Looks like there is a new commercial OS on the block and its name is Triance. Triance OS is based on FreeBSD with KDE as the default DE. Beta testers wanted, for a completely gui’ed-up version of FreeBSD. Mandatory screen shots can be found here.
FreeBSD-based, Triance OS 1.0 beta
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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This is nice, if it were a free OS. Nothing I found on the site justified actually paying for this OS. FreeBSD is easy enough to install if you’re willing to follow the excellent handbook. KDE comes with FreeBSD by default. Its installation is optional but it’s on CD1 when you download the ISO version.
Personally I think it’s a sad development to see FreeBSD get dumbed down commercially. This seems a lot like what YAST did to Linux: provide a proprietary GUI just for configuration which forms a selling point for a distribution. I’m happy YAST is now GPL’ed. The SUSE distribution didn’t lose any value by Novell taking this step.
I’m also aware that the BSD license allows and is perfectly ok with third parties “hijacking” the OS.. I think it’s a matter of decency though to actually add _real_ value to the OS instead of creating a feature-poor spinoff purely for profit. Especially since FreeBSD itself is already extremely well documented.
I welcome innovation based on FreeBSD. I can even imagine companies taking the OS, innovate upon it, and keep it closed so they can earn back at least their cost and make some profit. But Triance appears hardly innovative to me. It’s pretty standard KDE business with the regular batch of free desktop applications thrown in.. These applications are freely available in the ports tree of regular FreeBSD. Where’s the added value? If it’s in support, why not just offer support contracts for regular FreeBSD instead?
I’d buy it IF there’s laptop support available and I’m curious about the software management aspect.
Thankfully they give a list of the software it contains. So I’ll just go off and install that stuff myself.
Nice looking screenshots, thanks. I hope thier money doesn’t run out too quickly.
why are they using the nice platic window decorations but the plain ugly keramik buttons? Hope this is not their default setting…
If they made their own widget set, and supported GNUStep (and maybe used Darwin instead of FreeBSD as their base), they could market it as OS X for x86. tell developers they can just recompile their OS X apps that don’t rely on mac core libraries, and you win application support.
just a thought…
yah.. there sure are lots of Os X apps out there that don’t rely on mac core libraries….
Thats what makes developing for the mac so great for devs and users, theres so much stuff you get free with cocoa that its hard not to use it. Any app not using ANY core libraries probably isn’t worth porting anyways.
Why complain about something like this? There is definitely value provided for those who are not proficient at FreeBSD setup and configuration. Value can be provided in many ways, including the simple aspect of *saving people time* at getting a good useable system up and running, not to mention providing support. And PLEASE, will you BSD license bashers stop using the word “hijack” when talking about commercial use of FreeBSD? It does everyone’s intellect a severe disservice.
Also, I am assuming (hopefully) that they have provided some sort of GUI for cvsup or port updating, thus putting a nice front-end on the FreeBSD ports system, which is one of FreeBSD’s best assets. If this were the case, then Triance should be a killer combination.
Yes, the list of software they use is almost exactly what I have configured on my FreeBSD-running laptop right now. But, it took me a fair amount of time to arrive at the knowledge of how to get this combination, AND it still takes me a good few hours of installing ports, configuring, etc… to arrive at my destination. Of course, being a FreeBSD technophile, I actually *like* doing this, because I get to know exactly what my system is doing. But for corporate or individual users, usually the most important thing is to simply get a good system up and running with minimum fuss. It looks to me like these guys are doing exactly what I would do if I were providing a commercial FreeBSD. And in some ways the fact that there is no additional “value-added” software involved is actually a plus, not a minus. This means that there is very little impedance between this OS and standard FreeBSD.
So, while I would probably have little reason to purchase this, nor is it the right approach for deploying servers, I might be fully justified in recommending it to an IT department who wants to move a company over to open-source desktops, or to home users who are tired of Windows.
