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PC-BSD 1.1 Screenshot Tour 159

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the on-the-desktop dept.
linuxbeta writes to tell us DistroWatch is reporting that PC-BSD has released version 1.1 which updates the core OS to FreeBSD 6.1, adds better driver support to the kernel and improves the overall speed on many systems. OSDir also has a screenshot tour available for general consumption.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

PC-BSD 1.1 Screenshot Tour More

PC-BSD 1.1 Screenshot Tour

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  • PC-BSD rox0rz (Score:5, Informative)

    by JPriest ( 547211 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @03:57PM (#15431108) Homepage
    I have been using PC-BSD for a couple weeks now, I love it. I use pretty standard hardware so I have not had much trouble with driver support.

    BSD - Geek Different

    • hmmm Bubunto?

    • Re:PC-BSD rox0rz (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I use pretty standard hardware so I have not had much trouble with driver support

      I use ugly standard hardware so will I have much trouble?

    • I much prefer Ubuntu Linux myself (anything post hedgehog will support damn near anything). PcBSD last I worked with it was pretty comparable to Ubuntu in almost every respect except for the piss poor driver support in PcBSD. It didn't support my chipset, my dvd writer, my dvd rom, my cdrom, my video card, my modem, my second hard drive, my tablet, my thumb drive, or even my monitor. So I posted to BSD message boards and all they could tell me was, "Yep, PC-BSD is still BSD, use standard hardware." Must be
      • Your post just shows that you're either a troll, or have no idea what you're talking about.
      • Stop lying. I can understand some ancient CDROM with a weird ass proprietary board not working. And I can even understand your monitor not working because it needed some weird ass modeline that Linux was lucky enough to stumble across. But your harddrive wouldn't work with PC-BSD?

        Bullshit!

  • Screenshots (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sir_Lewk ( 967686 ) <sirlewk&gmail,com> on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @03:58PM (#15431117)
    Nice screenshots I suppose, though they don't tell me all that much.

  • Nice GUI (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fistfullast33l ( 819270 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @03:59PM (#15431121) Homepage Journal
    Some interesting screenshots, although I just skipped over the KDE ones because I've seen KDE before. It's nice to see a smooth graphical installation. Some purists always cry for text prompts, but I like the ease of a GUI. Every time I install gentoo I have to have a second machine running beside me to remind me of the steps to take in installation (I refuse to pay for inkjet cartridges, fill them on my own, or pay for a laserjet printer). Maybe it's me, but I have a horrible memory for that kind of stuff. Kuduos to PC-BSD if their installation is as smooth as it is good looking. If there's a graphical package manager and kernel manager then that's just bonus. I never liked the Linux GTK frontend (I still use make menuconfig after make oldconfig) and most of the portage frontends are too cluttered to be useful.
    • Ease of a GUI ?

      pressing enter 10 times or clicking Next 10 times

      get real

      • Re:Nice GUI (Score:3, Funny)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )
        Yeah, GUIs are so overrated. Obviously a passing fad. I expect we'll go back to doing everything on the command line any day now.

    • Re:Nice GUI (Score:2, Interesting)

      by manboy9 ( 891227 )
      Did you try Ctrl+Alt+F2? You can have multiple terminals open: one with the installation, the other reading docs with links.
    • about the Gentoo installation, you can make use of the additional terminals during the install process. You've got Lynx or Links available as part of the Live CD you install from. As soon as the installation starts, it tells you how to open the documentation (in the text above the prompt). Execute the command it tells you and then press Alt+2 or Alt+F2 (can't remember) to get to the second terminal. Then Alt+3 (or Alt+F3) to get to the third, etc. This way you can execute all sorts of side commands whi
    • Find a used Canon inkjet printer. Canon ink is cheap, and they make quality kit.

  • Not yet ready (Score:4, Informative)

    by jasonmanley ( 921037 ) <jman@math.com> on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @04:04PM (#15431150) Homepage Journal
    I am a huge fan of PC-BSD but I have found it to be very slow. On both my laptop and PC it is slow. To open firefox or openoffice or netbeans takes very long. The updates are huge and everytime I install the startup process hangs on the sendmail initiation and I have to edit a file to make that go away. I believe it has promise but it's not there yet.
    • > To open firefox or openoffice or netbeans takes very long.

