PC-BSD announced that it will deliver Opera in the next version of PC-BSD. Opera will be “one less thing you need to download after installation”, as Matt Olander, CTO of iXsystems puts it, to get “a more usable system” out of your PC-BSD box.
That’s really cool. I really like Opera, I don’t use it as my main browser due to a few site compatibility issues, but I do use it when I have the opportunity. Fast, small – great.
I don’t demand/beg Opera for this (they already give away the browser for free…) but I sure would LOVE to see an open sourced Opera appear.
That said, keep up the great work PC-BSD team, you’re really making an impressive desktop OS!
Whether you love or hate opera, just having the choice there is great. I bet this will be the start of many more applications to be delivered/installed with pc-bsd.
I with ya. But the thing was the linux users were the ones claiming “this is the year of the linux desktop”. Can’t say I heard anyone put a bsd in that context. Might be because pc-bsd wasn’t available when these statements were made, and pc-bsd is definintely changing the desktop paradigm.
I can’t say I’ve ever heard any linux people say that, though. Oh, I’m sure there have been may journalists who have made that claim at some point, but mostly I see people using it as an argument against linux ever gaining traction. It’s kind of like “rpm hell” or “dll hell” or “move your mouse and BSOD in XP.” These are all arguments used by detractors of the various platforms, but the reality is that all of them are largely non-existent issues, and have been for years.
Other than a goofy zealot or a just-discovered-ubuntu-newbie, can you actually say you’ve seen a real live linux user say “this will be the YOLOtD?”
Back on subject – I think PCBSD is doing some fantastic work and I hope they keep making progress. I haven’t poked at it for several months, maybe even a year, but last time I did, I was very happy with how easy things were to install and get running.
This makes me happy because Opera is my favorite web browser. (I’m typing this comment on it.) I’ve been using it since the 7.0x days, and I actually paid for it back when it wasn’t free.
It’s a shame it’s not included in more operating systems, and it’s an even bigger shame that some sites discriminate against it. If that wasn’t the case, I think it’d catch up to Firefox in terms of marketshare, perhaps even surpass it.
“I’ve been using [Opera] since the 7.0x days, and I actually paid for it back when it wasn’t free.
Same here, too, but since version 5. Actually, Opera still is my favourite browser, it can even do this “Flash” stuff without much work. The only thing I don’t like about Opera is the fact that configuration has gotten more complext and decentralized, but the more features an application has, the more complicated it is to setup.
“[…] and it’s an even bigger shame that some sites discriminate against it.”
Yes, I see this problem and encounter it some times, but sites not willing to use any standards are not worth to be used / viewed at. One goal for site developers should be to provide barrier free access, but they usually just think about using the newest “Flash” stuff and extraordinary nonstandard HTML extensions. That’s a sad development.
“If that wasn’t the case, I think it’d catch up to Firefox in terms of marketshare, perhaps even surpass it.”
Market share? Wouldn’t you better have used “usage share”? 🙂
Just to add it, PC-BSD is one of the OSes I usually like to recommend and give away to users that don’t want to use (pirated copies of) “Windows” anymore with all its problems and security issues. The easy PBI package system and the stable base system are really nice, combined with KDE, PC-BSD offers a complete desktop system for most purposes of home users. (Personally, I prefer a “real” FreeBSD.)
Me too. Actually, I paid for it back when I was still using Windows and a dialup internet connection. Now with cable and faster PCs it’s not such a big deal, but the shocking thing that Opera did was to instantly reload the last page when you hit the back button.
Well, with a few clicks any user can install it trough the PBI system but what’s really important is the agreement that PC-BSD and iXsystems are making to bring more features and more goodies to it’s users.
personaly i hope opera is the only browser on there (of course konquer will be there). After all fire fox runs on anything practicaly, and thats good cuz its great, but opera is a little harder to get on things right some times. so to have it be the main focus seems best to me. epecialy since pc-bsd is ment for bussiness as well, all the intigration of opera is nice
Funny, I’m the exact opposite, finding firefox buggy, bloated, buggy, slow, buggy, and even 2.0 still has that wonderful memory ‘feature’ (mostly in the stupid download manager – let’s route EVERYTHING through the download manager, even images and files that are already in the cache, even redownloading them in some cases – RIGHT)
In fact, I’m not in the habit of supporting programs that try to pass a memory leak as a feature, or that has a support staff (bugzilla) who’s best response to an error report is a two paragraph attack on saying ‘crash’ instead of ‘hung’ – a distinction I’ve not heard in three decades of computing.