Personally I think it’s a sad development to see FreeBSD get dumbed down commercially. This seems a lot like what YAST did to Linux: provide a proprietary GUI just for configuration which forms a selling point for a distribution.
I think YaSt is a great product and I am one happy user. It’s not “dumbing” down anything. I mean I could read through the man pages again and learn obscure syntax for upteen different configuration files… or for stuff that I don’t use often (so it don’t have in memorized)I just use YaST. If FreeBSD wants to make inroads on the desktop market (please notice that I used a conditional) it’s gonna need a nice handy tool to unleash all the power conviently to the less than professional/guru user. Really when it comes to paying for Linux SuSE is the only would I would consider and only RedHat if I had to run something (eg. Oracle) that was certified on RH but not SuSE.
i agree with rycamor, i wont critisize this new BSD OS…
it may not fit my needs at the moment but i still wish Triance good luck and sucess in their venture…
HappyTrails :^)
It’s good to see some real news on OSNews.com for a change. Isn’t OSNews about cross-OS, cross-platform news, including things or ideas that haven’t fully matured yet?
Today: stories about PlanB, Solaris, RiscOS, Triance OS. Way better than countless stories about version 1.12beta of desktop system xyz.
Please read: http://www.osnews.com/contact.php
Our goal is to inform you about the latest news on a vast range of operating systems, from the well-known mainstream OSes, down to small (but also very interesting technically) hobby or embedded ones. Keep in mind though, OSNews is not just about operating systems, but anything techie/geeky or simply, interesting enough.
…it’s about time a commercialOS took on FIREFOX as the default browser =)
Not everybody wants to install their OS by hand, following a detailed manual. Even many computer experts value their time.
That is true. I make a living by programming, but the last year I’ve been using Macs only as a desktop. Before this change, I’ve only used FreeBSD for the last couple of years. With no time to spend on tweaking on a new FreeBSD laptop, even though I find it interesting, I landed on the PowerBook to keep my BSD safety. Anyway, my point has nothing to do with Macs.. Maybe some companies think as we do. No time for tweaking? Let them buy a copy or two of that Triance OS with support.
Not everybody wants to install their OS by hand, following a detailed manual. Even many computer experts value their time.
True, but they are still using sysinstall. It means, it isn’t much difference with the FreeBSD yet. Althought, I have no idea if they modified the sysinstall to make it easier for the newbies. They said that the graphical installer is planning for the next version in the future.
Disclaimer, I have been using FreeBSD since 4.6.
I think, that there is value added to this product in numerous ways.
1) FreeBSD doesnt ship with a default desktop, however; off the install CD, you can install Gnome, KDE, Windowmaker and 1 or 2 other window managers (the wm are not pre-configured).
Value added: Now, the basic install of FreeBSD doesnt come with any preconfigurations. This would be a great assest to folks new to the *nix like universe. Not every wants to start off editing text files. For me, it doesnt matter config’ng text files.
2) 100 percent compatible with the FreeBSD ports collection 10,000 ports ready to be installed (this is a selling point by itself; however its command line and could be consider intimidating).
Value added: Graphcial way to install and manage the ports collection. On various *nix like platforms, installing and configuring the various programs can be intimidating for a newbie, this would be a great selling point. The oainless install of the FreeBSD ports collection, now with GUI, hugh plus to newbies.
3) Great default selection of applications, OO.o, Firefox, k3b and so on. Another huge point!! Pre-config’d, with loads of of cream of the crop apps all ready to be installed. Huge, huge and huge.
4) More users, more developers and greater sucess for the Open Source community. Seems like a win, win to me.
5) By using FreeBSD, I could easily help admin the box’s of friends and family that no longer use commercial software. Hey, I might not even need to admin it at all if its all config’d out of the box.
I would love to know if they put any tools in config’ng the kernel or editing rc.conf. That would also be a huge plus for newbies. The freebsd docs on building a custom kernel are excellent. Its not a difficult process but there would be less precieved difficulty in the matter of installing and config’ng the OS.
