OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/18933/Fry_s_Electronics_To_Carry_PC-BSD_1_4 Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Fri, 24 May 2013 09:46:05 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Secure? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284658 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284658 I thought FreeBSD was known for being the best performance... and OpenBSD was the one with best security? Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (TLZ_) Comments Hot http://www.osnews.com/thread?284659 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284659 BSD is getting itself on new and broader markers ;) Couldn't be hotter.

Keep it up Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nullpt) Comments RE: Secure? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284661 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284661 It's still known as being very secure with excellent performance. Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (w00dst0ck) Comments RE: Secure? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284668 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284668 OpenBSD is a fine operating system, but with the best paranoia :-) This is of course nothing bad, but security is not an automatism. So it's up to you in the end, an operating system can deliver a proper base only.Edited 2007-11-15 20:50 Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Oliver) Comments Boxed distros are so 1990s http://www.osnews.com/thread?284681 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284681 If music can move to online distribution formats, surely software must do the same (MS and Apple are excluded for piracy reasons). Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stephanem) Comments RE: Boxed distros are so 1990s http://www.osnews.com/thread?284689 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284689 I think this is a valid point. Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (backdoc) Comments Interesting... http://www.osnews.com/thread?284693 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284693 I've used PCBSD for a little bit now, and I'm impressed so far. It does come with some questionable software taking up space on the install CD, but luckily those aren't installed by default.


I can't use PCBSD yet to replace my main computer, but I may put it onto my next laptop. Too bad the nearest Fry's is about 1200 miles away... Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almafeta) Comments whee.. more kde =) http://www.osnews.com/thread?284699 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284699 i hope this goes far for the PC-BSD team. they've done a really nice job of rolling FreeBSD and KDE into a usable OS. congrats to all involved... Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (aseigo) Comments RE: Boxed distros are so 1990s http://www.osnews.com/thread?284705 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284705 There's room for both. Music is still sold in stores, too. Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jjmckay) Comments good news http://www.osnews.com/thread?284716 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284716 Great news for both iXsystems and PCBSD, I hope it spreads. Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stormloss) Comments Fry's http://www.osnews.com/thread?284717 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284717 They also sale FreeBSD disks there. They also carry Xandros linux, and other random distros also. Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vondur) Comments ...... http://www.osnews.com/thread?284723 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284723 Good move but I want to see some numbers on units sold after.Not trolling,just curious and slightly bewildered since Dell wont release their Ubuntu desktop sales. Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (islander) Comments Frys... funny http://www.osnews.com/thread?284724 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284724 I drive withing stone-throwing distance of two different Frys stores on my way to/from work every day ;)

I only shop there because they offer some awesome weekly bargains (most often with mail-in-rebates) - otherwise I find the store pretty much a PITA and somewhat disappointing.

Still - I guess having your product offered for sale at Frys is a milestone ;) Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (umccullough) Comments Bad idea http://www.osnews.com/thread?284762 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284762 trying to push pc-bsd into the mainstream is not a good idea. It simply is still not user friendly enough, and will end up giving bsd/linux a bad image if they do get people to buy it. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (airwedge1) Comments RE: Boxed distros are so 1990s http://www.osnews.com/thread?284779 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284779 It is available online:
http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/21/11/

I don't see it as a bad thing that they also offer a boxed version in stores. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Priest) Comments RE: Bad idea http://www.osnews.com/thread?284785 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284785 "trying to push pc-bsd into the mainstream is not a good idea. It simply is still not user friendly enough, and will end up giving bsd/linux a bad image if they do get people to buy it."

Why not? Has this stopped commercial Linux distros such as Mandrake and SUSE in the past? If there is profit to be made, why not go for it? It can only help the BSDs in the process, and really, they could use a slight boost, with Linux eating away at their pie and Solaris with "Project Indiana" trying to grab some market share. The most that will happen is, I figure, a large number of people with walk in Fry's, see PC-BSD, go "WTF's that?" and move on.

As for Fry's in general... well, I always hear good things about the place. Lots of good deals, and apparently they carry some good stuff. To bad they've got no stores around here in Ohio. From their site when trying to find a nearby store:

"Cannot locate store near this zip code"

Yippee. Well, I guess there's always newegg.com. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 03:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (UltraZelda64) Comments RE: Bad idea http://www.osnews.com/thread?284788 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284788
trying to push pc-bsd into the mainstream is not a good idea. It simply is still not user friendly enough, and will end up giving bsd/linux a bad image if they do get people to buy it.


Well, if Ubuntu in its current state can be a commercial success... Fri, 16 Nov 2007 03:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almafeta) Comments nonplussed http://www.osnews.com/thread?284794 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284794 I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, and I certainly don't want to get Matt mad at me. But how is this news? Last time I was at Fry's they had FreeBSD, NetBSD, AND OpenBSD. I don't recall any OSNews announcement when they started to be carried (though Fry's has probably carried FreeBSD since before OSNews was a gleam in its daddy's eye). Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Brandybuck) Comments RE: Bad idea http://www.osnews.com/thread?284795 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284795 BSD is not linux, and trying to push it into the mainstream and generating interest is how OSS projects get better. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE: Bad idea http://www.osnews.com/thread?284806 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284806 That never stopped Microsoft from selling Windows. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rajj) Comments So? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284812 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284812 "FreeBSD is one of the most used UNIX-like operating systems in the world"

I think that's a little hopeful - 'one of the most' as in the bottom half of the top 10 or so maybe, under Linux, Solaris, AIX, IRIX, Darwin etc.