———————————
On topic – Good to see SOMEONE in the *nix world for whom this ‘free as in freedom or nothing’ (which is the opposite of freedom BTW) means exactly two things. … and jack left town
But then, PC-BSD has always been a bit more pragmatic, willing to listen to REAL WORLD concerns and a good deal less naive/idealistic than the ‘Free Software’ nutjobs who’ve taken over the rest of the *nix community.
If nothing else, it’s nice to see a *nix that you go “I want to run commercial software” and the people behind it go “Let’s see what we can do to make it work” instead of having them rant and rave for an hour about how it’s “evil” to do so, calling you a sellout, and only after you basically threaten their lives get a simple “Oh, just enable __________” from ‘just another user’. (Yes Gentoo, I’m looking at you.)
If nothing else, it’s nice to see a *nix that you go “I want to run commercial software” and the people behind it go “Let’s see what we can do to make it work” instead of having them rant and rave for an hour about how it’s “evil” to do so, calling you a sellout, and only after you basically threaten their lives get a simple “Oh, just enable __________” from ‘just another user’. (Yes Gentoo, I’m looking at you.)
Solaris has been like that for a while I think at some point in the near future, OpenSolaris will be just as user-friendly as PCBSD, and just like PCBSD already has a great license.
True, but Solaris (formerly sunOS) harkens back well before Linux was a twinkle in Linus’ eye, and when everyone still thought of Stallman as ‘that nutjob who wants to give it all away’ assuming they even heard of him instead of the psuedo-religious messiah he is now…
True, but Solaris (formerly sunOS) harkens back well before Linux was a twinkle in Linus’ eye, and when everyone still thought of Stallman as ‘that nutjob who wants to give it all away’ assuming they even heard of him instead of the psuedo-religious messiah he is now…
Hmm, if you look at Sun’s history, they’ve never taken on GNU or Stallman, many of the times Sun employees were running Linux before it became ‘in vogue’ by the ‘five minute fanboys’, porting GNU software to Solaris, and had embraced openstandards long before Microsoft started ramming their crap through committes with $100 notes attached to them.
Just because Sun weren’t jumping out of isles at the ‘church of gnu’ didn’t mean that they weren’t doing ‘opensource’ stuff in their own way – you need to realise that the way a company can interact with the marketplace is completely different to the way Stallman does – everything a person at Sun says might and can be interpeted and might impact on their share price and bottom line – unlike Sun, Stallman doesn’t have to worry about such things, he can rant and rave, and it won’t make a lick of difference.
Solaris has been like that for a while I think at some point in the near future, OpenSolaris will be just as user-friendly as PCBSD, and just like PCBSD already has a great license.
IMHO OpenSolaris is already for the desktop; I’m running SX:CE Build 60 and from my experience for the last couple of days IMHO it is very much ready.
As for commercial applications; ultimately, one can make as much noise to these companies as one wants, but at the end of the day, if the commercial companies are narrow minded enough not to port their applications to the said operating system, it isn’t the fault of the operating system vendor.
What it should be, however, is a catalyst for the opensource community to rally around and create an opensource version of that application.
I think its very healthy, for the free software. that there’s extremist and easy going licenses. that will protect the free software and bring easy solution to the end user.
just think what if xorg or samba is closed and for money
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; Google Wireless Transcoder;)
PC-BSD is BAD. It’s just a “MSWindows-BSD” and no more. PBI is awful! Every time when you install an application all needed libraries will be installed in program’s folder like it is in Win32 (C:Program FilesMyProgram). So your system has many copies of each library instead of having one in /usr/lib. Soon all your free space on a hard drive disappears. Furthermore, PBI-packages are much larger than ‘deb’,’rpm’ or ‘tar.bz2’, and it’s difficult to download them. And of course I hate the look of PBI-installer.
I think that DesktopBSD is much better then PC-BSD.
“PC-BSD is BAD. It’s just a “MSWindows-BSD” and no more.
PC-BSD *is* FreeBSD. And former Microsoft fanboy like *cough* you *cough* should use Windows instead of talking nonsense about community driven project.