      You shouldn't be using this as a metric for the quality of an operating system. Firefox and OpenOffice are the most bloated, shittiest open source programs around, and they're both as slow as molasses on any platform, including Win32 and GNU/Linux.

      And NetBeans is Java.

    • Re:Not yet ready (Score:4, Informative)

      by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @05:09PM (#15431503) Journal
      > the startup process hangs on the sendmail initiation

      sounds like DNS trouble

    • To open firefox or openoffice or netbeans takes very long.

      Wait, you mean there are systems on which loading OpenOffice or Netbeans doesn't take a long time? Man, I need to get a new computer. ;-)

      -matthew
    • I have noticed this as well, and I just accept it. Although I use solaris it is bsd at heart. Gimp loads ultra fast, firefox takes awhile. Whatever. I prefer a system that runs perfectly, always. If I wanted to see firefox pop up, I would run windows.

  • Open source projects are also plagued with rah-rah (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @04:05PM (#15431160)
    PC-BSD has as its goals to be an easy-to-install-and-use desktop operating system, based on FreeBSD. To accomplish this, it currently has a graphical installation, which will enable even UNIX novices to easily install and get it running.

    Phew, thank goodness, I was afraid PC-BSD had as its goals to be a hard-to-install-and-use desktop operating system, based on FreeBSD, and that to accomplish this, it would have a morse-code interface installation, which would enable only ham UNIX expects to get it running...

    I mean come on, every desktop-oriented OS on the planet does/tries to do that, it's obvious. This sort of content-less marketting talk is usually spewed out by companies like Microsoft, so I'm always a bit disappointed to read it on open-source project pages.
    • Umm.. not really. Alot of OSS distro's in the early days were not easy at all and the concern for capturing the general desktop market wasn't as popular of an idea as it is now. I mean hell. If all distro's wanted to make it easy to install an OS for the lamen, explain to me Gentoo.
      • If all distro's wanted to make it easy to install an OS for the lamen, explain to me Gentoo.

        Who says the Gentoo folks don't want to make it easy? whether the final distro turns out to be hard to use is another matter.

      • If all distro's wanted to make it easy to install an OS for the lamen, explain to me Gentoo.

        Wow, you really put the "lame" in "lamen"(sic).

        Gentoo is easy to install. If you just follow the directions, you get there. I know this is easy for me to say, because I have lots of experience, but really anyone who doesn't have the mindset of "this is too hard" will not have problems.

        Funny thing is, even ubuntu won't install properly on my laptop. It will not boot if you cross the 512 cylinder boundary, and ubuntu by default creates one big filesystem even though I'm using IDE. Thus, grub is installed past cyl 512, and the system will not boot. Ubuntu doesn't tell you about this. Gentoo does, right in the install instructions, which is what takes the place of an installer. Ubuntu: 0. Gentoo: 1.

        • I actually installed FreeBSD successfully on a machine, and then a year or so later attempted to wipe it and install Gentoo in its place, and I failed. There were just too many places in the Gentoo docs where they assumed I had expertise that I didn't. I've never had any trouble installing FreeBSD, however, using the curses interface; it basically just gives you defaults that work.
        • I've installed and am running Gentoo. If you can see the handbook, it's not that bad to install. It maybe takes 45 minutes if you use a stage on your install CD (I run the AMD64 version, I don't think x86 has the stages on the Universal CD.) Probably the hardest thing about Gentoo is that it seems as if it could be very easy to foul up your installation if you goof with Portage too much, especially the etc-update and emerge --depclean tools. I'm careful and haven't broken anything, and I haven't heard of an
    • I mean come on, every desktop-oriented OS on the planet does/tries to do that, it's obvious. This sort of content-less marketting talk is usually spewed out by companies like Microsoft, so I'm always a bit disappointed to read it on open-source project pages.

      Arguably, the difference is that FreeBSD is focused on just creating a good OS, while PC-BSD is designed to be a Desktop-oriented version of FreeBSD. It's a bit like the Darwin/OS X relationship. Darwin is the kernel, and is a complete operating system.
      • except that longhorn server WILL ship as a core server. Its been released for testing already and is pretty snazzy. It has no windows gui just command.com
        • That's a great first step, I'll sneak a peek at it sometime. I'm interested in seeing what msh and a headless LH server provides. The last sticking points are getting rid of drive lettering by default (ie. not using drive map hack), getting rid of "The Registry" (tm), getting rid of hardware fingerprinting, and (cherry on top) tossing in a bundled command line based compiler (anti-trust blah blah). I think what I'm most curious about modifying the registry via a command line, seems like that would be the mo

          • What's wrong with the registry (that's true of OSes other than Win9x)?

