows (XP or Vista). I moved from Windows to Mandrake Linux a few years ago and have never had a need to use the command line. If you expect to get any kind of market share you will have to fix this and the flash problem. Most people don’t want to play around with their systems, they just want to use them.
If you expect to get any kind of market share you will have to fix this and the flash problem.
What command line problem? And Flash is not our problem, this is Adobe problem.
What command line problem? And Flash is not our problem, this is Adobe problem.
Sorry but I beg to differ. Flash is not an Adobe problem. If Adobe does not consider it important to have up-to-date version of Flash for FreeBSD, obviously its not a problem for them. Neither is it a problem for FreeBSD as a sever platform.
But this IS a PCBSD problem, being a desktop OS built on FreeBSD. It would be nice to have ALL the usual plugins. PCBSD does not have it.
We understand that it is out of PCBSD developer’s control and Adobe should be the one doing something. Nevertheless it is a PCBSD problem.
This should not be a problem anymore
The legal issues with Flash are gone now.
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/emmy/archives/2006/06/a_pocket_guide….
OK I will compare XP..
MYTH: all programs in XP are click installable.
FACT: my education software that came on CD demands
that I install via typing install.exe on the
command line in XP.
This still happens.
No 586 support? Why?
I was actually looking forward to migrating an old Win98 machine to PC-BSD (my parents PC, a K6-2/500). Now this is out of the question…
Too bad
I found this to be rather unfortunate as well. I have a K6-3/450 that I’m sure would fly with PC-BSD.
I’m also not to keen on the resolution requirements for the installation. One of my machines is hooked up to a 640×480 lcd projector (sans monitor) and although PC-BSD itself works fine at 640×480 — I can’t install it without mucking around with using another monitor. (Although, I also recall reading about a console resolution change to 800×600 which might cause further problems for me… needless to say I haven’t updated).
Since I have around 5-6 boxes dedicated to *BSD I was hoping I could have a homogenous environment of all PC-BSD… but that’s turning out to be too hard to maintain. Not a big deal though.
I’ve used ULE a number of times during 5.x/6.x — whenever it was available. I never had any stability problems. That being said — I also didn’t really notice any performance/interactivity increases.
It will be a loooong time till <add word here>-BSD replaces Windows/Linux.
Hmm, but perhaps not too long before *BSD replaces Linux…;-)
Seriously, just as I was beginning to give up on any *nix-like free OS for my computing needs, along comes PC-BSD. For my part, all I can say is that it represents the same shot in the arm for this interested but not particularly technical or time-rich user that Knoppix in its own way did.
Gee, am I turning into a fanboy…
(Please note playfulness of tone and plain enjoyment of said software without actually huge amounts of Schadenfreude re: Linux)