PBI is awful! Every time when you install an application all needed libraries will be installed in program’s folder like it is in Win32 (C:Program FilesMyProgram).
You mean just like in Apple MacOS X- self-contained, without dependency hell? I know you miss all this dep hell- you are frustrated- install MS Windows (or GNU/Linux).
So your system has many copies of each library instead of having one in /usr/lib. Soon all your free space on a hard drive disappears. Furthermore, PBI-packages are much larger than ‘deb’,’rpm’ or ‘tar.bz2’, and it’s difficult to download them.
OpenOffice.org2.1-PV2.1.pbi – 114MB
(you can install plain FreeBSD version into PC-BSD too with pkg_add):
Sorry to hear that your 400GB disk is full of pirated videos and music and you can`t free couple of gigabytes for your favorite applications. Or you just don`t know how to install software from ports in FreeBSD/PC-BSD.
And of course I hate the look of PBI-installer.
I know- take pill, take a deep breath and calm down- you can beat up your girlfriend for that later.
I think that DesktopBSD is much better then PC-BSD.
You mean that FreeBSD in DesktopBSD is better than FreeBSD in PC-BSD? Or what? This reminds me conversation of 5 year old boys: “My dad can beat up your dad any time, yeah!!” or “My fart smells better than your fart!!”
Every time when you install an application all needed libraries will be installed in program’s folder like it is in Win32 (C:Program FilesMyProgram). So your system has many copies of each library instead of having one in /usr/lib.
Oh Noes! It comes with everything it needs to run!
This isn’t a bad thing, and they designed it that way so that an updated lib won’t break other apps. It’s a good decision for a desktop oriented distro where people will be installing and deinstalling software on a regular basis.
Anyway, install from ports if you’re that concerned.
Soon all your free space on a hard drive disappears. … difficult to download them. And of course I hate the look of PBI-installer.
Yes, installing applications does eat up hard drive space.
Try downloading from a mirror closer to you, and not over WIFI.
The default look is ugly, but it can be tweaked to look pretty good. Some packages have already done this, and it looks much better.
Submitted by 
That’s really cool.
I really like Opera, I don’t use it as my main browser due to a few site compatibility issues, but I do use it when I have the opportunity. Fast, small – great.
I don’t demand/beg Opera for this (they already give away the browser for free…) but I sure would LOVE to see an open sourced Opera appear.
That said, keep up the great work PC-BSD team, you’re really making an impressive desktop OS!
Whether you love or hate opera, just having the choice there is great. I bet this will be the start of many more applications to be delivered/installed with pc-bsd.
An easy to use operating system, BSD-based that includes Opera by default? I must be dreaming. “*NIX not suitable for desktops” Yeah, sure
hehe, no one with a clue makes that comment anymore
I with ya. But the thing was the linux users were the ones claiming “this is the year of the linux desktop”. Can’t say I heard anyone put a bsd in that context. Might be because pc-bsd wasn’t available when these statements were made, and pc-bsd is definintely changing the desktop paradigm.
I can’t say I’ve ever heard any linux people say that, though. Oh, I’m sure there have been may journalists who have made that claim at some point, but mostly I see people using it as an argument against linux ever gaining traction. It’s kind of like “rpm hell” or “dll hell” or “move your mouse and BSOD in XP.” These are all arguments used by detractors of the various platforms, but the reality is that all of them are largely non-existent issues, and have been for years.
Other than a goofy zealot or a just-discovered-ubuntu-newbie, can you actually say you’ve seen a real live linux user say “this will be the YOLOtD?”
Back on subject – I think PCBSD is doing some fantastic work and I hope they keep making progress. I haven’t poked at it for several months, maybe even a year, but last time I did, I was very happy with how easy things were to install and get running.
This makes me happy because Opera is my favorite web browser. (I’m typing this comment on it.) I’ve been using it since the 7.0x days, and I actually paid for it back when it wasn’t free.
It’s a shame it’s not included in more operating systems, and it’s an even bigger shame that some sites discriminate against it. If that wasn’t the case, I think it’d catch up to Firefox in terms of marketshare, perhaps even surpass it.
“I’ve been using [Opera] since the 7.0x days, and I actually paid for it back when it wasn’t free.