Charging for PCBSD is a bit much too - I hope its just media costs. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (simo) Comments Best performance? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284829 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284829 Actually, word has it NetBSD outperforms both ... Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (s_groening) Comments RE: So? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284835 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284835 "think that's a little hopeful - 'one of the most' as in the bottom half of the top 10 or so maybe, under Linux, Solaris, AIX, IRIX, Darwin etc. "

A quick look on Netcraft would debunk your statement. Linux is more popular, but that's about it. AIX, IRIX, Darwin are way below FreeBSD in usage. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bentman78) Comments RE: Boxed distros are so 1990s - boxed works for initial purchase http://www.osnews.com/thread?284845 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284845 Online distribution doesn't work so well for the initial OS purchase or rebuilds. Granted, the number of people who can't get access to a network connection is getting smaller but you still need physical media sales until you get that network connection. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jabbotts) Comments RE: Best performance? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284851 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284851 """
Actually, word has it NetBSD outperforms both ...

"""

News flash! Benchmarks conducted by NetBSD advocate prove that NetBSD is 10% faster than FreeBSD! While similar benchmarks conducted by a FreeBSD advocate prove that FreeBSD is 80% faster than NetBSD!

Film at 11.

http://tinyurl.com/2lhp2mEdited 2007-11-16 14:34 Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) Comments RE: nonplussed http://www.osnews.com/thread?284863 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284863 "I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, and I certainly don't want to get Matt mad at me. But how is this news? Last time I was at Fry's they had FreeBSD, NetBSD, AND OpenBSD. I don't recall any OSNews announcement when they started to be carried (though Fry's has probably carried FreeBSD since before OSNews was a gleam in its daddy's eye)."

PC-BSD and (Free, Open, Net)BSD target different audiences.

Those who want to use FreeBSD (insert NetBSD or OpenBSD, too) usually are able to order it from an online store or simply download it, and then they build their system after their individual requirements. In most cases, they won't be customers at Fry's.

Those who are new to a BSD OS will want to have everything they expect from an OS distribution as they know it from mainstream Linux distributions. So PC-BSD comes with KDE and lots of stuff that is targetted at the average home user. Look into the PBI store and see what's available there. This is the target group that will visit Fry's to see what's on the shelves.

As a sidenote, I think it's a good idea that a home user oriented BSD is available "the old fashioned way" for sale in a shop. Maybe the shiny package will be good for marketing, too. :-) Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments RE[2]: So? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284865 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284865 netcraft shows os usage by number of webservers that's all!

solaris is mainly used for backend servers like databases and java appservers, linux is used a lot on embedded stuff, darwin in macosx desktops - none of which are webservers that netcraft would pick up.

freebsd being more popular than macosx is laughable (not that i'm happy about that). Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (simo) Comments RE: ...... - theory seems to be that it avoids the skrip kiddie debates http://www.osnews.com/thread?284868 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284868 The best theory I've heard regarding Dell not releasing exact figures for Ubuntu versus other OS sales is that it avoids some of the journalist sensationalism articles and skript kiddie debates that run rampant.

Consider the example of the OLPC project. It is purely about getting education supporting tools too places where digital media is actually far more viable than expensive and limited quantity printed media. The project released a number early on; they wanted to aim for 100$ USD price per unit. There's been no end to ongoing invalid critisism of the project for not meeting that secondary goal. Like any other debate, there is always someone willing to nitt pick at points purely for the chance to complain.

So, back to the point. The theory goes that Dell's financial figures regarding customer choices is just that; Dell's inventory figures. To some degree, they avoid the negative publicity of being bashed all around the net for not meeting targets or whatever other spin can be put on figures for someone's chance to be heard complaining.

I can understand Dell's choice. I'm one of those that would be interested to see solid test results. I'd also like to see true Distro by Distro *nix enumeration figures and true Windows version by version (actually in use) figures but both of those figure sets are not going to apear accurately any time soon either.

Overall, I'm just glad to see choice being offered to the end user outside of the usual geekdom sources. Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jabbotts) Comments Good luck PC-BSD http://www.osnews.com/thread?284872 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284872 I'm so happy to see PC-BSD is being more popular since it is based on FreeBSD and KDE. ;) Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Arabian) Comments RE[2]: ...... - theory seems to be that it avoids the skrip kiddie debates http://www.osnews.com/thread?284921 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284921 Fair enough.Sounds reasonable to me ;) Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (islander) Comments RE[2]: Best performance? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284973 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284973 News flash for wanna-be flame-starters :-)

1.advocates yes, but long-time mature developers too
2. no film, if you do your homework first; the NetBSD developer used a developer version of FreeBSD current, with lots of debug stuff in it. Both of them came later to similar results. So no flame-bait, no flame-war and last not least no film. Sorry. If you still want to use your popcorn head over to LKML =) Sat, 17 Nov 2007 20:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Oliver) Comments RE[3]: Best performance? http://www.osnews.com/thread?284979 http://www.osnews.com/thread?284979
News flash for wanna-be flame-starters :-)


Nope. I balanced one possibly controversial point against another so that a flame war would be unlikely. And I linked to the actual exchange between the two testers to provide a fair and accurate view.

And I think I did pretty well since no flame war ever even threatened to break out. I think you misinterpreted my humorous spin on the theme of experimental bias for trolling, which is probably understandable.

And *of course* the interaction between the testers was professional and amicable. The OS wars are like sporting events. The players display a *lot* more sportsmanship than the fans. ;-)

-Steve Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) Comments