Submitted by “Overall – DesktopBSD is a pleasure to run and a breeze to install. It is an excellent choice for a new BSD user, a not terribly sophisticated computer user, or an old salt who just wants a good, solid, reliable desktop that won’t take days to install and weeks to configure and just wants to get on with it.”
I highly agree that this is a welcome distro in the BSD world. It is very much like the Debian “wrappers” that provide ease-of-use around a Debian core. PC-BSD is very easy to install. It make it easy to install Java, OpenOffice, NVidia drivers, etc. However, since you can user the regular FreeBSD ports, you are free to install anything supported by FreeBSD! I know how to do installs the “hard” way (gotta love that disklabel program in OpenBSD), I just don’t feel a need to do so!
eer… the review is about DesktopBSD, not PC-BSD
All well and good – excellent packaging of BSD – will give Linux a run for its money sometime but for now setting up a printer still sucks….. major problem IMO!
All well and good – excellent packaging of BSD – will give Linux a run for its money sometime but for now setting up a printer still sucks….. major problem IMO!
Have you tried it lately? CUPS printing was supposed to have been fixed by one of the recent releases (1 or 2 previous). I haven’t used it lately, so I can’t verify the printing status, just repeating what I read.
I should give it a try.
lat time I looked it seemed to be more user centric and did not amke installing server packages all that stream lined
That thing is called “DesktopBSD”, we want to ease installation, update and use for ordinary people, maybe most of them with absolutely no idea of BSD. A typical admin would use scripts or the like, not an GUI (for some good reasons).
Normally a desktop user has nothing to do with bind, Apache and Postfix.
But don’t forget: This is FreeBSD 5.4, you can install every app via ports, packages, the ports GUI, from sources or even with pkgsrc if you like. FreeBSD has over 13.600 applications available within the ports, use them in DesktopBSD as well as in FreeBSD.
If you have questions, please read the handbook first. Otherwise look for help in a forum, newsgroup etc.
Kind regards, Daniel Seuffert
ahem.. OS X is a desktop Operating system, but it includes all those services with no GUI way to set them up, but they are all there and ready to turn on which is easy enough.
I want an Easy to install system with all the services already there for me to turn on.
Then maybe running FreeBSD itself would be “better” for you… I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this thing is basically FreeBSD with a nice little installer, so enabling the services you require would be done in the same manner as you would do it on the “real thing”.
But I am proposing that the packages already be installed with the base system and only if they are activated will they run.
Try installing the instant-server package at install (or after install using the package/ports gui). It includes all the services you mentioned except a dns server.
It’s not installed by default, but it’s the next best thing.
when will theoden learn his desktops are ugly! at least when i put my os x screenshots on the archlinux forum they actually look good. ;-p theoden’s bsd screenshots on the archlinux forum don’t.
I thought they looked alright
I find it odd they used the old installer approach. They could’ve easily gone with a livecd containing an installer app that the user runs (e.g. like knoppix), which is much more elegant, IMO.
-bytecoder
I find it odd they used the old installer approach. They could’ve easily gone with a livecd containing an installer app that the user runs (e.g. like knoppix), which is much more elegant, IMO.
LiveCDs are fine to demo a product at a friend’s house, but for daily tasks you don’t want to run a LiveCD, you want the full speed of your Raid-0 array of 2x 15,000 rpm HDD’s
Yes, but what I’m talking about is a combination live cd/installer. It’s a normal live cd, but it includes an installer app if you want to install it to your hard drive.
-bytecoder
i think the poster had in mind a livecd that have a app on it that work very much like a normal installer. start it up and you can use it to partition the hardrive, set up users and programs, and then run the install.
allso, livecds make for excelent rescue cds as you have a whole os to use. not just some bare bones with a stack of scripts to fix common flaws.
The DesktopBSD developers share your opinion too and this is the reason why release 1.0 will be available as a Live-CD/DVD containing an installer. This is RC2, not final.
Daniel Seuffert
Oh, ok. That makes sense.
-bytecoder
Sorry, just forgot to add that link: http://www.desktopbsd.net/index.php?id=37
Does DesktopBSD have a binary package system to upgrade the software application without have to do ‘make install clean’? My experience with FreeBSD has been that it is easy to install and workwith but upgrading installed applications is a pain and leads to multiple system breaks. It can be fixed but is no place for most people who are just looking for a computing platform.