Same here, too, but since version 5. Actually, Opera still is my favourite browser, it can even do this “Flash” stuff without much work. The only thing I don’t like about Opera is the fact that configuration has gotten more complext and decentralized, but the more features an application has, the more complicated it is to setup.
“[…] and it’s an even bigger shame that some sites discriminate against it.”
Yes, I see this problem and encounter it some times, but sites not willing to use any standards are not worth to be used / viewed at. One goal for site developers should be to provide barrier free access, but they usually just think about using the newest “Flash” stuff and extraordinary nonstandard HTML extensions. That’s a sad development.
“If that wasn’t the case, I think it’d catch up to Firefox in terms of marketshare, perhaps even surpass it.”
Market share? Wouldn’t you better have used “usage share”? 🙂
Just to add it, PC-BSD is one of the OSes I usually like to recommend and give away to users that don’t want to use (pirated copies of) “Windows” anymore with all its problems and security issues. The easy PBI package system and the stable base system are really nice, combined with KDE, PC-BSD offers a complete desktop system for most purposes of home users. (Personally, I prefer a “real” FreeBSD.)
So, PC-BSD team, keep the good work running!
I actually paid for it back when it wasn’t free.
Me too. Actually, I paid for it back when I was still using Windows and a dialup internet connection. Now with cable and faster PCs it’s not such a big deal, but the shocking thing that Opera did was to instantly reload the last page when you hit the back button.
Well, with a few clicks any user can install it trough the PBI system but what’s really important is the agreement that PC-BSD and iXsystems are making to bring more features and more goodies to it’s users.
Keep it up!
I think this is really bad.
I don’t want Opera. I want Firefox. I hope Firefox is default after installation. If it’s Opera it stinks.
personaly i hope opera is the only browser on there (of course konquer will be there). After all fire fox runs on anything practicaly, and thats good cuz its great, but opera is a little harder to get on things right some times. so to have it be the main focus seems best to me. epecialy since pc-bsd is ment for bussiness as well, all the intigration of opera is nice
>> I don’t want Opera. I want Firefox.
Funny, I’m the exact opposite, finding firefox buggy, bloated, buggy, slow, buggy, and even 2.0 still has that wonderful memory ‘feature’ (mostly in the stupid download manager – let’s route EVERYTHING through the download manager, even images and files that are already in the cache, even redownloading them in some cases – RIGHT)
In fact, I’m not in the habit of supporting programs that try to pass a memory leak as a feature, or that has a support staff (bugzilla) who’s best response to an error report is a two paragraph attack on saying ‘crash’ instead of ‘hung’ – a distinction I’ve not heard in three decades of computing.
———————————
On topic – Good to see SOMEONE in the *nix world for whom this ‘free as in freedom or nothing’ (which is the opposite of freedom BTW) means exactly two things. … and jack left town
But then, PC-BSD has always been a bit more pragmatic, willing to listen to REAL WORLD concerns and a good deal less naive/idealistic than the ‘Free Software’ nutjobs who’ve taken over the rest of the *nix community.
If nothing else, it’s nice to see a *nix that you go “I want to run commercial software” and the people behind it go “Let’s see what we can do to make it work” instead of having them rant and rave for an hour about how it’s “evil” to do so, calling you a sellout, and only after you basically threaten their lives get a simple “Oh, just enable __________” from ‘just another user’. (Yes Gentoo, I’m looking at you.)
Solaris has been like that for a while
I think at some point in the near future, OpenSolaris will be just as user-friendly as PCBSD, and just like PCBSD already has a great license.
>> Solaris has been like that for a while
True, but Solaris (formerly sunOS) harkens back well before Linux was a twinkle in Linus’ eye, and when everyone still thought of Stallman as ‘that nutjob who wants to give it all away’ assuming they even heard of him instead of the psuedo-religious messiah he is now…
True, but Solaris (formerly sunOS) harkens back well before Linux was a twinkle in Linus’ eye, and when everyone still thought of Stallman as ‘that nutjob who wants to give it all away’ assuming they even heard of him instead of the psuedo-religious messiah he is now…
Hmm, if you look at Sun’s history, they’ve never taken on GNU or Stallman, many of the times Sun employees were running Linux before it became ‘in vogue’ by the ‘five minute fanboys’, porting GNU software to Solaris, and had embraced openstandards long before Microsoft started ramming their crap through committes with $100 notes attached to them.