This seems to me to be an awesome commercial venture. Debating on sigining up for the beta program. If I like what I see, I will buy CD’s, to support this project/commercial adventure.
After all FreeBSD development could need some donations,and
installing FreeBSD how good the OS itself is,is not everyone’s fullfillment.What’s wrongwith bringing it to a broader public?According to the website they emphasize its roots.The future will tell, otherwise a nice initiative.
Where’s the added value?
Why are MS OSes selling so good (besides the historical, OEM, licensing and such reasons)? They don’t offer choiches to user. They have one desktop, one browser, one mailer, one media player etc etc. Users like this approach (and many Linux promoters don’t understand that;) – they are extremely lazy. Users call such OS “simple”.
Seems to me that Triance uses same idea. Yes, nowhere in article was told, how much will TrianceOS cost. Probably initially it’s free (or unlimited trial or whatever alike). After gaining some popularity (due to such “simplicity” from one side and FreeBSD base from other side – hmm, reminds me Mac OSX), it probably will cost something. I think people will buy it instead of XP Home – it offers same functionality, but is cheaper:)
(Sorry my english, I hope you did understand.)
I think the FreeBSD community is going to find out just how harsh this world can be. To some degree, the world of operating systems (particularly secure flavors such as Linux and *BSD) is starting to become like Time Square, NY. It is very competitive and it will slit your throat if you aren’t careful, but you can be enormously successful if you know what you are doing and to whom you are selling. FreeBSD might be “better” but it doesn’t mean it will DO better. Linux is clearly better than Windows, but it took a long time to get a foothold. And still, there are people who blindly support Windows (idiots).
We’ll see how it plays out…
I don’t use MS operating systems for a single reason: the mess that it tends to turn into after a few months of use online in its default configuration. I know how to prevent this, but I simply don’t want to go through the effort. To me personally Windows has no value, just cost.
Currently I’m typing from OSX and I have a number of Linux and FreeBSD machines in my home and business.
My experience when selling computers to end users or companies is that there really isn’t that much difference. They want their PC to do what they want it to do and do it easily and not crash. Whatever OS does the job, it’s ok with them. Linux gets selected much more for my business customers, Windows goes to practically all home users.
If Triance does what users want, it’ll be worth a price. However, a UNIX-like OS is hardly ever selected, installed or maintained by non-technical people. They simply don’t know about it. For technical people Triance offers nothing that’s not in plain vanilla FreeBSD already. This means, just to me (and this is simply my own opinion), that there’s hardly any value in something like Triance.. which makes it seem like a quick money-grab to me.
It’s great to have something like this. FreeBSD is a great powerfull OS, it’s a good thing that also users with less experience can enjoy it.
ACPI. That’s it. Get ACPI working on my laptop. Please. If commercial OSS vendors could get that working along with wireless, life would be good for both companies and customers.
I think they are trying to build a base OS right now.
I looked at the google cached version of the website (it has been OSNEW’d) and I saw TrianceOS 1.0 beta.
But I also saw below,
Get Triance Linux 1.0 (Coming Soon)
So all I can say is that they must have a strategy but it is yet unknown.
BTW I think Yast is confusing, give me anaconda any day :B
Sorry my english, I hope you did understand.
I had no problem understanding your english. And its way better than my Estonian, Russian, Finish or any other language, for that matter. Except maybe Perl. I think I’m more fluent with Perl than I am with English.
Anyway, I just wanted to offer a couple minor corrections and hope I’m not being rude in the process:
“Sorry my english” would sound more fluent as “Sorry for my english” and “Triance uses same idea” as “Triance uses the same idea”.
Anyway, I agree that people want a simple, easy-to-use, OS like XP home and OS X. But there are other factors that will affect their purchasing decisions here in the US. Popularity and commercial support, for example, keep people from choosing alternatives because they are affraid they won’t be able to get the next copy of MS Office or Photoshop for these alternative systems. Even if BSD and Linux offer WINE and Windows compatibility they will have to overcome these perceived incompatibilities in the eyes of their customers.