            The registry gives you a common API to query configuration settings. On Linux, you write a conf file. Some conf files uses spaces; some, tabs. Some must be compiled or require a PhD in alien vocabulary (sendmail).

            If you sit back and say, wow, all my configuration settings should be in something like a database with common APIs, you come up with the registry.

            As someone who came from a server system administrator background to lear

    • dhdjghfgh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @04:14PM (#15431219) Homepage
      It's not completely meaningless. The first question that comes to mind when you hear about a new BSD distro is "what makes it different from the other BSDs?" and it answers that question -- it's like FreeBSD, but easier to install and get working on the desktop. Sure, FreeBSD also aims to be easy to install and useful as a desktop system, but it's not their main priority.
    • While I'm not sure of any operating systems that require a morse code interface to run, I do know that some distributions don't try to go for user friendlyness and try to go for some other goals (such as performance). While yes, this is marketing drivel, it's not completely empty that they're going for an "easy-to-install-and-use desktop operating system".

    • Re:Open source projects are also plagued with rah- (Score:5, Funny)

      by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @04:49PM (#15431397) Journal
      > every desktop-oriented OS on the planet does/tries to do that

      spoken like a man that's never installed OpenBSD

    • Whether it's a goal for all distro's is arguable. Whether they succeed, and actually create an easy to install and use system is not. Check out OpenBSD or Gentoo Linux for proof of this.

      Also, corporate-like marketing could really benefit many open source projects. I don't know how many times I've found an open source project, and the main project page thoroughly describes the bugs fixed between versions 0.1.1.3 and 0.1.1.4, but has no high level description about what the package does in the first place
      • Fuck new users. Let them use corporate-crippled software. Most free software I use (and write) has excellent documentation. Although it's not "let's hold your hand and treat you like a dumbshit", it's "here are all the details, read them, think about them, then read them again. after that, try some stuff and see what works". Personally, I wouldn't give up the second one for anything.

        (Oh, but thinking is TOO HARD. Fuck you, that's too bad.)
  • So what is so Politically Correct about this new BSD? Did they remove the Advertising Clause from the liscence or something?

  • I love PC-BSD (Score:3, Interesting)

    by adolfojp ( 730818 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @04:15PM (#15431222)
    I love PC-BSD's Mac like software installer. If it had better Gnome support I would switch in a heartbeat.
    • Uh...it's freebsd with some helper apps and a different default configuration. It DOES have gnome support, you just have to build it from ports or packages. It's really easy. pkg-add -r gnome.

  • DesktopBSD (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Distinguished Hero ( 618385 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @04:35PM (#15431331) Homepage
    I prefer DesktopBSD [desktopbsd.net] to PC-BSD as DesktopBSD uses ports, whereas PC-BSD seems rather fond of these PBI [pbidir.com] things, which seem to emulate the worst Windows has to offer (a solution such as this [sourceforge.net] would have been a bit more bearable if they wanted to get away from the orthodox package management system.) That being said, I do with DesktopBSD would move on to FreeBSD 6 instead of 5.5.
    • I know very little in this area; but what does BSD do that linux doesn't? how does it differ? is security better?

      it's always been a bit of a mystery to me

      • Re:DesktopBSD (Score:4, Informative)

        by John Nowak ( 872479 ) on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @05:13PM (#15431523)
        First result for "BSD vs Linux" on Google:
        http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4lin ux/bsd4linux1.php [over-yonder.net]
      • The primary advantage of Linux is that it has a cooler name than BSD.

        Seriously, when it comes right down to it, you end up running all the same software anyway (xfree86/Xorg, KDE, Firefox, etc), so it doesn't really much on the desktop. Depends on what type of package management you prefer. Like ports? Use BSD. Like RPMs? Use RedHat/CentOS/etc. Like apt-get et al? Try Debian or Ubuntu. Also, consider hardware support. You may not have much of a choice if one OS supports your hardware and the the other does
        • The primary advantage of Linux is that it has a cooler name than BSD.

