Linked by Amjith Ramanujam on Thu 2nd Oct 2008 20:50 UTC
Recently the PC-BSD team released their latest stable version (PC-BSD 7) code-named Fibonacci Edition. Some of major changes from the previous version include a newer kernel, an experimental ZFS module, and a KDE 4 for desktop environment. Being a Linux junkie, I thought of this as a perfect opportunity to venture into the BSD arena.
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Member since:2008-02-26
It's likely you weren't using vim at all but nvi. nvi is a part of the base BSD system and behaves exactly like the original UNIX vi.
vi!=vim. You are doing it wrong if you are typing vi to bring it up. Most Linux distributions symlink vi to vim, in non compatible mode which is the behavior you are expecting. If you want vim, you will have to install it if it isn't, or type v-i-m.
Member since:2005-07-08
After reading this article I tested the OS yesterday on my laptop.
Wow! That is the best compliment I've gotten so far
. Now to address your issues. I was able to run vim without much trouble. I tried GVim and it looked like crap (it was still using GTK 1.2 or something). So I compiled my own GVim from source with GTK 2.0 and it worked like a charm. I thought I would not like the way you install packages in PC-BSD, and for my personal use I prefer the way of most Linuxes,
As far as the package installation goes, the FreeBSD ports will do a good job of satisfying a power user who wants things to be not so easy. After all the list of PBI files is so limited I find myself using the ports more often. Have you tried the pkg_add command? That is the equivalent of apt-get install or urpmi or emerge in a Linux environment. If you find that too easy, there is always ./configure && make && make install.
One critique though; KDE4 ran very poorly on my 2 year old laptop, when I started a little QT game called KrisK my laptop started panting placing there was a delay of atleast 0,25 seconds between click and action.
Could this be related to the ATI driver? If it works smoothly on Linux, then it makes me wonder if you need to tweak your Xorg.conf. Try to copy your Xorg.conf from the Linux partition (if you still have it) and replace the BSD's Xorg.conf file. You might need to modify the file a little bit to make it work. (Always backup your working Xorg.conf file, before trying anything funny).
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/15/13 23:03 UTC
"During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.More News »
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Member since:
2007-12-26
After reading this article I tested the OS yesterday on my laptop. I'm an advanced Linux user but every time I tried to look at BSD I couldn't get it to work properly. This in contradiction to PC-BSD, the installation went very smooth and after it was finished I got greeted with a full working KDE session.
The drivers for my ATI card worked poorly, but this can be forgiven for it's a crappy on board card that doesn't even work wonders in Linux.
I thought I would not like the way you install packages in PC-BSD, and for my personal use I prefer the way of most Linuxes, but for a average desktop computer it seems quite good; I'm sure it feels more natural to Windows and OSX users.
The best compliment I can give the new PC-BSD is that I threw it all off again, I don't like OS'es that are that easy to use, not geeky enough.
One critique though; KDE4 ran very poorly on my 2 year old laptop, when I started a little QT game called KrisK my laptop started panting placing there was a delay of atleast 0,25 seconds between click and action. Is this an issue with my computer if any-one knows? I tested KDE4 on Linux once with the seem computer and it ran much more smoothly.
P.S: I wonder does BSD have some kind of different version of Vim, it's my most used piece of software but I couldn't work with this one. Sometimes it went out of insert mode when I went a line up, after which it refused to go back in it again, I felt stupid hearing all those error beeps