FYI: you cannot just do a “make install clean”; that does not resolve dependencies. Your looking to use “portinstall -N” which is part of “portupgrade”:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=portupgrade&apropos=0&sekt…
Don’t forget to CVSup and build an index before installing or upgrading software.
PS: somethings have changed about the index file (recently).
PSS: Been out of FreeBSD for a while. Double check on the mailing lists about the upgrade/install process. Sorry about being blunt; but you are missing a few steps. No disrespect intended.
Sorry, forgot to mention one thing about the binary packages. Look at the “-p, -P or -PP” options for portupgrade; also using the “-r, -R” options are also quite important.
Sorry to point you to the man page; but it does a better job of explaining (than I could).
DesktopBSD may just be it! I suggest DesktopBSD studies how Ubuntu succeeded (I mean the non-technical aspects) and see if it can replicate the formula. The way to the masses’ hearts is through an easy to use desktop; most people will sacrifice flexibility for something that just works out of the box! I also think it should find a way to solicit meaningful donations (>$10) to fund its work. Perhaps a sponsor list in one of the menus somewhere (make it searchable); look, no one wants to die unknown, and being a guaranteed mentioned name that lives on for posterity might just be appealing enough to many. All in all, great job!
Funny i was going to say something similar 🙂
Problem with FreeBSD is that hardware support is less wide than Linux. For example High Definition Audio sound cards are not supported and so I can’t run freebsd…
FYI: you cannot just do a “make install clean”; that does not resolve dependencies. Your looking to use “portinstall -N” which is part of “portupgrade”:
Actually “portupgrade -NRr” if you want to install a new app and “portupgrade -rR” if you want to upgrade a particular app.
Hardware support is less wide with Linux than Windows….
Normally I drop an e-mail to the HW manufacturer putting pressure that I need drivers or specs. In some cases it works.
NVidia for instance is one who has produced drivers for a variety of systems… kudos to them for that =)
Another hot tip is to buy HW which there are drivers for instead of buying HW and then try to find drivers.
Hardware support is less wide with Linux than Windows….
I don’t agree.
For example sata-raid isn’t supported by windows without a driver floppy.TV cards aren’t supported either.
Congrats! You’ve choosen a very good and pleasing Desktop Environment for DesktopBSD. It’s always nice to see that a good OS choses the correct Desktop.
What are the main differences between DesktopBSD and PC-BSD? They have mainly the same goal, right?
Unless something’s fundamentally different between the too, I think the BSD-community would be better served by coordinating their efforts or they’ll end up with half a million or so indistinguishable distros like with Linux.
We also have a review on BSDGangster.org on PC-BSD…http://www.bsdgangster.org/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle…
That may give you a idea. Desktop BSD seems to be a little more polished as of right now, but pc-bsd has a new package manager that if done right could be a very nice addition to the bsd community
when will a BSD friendly distro come out with gnome!?
i love BSD and Linux in general, but i hate KDE! and dont tell me gnome is not noob friendly..
I have version of Desktop BSD (might be RC1) on one of my machines, and although it shows promise, I will be replacing it soon. The various configuration utilities seem to be well laid out, but I have had some issues (I should probably get around to filing some bug reports). The software updating tool always hit conflicts with updating something and wanted me to resolve the conflicts manually. I can understand that happening in some cases, but it was really annoying to hit that when all I tried to do is upgrade the packages from the base install. The networking configuration tool was pretty interesting, but was a bit biased toward DHCP (I forget the exact details). I use a static configuration, and after I start the machine, I have to fire up the network tool and manually tell it to start the networking stuff. That was basicly a showstopper for me. It definitely has potential, and I will be keeping my eye on it, but in its current state, it doesn’t really suit me.
I couldn’t help but laugh Australia and something called
US English when did Australia, take up misspelling? 😉
If I were you I would have been insulted and I would
have removed the insulting product from my computer.
http://www.us-english.org/inc/news/preleases/viewRelease.asp?ID=161
Americans favor making English the official language of the “U.S.”
English
Recognise
behaviour
recognising
paralyse
labelling
analyse
programme
travelling
revitalise
apologising
defence
channelled
finalised
fulfil
fulfilling
fulfilment
fulfiller.
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Job safety, job performance, and product quality are seriously affected
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My daughter who is five years old, just started kindergarten
where she is learning ABCs. I am 23 years and I am learning
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I am not sure..If that question is valid. When I heard about this DesktopBSD..I went through the sites and found installation procedure and screen shots..looks fine, but how could I get it in flesh. Is there any mirror sites to download..
Thank You.