Just because Sun weren’t jumping out of isles at the ‘church of gnu’ didn’t mean that they weren’t doing ‘opensource’ stuff in their own way – you need to realise that the way a company can interact with the marketplace is completely different to the way Stallman does – everything a person at Sun says might and can be interpeted and might impact on their share price and bottom line – unlike Sun, Stallman doesn’t have to worry about such things, he can rant and rave, and it won’t make a lick of difference.
Edited 2007-03-24 11:31
Solaris has been like that for a while
I think at some point in the near future, OpenSolaris will be just as user-friendly as PCBSD, and just like PCBSD already has a great license.
IMHO OpenSolaris is already for the desktop; I’m running SX:CE Build 60 and from my experience for the last couple of days IMHO it is very much ready.
As for commercial applications; ultimately, one can make as much noise to these companies as one wants, but at the end of the day, if the commercial companies are narrow minded enough not to port their applications to the said operating system, it isn’t the fault of the operating system vendor.
What it should be, however, is a catalyst for the opensource community to rally around and create an opensource version of that application.
I think its very healthy, for the free software. that there’s extremist and easy going licenses. that will protect the free software and bring easy solution to the end user.
just think what if xorg or samba is closed and for money
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; Google Wireless Transcoder;)
PC-BSD is BAD. It’s just a “MSWindows-BSD” and no more. PBI is awful! Every time when you install an application all needed libraries will be installed in program’s folder like it is in Win32 (C:Program FilesMyProgram). So your system has many copies of each library instead of having one in /usr/lib. Soon all your free space on a hard drive disappears. Furthermore, PBI-packages are much larger than ‘deb’,’rpm’ or ‘tar.bz2’, and it’s difficult to download them. And of course I hate the look of PBI-installer.
I think that DesktopBSD is much better then PC-BSD.
Uh, yeah. Maybe in the “No way mom! That’s 200 gigs worth of libraries, not 200 gigs of pr0n!” way.
“PC-BSD is BAD. It’s just a “MSWindows-BSD” and no more.
PC-BSD *is* FreeBSD. And former Microsoft fanboy like *cough* you *cough* should use Windows instead of talking nonsense about community driven project.
PBI is awful! Every time when you install an application all needed libraries will be installed in program’s folder like it is in Win32 (C:Program FilesMyProgram).
You mean just like in Apple MacOS X- self-contained, without dependency hell? I know you miss all this dep hell- you are frustrated- install MS Windows (or GNU/Linux).
So your system has many copies of each library instead of having one in /usr/lib. Soon all your free space on a hard drive disappears. Furthermore, PBI-packages are much larger than ‘deb’,’rpm’ or ‘tar.bz2’, and it’s difficult to download them.
OpenOffice.org2.1-PV2.1.pbi – 114MB
(you can install plain FreeBSD version into PC-BSD too with pkg_add):
OOo_2.1.0_FreeBSD62Intel_install_en-US.tbz – 114MB
OOo_2.1.0_LinuxIntel_install_en-US.tar.gz – 120MB
# /usr/Programs
# du -sh OpenOffice.org2.1
332M OpenOffice.org2.1
Sorry to hear that your 400GB disk is full of pirated videos and music and you can`t free couple of gigabytes for your favorite applications. Or you just don`t know how to install software from ports in FreeBSD/PC-BSD.
And of course I hate the look of PBI-installer.
I know- take pill, take a deep breath and calm down- you can beat up your girlfriend for that later.
I think that DesktopBSD is much better then PC-BSD.
You mean that FreeBSD in DesktopBSD is better than FreeBSD in PC-BSD? Or what? This reminds me conversation of 5 year old boys: “My dad can beat up your dad any time, yeah!!” or “My fart smells better than your fart!!”
Oh Noes! It comes with everything it needs to run!
This isn’t a bad thing, and they designed it that way so that an updated lib won’t break other apps. It’s a good decision for a desktop oriented distro where people will be installing and deinstalling software on a regular basis.
Anyway, install from ports if you’re that concerned.
Yes, installing applications does eat up hard drive space.
Try downloading from a mirror closer to you, and not over WIFI.
The default look is ugly, but it can be tweaked to look pretty good. Some packages have already done this, and it looks much better.