          Really?

          $_ = "BSD";
          s/B/L/;
          • $_ = "Linux";
            s/Linux/Mescaline/;

            Not only does Linux have a cooler name, but it is also much more clever about hiding its true nature.

            -matthew
        • No, the main advantages of *BSD over linux is that all of the BSDs have a far more sane, engineered development process and an older, more tested code base. Outside of core kernel architecture changes, Linux is very much a hodgepodge of drivers and subsystems at varying levels of stability. Formal testing and code auditing is really left up to the distribution creators more than anyone else.

          In practice, these differences really don't come up for the majority of people on standard commodity hardware. Y
      • - document their code properly
        - keep the core O/S components seperate from the apps.

        those two are the main reasons I like it (and i've been using linux since '96, and BSD since '00 ... more biased towards BSD since for the reasons listed above).

    • Re:DesktopBSD (Score:2, Informative)

      by jonathansizz ( 942588 )
      You can use ports just as easily on PC-BSD as you can on DesktopBSD. PBI's are an extra option.
    • I prefer DesktopBSD to PC-BSD as DesktopBSD uses ports, whereas PC-BSD seems rather fond of these PBI things, which seem to emulate the worst Windows has to offer (a solution such as this would have been a bit more bearable if they wanted to get away from the orthodox package management system.) That being said, I do with DesktopBSD would move on to FreeBSD 6 instead of 5.5.

      As another poster pointed out farther down this thread, PC-BSD can also use the FreeBSD ports system, as well as the PC-BSD ".PBI" clic
  • Do we really need another KDE over nix variant? How about something gasp, new?
    Or at least barring something new, a unifed KDE or Gnome over *nix pre installed and configured on a desktop pc so the folks at home can use it? Isn't yet another variant just dispersing our energies? Yes freedom is supper cool, but letting M$ and Apple win due a lack of discpline or fresh ideas is not...

    Maybe there's something I'm missing about this project but at the very least it wasn't immediatly obvious from looking at scr
    • Redhat tried that [wikipedia.org].
      • That's not quite what I meant, I meant something more like those Lindows machines they tried to sell at Walmart. How about putting say 500 million into making either Gnome or KDE into a usable nice looking desktop and selling it pre installed on a p.c. for 50 bucks less than even the cheapest Dell? I think the biggest stumbling block to the adoption of desktop Linux is sound, and wireless problems, and the hastle of installation.
        • Yes, I misread the parent as the idea KDE and Gnome should be fused.

          I understand why you might say either has usability problems. I think the fact that much of the interface tools, such as wireless tools, battery monitor, sound mixer, etc. in both are provided by 3rd parties creates a somewhat fragemented package. The same is pretty much true for nearly all linux distributions, not just their desktops, however.

          Now, I've never had any troubles with sound, but wireless was a hassle, and getting everything r

    • Re:KDE over *nix? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by laffer1 ( 701823 ) <luke@@@foolishgames...com> on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @05:34PM (#15431653) Homepage Journal
      The BSD community is just following in the Linux footsteps on this one. I've said this before, and I'll say it again... DesktopBSD and PC-BSD are distros, nothing more.

      I've been working on a new BSD variant called MidnightBSD based on FreeBSD 6 but its a real fork. The idea is to add a graphical environment that is not KDE or gnome. I did seriously consider gnome, but their lack of interest in supporting non linux systems scared me off. I've read about the crap that the freebsd gnome project has put up with. Plus I figured it would just end up being another linuxish ripoff.

      The real problem with developing something new is that so many people are almost religious about their window managers and if they like full fledged desktop environments. Another problem is development. In order to have a unique system you must write a gui toolkit yourself or use a more obscure one. If I were to write a window manager in gtk for instance, I'd get flack for duplicating effort when sawfish, xfce and metacity exists. The other issue is licensing. These new bsd distros have used GPL because its easier fot them. There aren't many bsd licensed toolkits to build from or even LGPL that are worth anything. I don't care if part of the system is under gpl, but I think die hard bsd fans will. In the end, I decided that I'll be targeting a very specific audience as its a BSD with a freakish gui.

