"Not all user-friendly desktop operating systems are based on Linux; as demonstrated by PC-BSD, it is entirely feasible to turn a "geek" project into a piece of software that can be installed and used by even less technical computer users. Distrowatch talks to Kris Moore, PC-BSD lead developer, about his love affair with FreeBSD and the upcoming PC-BSD 7.0."
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Member since:2005-07-05
If you just want to virtualize several instances of FreeBSD to have a virtualized web server, mail server, and database server, for instance, then FreeBSD jails are a great alternative to virtualization, I think.
If you're looking to run Windows on FreeBSD, then I can see your point; although work is being done to get VirtualBox running on FreeBSD.
Member since:2005-07-05
One other comment...
I don't mind the PBI mechanism. It reminds me a little of OS X's install packages. It may not be the most efficient use of space, but who cares when a) they are easier to install, b) you won't run into dependency nightmares, and c) hard drive space is cheap and plentiful? I think this departure from tradition is acceptable for the sake of ease.
I've never tried PC-BSD before, but I was intrigued for some reason by this interview and looked into it further. I was impressed by the ease that PC-BSD offers and also the friendliness of the pbiDIR website, which not only lists all the PBI files available, but also sorts them into categories and allows users to rank them; making it easy for new users to not only find software, but find software that will probably work well for them.
Member since:2006-10-08
This is true, but once you're willing to invest some time, you end up with a taylored system exactly fitting your seeds. I know it, I've done it - using FreeBSD since 4.0 exclusively on servers and, yes, on the desktop, from a 150 MHz P1, a 500 MHz AMD up to a 2000 MHz P4, and I've never missed anything. I never found any preconfigured system that fitted my needs.
Now people may scream about "Flash" stuff, but this has never been of any interest to me. :-)
I've tried several versions of PC-BSD, too, and I was impressed. But NB: You need to have a computer that's up to date. Running PC-BSD on older hardware is not a good idea. I won't say that there are things that don't work, no no, all things do work, but sloooowwww. This is nothing bad per se, but KDE 3 (and 4, I think) are ressource hungry. The most impressive thing using PC-BSD was that if you're only using the GUI tools, everything works completely fine. Even the "most wanted" applications are present from startup, and nearly everything you need can be installed via PBI. Under the hood you still have the power of the FreeBSD OS, so you can do all the "tricks" that a GUI only solution can't. And that's great.
They invented something new, something users insist on having. From my point of view, surfing a web page, manually download things and be present during the installation is something retarded, but that seems to be what users want. So the PBI system perfectly fits their needs.
As you mentioned further, PBI doesn't interact with ports or packages. Still ports and packages can be installed on a PC-BSD system, but it's recommended to be very careful here.
DesktopBSD keeps things more traditional, keeping as much compatibility as possible.
Well, this depends on the hardware. FreeBSD doesn't talk to my microwave oven, do I complain? No. :-)
But you're right, FreeBSD's hardware support is a bit like Solaris' one. The suppported hardware is well selected, you can't hook every crappy piece of electronic garbage into the system and expect it to work. On the other hand, FreeBSD supprts everything that is compliant to existing standards. The support for wireless is not as good as in OpenBSD, I think, but it becomes better.
Member since:
2007-09-27
I tried using FreeBSD for desktop, in form of pure FreeBSD, DesktopBSD and PCBSD. They are all great, but, off course, FreeBSD in pure form needs a little extra. PC-BSD seems very polished but I'm not really impressed by the PBI system. Here I'll take the DekstopBSD ports approach to me much more "orthodox". Unfortunatelly, DesktopBSD team is, I gueess, much smaller than PCBSD team and the project is not that dynamic, though DesktopBSD as it is, it's a great OS.
Anyway, FreeBSD and it's variants would be a great Linux alternative for my desktop users if they only have some kind of free (not OSS necesarely) virtualization, in form of VMWare or VirtualBox, because sometimes I just have to run MSOffice products and I can't 100% trust wine for this. And off course, excellent hardware support is a must.