Thanks

$ more /etc/resolv.conf
# Generated by resolvconf
nameserver 192.168.1.1

The name server above is the address of my router. It was 192.168.2.1 for my Belkin, and when I got the Netgear, it needed to be changed to 192.168.1.1. Anyway, like I said above, I changed it in the Network Configuration of the PC-BSD control panel, and now it's just fine

You mean Hackintosh? Since a lot of people like the submitter wouldn't want to buy an expensive Mac just to run their Free OS.

Uh, if you get the PC-BSD DVD, you get the option of installing not just that, but instead FreeBSD or TrueOS as well. The last being PC-BSD w/ only the server specific commands, so that it can behave as a lightweight server where all of FreeBSD is not needed.

I didn't exactly get the use of this project, other than having apt-get for FreeBSD. What's the great use of putting copylefted GPL3 software on a FreeBSD kernel? I can get the use of the converse - putting a BSD userland on Linux to avoid GPL3

I dunno about Skype or Steam, but what's it about Chrome that you won't get w/ Chromium?

I use PC-BSD, and here too, there seems to be just 1 integrated way of doing things. The other day, I needed to change the gateway address of my router, since a Netgear had replaced a Belkin, which was toast. I tried editing /etc/resolv.conf, but it wouldn't stay saved. Finally, from the PC-BSD control panel, I went to Network Configuration, and viola! It worked.

In PC-BSD 10.0, I did have a few hiccups: when I added users from the User Manager, it would initially not show up in the login menu, so I had to do CLI adduser. However, after an update, I saw that problem go away: users created under User Manager would show up. Similarly, I installed GNOME 3.12 a few days ago and had a problem moving GTK apps, but after the upgrade to 10.1 and to GNOME 3.14, that too went away.

My only beef w/ PC-BSD has been the lack of WiFi support for Centrino. Otherwise, the apps I use are Thunderbird, Chromium/Firefox/Web, FreeCiv. Aside from that, I store my personal PDF documents. For Office, I use Calligra SmartSuite, but that one could use a lot of improvement.

In anything that is 64-bit

FreeBSD includes a couple of Linux jails, where one could run 32 or 64 bit binaries just fine

I installed PC-BSD after a couple of weeks w/ Windows 8, & by & large, it's been good, for the things I do. Unfortunately, my Wi-Fi wasn't recognized, so I have to run an ethernet cable to my laptop. Other than that, the experience was generally okay, but could have been better.

The first time I tried installing it, it took a few guesses for me to go into BIOS, disable UEFI (at that time, I was installing 9; now, under 10.1, UEFI is supposedly supported, if you're installing from scratch), and then go into install. I had a few hiccups in getting the system not to go into a loop while installing, but once I got around it, the installation was a breeze - except of course, for the non-support of the Centrino

Once I logged into the first account created, I had some glitches in creating more user accounts from the GUI - had to do an adduser from the CLI (that bug has since been fixed, since more recently, I can). I created different accounts for different roles - one primary one to do all my day to day work like banking, making payments to various cards, personal emails, et al. And others for different things that I do, such as job exploring, or posting to /. here. Each of them, I try different DEs, such as Lumina, LXDE, KDE and GNOME.

This week, I upgraded the system to 10.1, and a lot of the bugs I had went away. I still haven't enabled UEFI, since that would require backing up all the data and then doing a fresh install, and there is no single utility in PC-BSD to do all that, and this is not a hot issue w/ me. So, right now, I'm happy w/ my system.

On the things you were asking, there is Virtual Box, but I haven't tried the other things. For sound players, there is VLC and a whole host of other such utilities. Talking about Flash, I've installed it in FireFox, but not in Chromium (Chrome itself is not there in FreeBSD). But I have no issues watching YouTube videos, if that's what your need for Flash is, w/o Flash and under Chromium, in HTML5. Not tried Minecraft, for me, the favorite game is FreeCiv.

One thing that PC-BSD does great is integrating things, so that any utility will work in any DE. For instance, GTK apps work great under Qt based environments like KDE, Lumina and LXDE, while Qt apps like Calligra work great under GNOME 3.14. One thing - the PC-BSD control panel is quite advanced, and does a better job of system management than trying to edit files in /etc. I tried that last week when I had to replace a router and change the default gateway address - it refused to save my changes to /etc/resolv.conf, but when I went into PC-BSD control panel's network and changed it there, it worked like a charm.

As usual, YMMV

We don't need any x86 phones. For business, both iPhones & Lumias are great. iPhones have all the apps that one could want, while Lumias have most of the important ones that are useful. I use my Lumia for work purposes and iPhone for FaceTime w/ my kids.

I think we have long passed the points where die shrinks translate to cost savings. At best, costs are a wash, but with higher die/wafer, while at worst, the newer chips are actually more expensive than what currently exists.

Not just that, unlike in past generations, both their OSs - OS-X and iOS are SMP capable, and most apps are multithreaded. So if power & budget is no constraint on Apple, they can easily toss in 1 or 2 more A8s or A7s, and get the performance they need. All this assumes that A8 has a major cost advantage over a mobile i7 core

Except that since there is no shortage of native apps for A7, Apple gets to lose nothing by building a laptop on A7, and then attracting developers there. Just like going from PPC to Intel was painless given that the OS was already there on the latter in the form of NEXTSTEP, here, the OS is already on A7 in form of iOS, so there's not much work to be done to bring OS-X to the A7

Yeah, at this point, I don't see why Apple can't just make some of their Airbooks and Mac Minis around the A7s & A8s. They just need to toss in more cores if the performance is inadequate, but I don't see why that would be. OS-X and iOS are architecturally identical, w/ only the UIs being somewhat different for touch interfaces vs non-touch. So Apple could indeed put OS-X on an A8 platform and either lower costs, or make bigger margins on their boxes.