Everyone has learned that OSs are not compatible with eachother, and even if we can run some applications and binaries on multiple architectures and OSs there are perceived and real difficulties that most home users would not want to encounter.
Actually not a bad idea, having a nice GUI for BSD. I have used FreeBSD in the past, and found it a wonderful operating system. But not for beginners. This might just be what BSD needs to perhaps become a good choice as a desktop os. espcially for the less technically inclined.
In some ways, FreeBSD is actually a better base for a desktop OS than Linux. For one, it is much more standardized. Linux is a kernel, and the userland of different Linux distros vary wildly. Meanwhile, FreeBSD is a complete OS, with all components of the userland tested with each release of the kernel, making it much easier to maintain a consistent system. Also, Linux simply has nothing as sophisticated as the FreeBSD ports system, with its built-in system for tracking and resolving dependencies. This makes it much more feasible to build a system which can be remotely updated in an incremental way. And, the logical simplicity of the system layout makes it (IMHO) much easier to build a GUI for general user configuration.
One of the older complaints about FreeBSD was the need to recompile the kernel to get many of the advanced features, such as firewalling, extra hardware support, etc… but this is no longer the case with later versions of FreeBSD, where the kernel loadable module system has gotten very capable, while still maintaining typical FreeBSD simplicity.
Personally, ever since I started playing with FreeBSD 5.2, I have been thinking what a great opportunity is out there for someone to develop a desktop OS based on FreeBSD.
And, in response to the questions about the “limited value” of this, I still say exactly what I said before: this is not something I would need, but if it is well-done, and offers decent support, I would have no reservation about recommending it to companies or even adventuresome home users. Calling it a ‘money grab’ is kind of laughable, considering the work it would take to develop a really good end-user configuration, a GUI for software installation, and a support system. A true money grab would be–for example– burning exact copies of RedHat to disk and then selling them as BlueHat, for $22, and offering no support. No, the Triance guys don’t have an existing ‘desktop BSD’ to copy. They had to actually do some work. Whether they will actually be successful at selling it is another question.
Great concept implemented in a crap way. Graphical installer plus a boot load of easy to use setup and configuration tools that are proprietary and integrated nicely in with KDE and FreeBSD, then you’ll have a winner.
If that were the situation, then I would have no qualms about purchasing a copy, however, if all it is, is FreeBSD + KDE + Crusty installer, then it is a waste of time.
The money has to be justified, if they justified it through easy to use graphical configuration tools, technical support via telephone and email, and possibly including third party packages as to add value to the underlying FreeBSD; such packages as OpenSound or Xig Xserver, then you’ll have a winner; heck, why not also work with Codeweavers to get Crossover Office and Plugin working so that Microsoft Office can run on FreeBSD.
If all those were included, and the price tag were, (hypothetically speaking) around AUS$220, I would be *more* than happy to pay the price for such a good bundle.
But as I said, Geeks don’t get it, and the dot-cons proved it, geeks can code, but can’t run a business or relate to the end user/customer to save themselves.
this is great, i well try it. but now iam downloading it whit 11.1 KB/sec and its only 11:51:06 min. left..
http://www.triance.com.my/migrate.php
http://www.triance.com.my
Sat 11 Sep 2004 06:51:15 PM MYT
Apache/2.0.40 (Red Hat Linux)
ehh??? whay dont they run freebsd?
how well it be to install this, and just convert it to freebsd?
I think I’ll install it and then give my opinion instead of the way most of you guys are doing it. Complaining without trying it.
yes,
1. cant get it down.
2. the webpage is down.
so?
If they had the good sense to run their website on FreeBSD it might not be down. 8)
too true.
Why what are they running it on?
Red Hat Linux
Apache/2.0.40
Webvisions Network
because of their internet link probably