      I decided to use GNUstep with WindowMaker to start the project and then see where it takes me. I definetely want to replace the window manager with something that is more usable though. Usability is something few of us open source developers care about. I did the mom test though and she actually could use window maker better than KDE. She said there was less "clutter". She's a windows user.

      I'm hoping to get some help developing a new window manager and applications on top of gnustep. From a licensing perspective its weird, but its also a bit like NEXTSTEP which can't be bad.

      I'm keeping freebsd ports though. I'll have to write a gui frontend for them and start my own ports collection long term.

    • Top of my list of pet peeves is criticisms just like this.

      Todays alternatives:
      http://www.gnustep.org/ [gnustep.org] different desktop
      http://www.enlightenment.org/Enlightenment/DR17/ [enlightenment.org] (another different desktop)
      http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9/ [bell-labs.com]

      How about putting some time and effort into ONE new and different thing, then let's talk about new and different okay?
      • I wouldn't consider Enlightenment DR17 one of "today's alternatives" as it is still in pre-alpha (or somewhere around there); I'd stick with DR16.8. You're also missing a few other alternatives:
        XFCE
        ROX Desktop
        Equinox Desktop
        XPde
        Ion
        Ratpoison
        IceWM
        FVWM
        Waimea
        PekWM
        wmii
        Fluxbox
        Blackbox
        Openbox
        Matchbox


        P.S. Out of curiosity, how many people use Plan 9 nowadays?
      • What's the matter with WindowMaker, other than the fact that the lead developer is now too busy with his day job to maintain it?

        (This is a serious question - I happen to use it, but it's a bit frustrating since nobody seems to be writing or maintaining many dock apps for it anymore. Is there something actually *wrong* with it that I'm not aware of?)

        Back on topic - PC-BSD has been very nice for someone like me who had no prior experience with *BSD but would like to have a working system to play with and mayb
    • Do we really need another KDE over nix variant? How about something gasp, new?
      Or at least barring something new, a unifed KDE or Gnome over *nix pre installed and configured on a desktop pc so the folks at home can use it? Isn't yet another variant just dispersing our energies? Yes freedom is supper cool, but letting M$ and Apple win due a lack of discpline or fresh ideas is not...

      Good, idea. You get working on that. Meanwhile, other developers are going to do what they like to do. This isn't a war, ya know
      • Sorry but it is a war over admitidly small stakes. Of course no one could or should make you code something you don't want to code, on the other hand there is a reason I'm typing this on ibook and not an open BSD.

        What do I know I'm just a luser...

        Like 99.9% of the rest of the population. Think about it...
        • In what way is it a war? What are the stakes, exactly? The only ones with anything to lose are MS and Apple (and similar groups). Let THEM worry about wars and marketing and install bases and demographics. THe great thing about open source, for me at least, is the free exchange of code and ideas and the fact that nobody has to do anything they don't want to... and yet things get done because people enjoy it.

          But what do I know. I'm just a mushheaded wanna-be hippy.

          Like 0.1% of teh population. I've thought ab
    • I have been using Osx the last few months so I lost interest in the nix on x86 for a while. A few weeks ago I decided to try some of the latest distros. I decided to avoid the rpm based ones. I also wanted to use system commander to boot select. Ubuntu was #1 at the time. It would not install automatically to my 3rd hard drive and the wireless usb didn't work and the boot loader wouldn't work with system commander. I tried PC-BSD and it installed automatically with minimal input from me. The wireless usb wo

  • This is nitpicky, but...
    The language selection screen uses an image
    of a malformed American flag over a German flag?

    Seems a globe or something would make more sense.
    Or at least use a cool looking flag like Brazil or Nepal.

  • "Yeah, but does it run Linux?"

    (Someone HAS to post it. This comment is obligatory in this kind of thread)

    • Does it run Linux? Yes. (Score:4, Informative)

      by KwKSilver ( 857599 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2006 @12:19AM (#15433247)
      Actually, it does run Linux binaries. The earlier versions required binary compatibility to be added post-install. Since PC-BSD moved to FreeBSD kernel 6.0, Linux binary compatibility is pre-configured. There is no post-installation configuration now. Just add packages, either by .pbi, pkg_add, or ports. And yes, Kim, I know you were kidding.
  • OMG screenshots of KDE! No ponies :( :(
  • My parents have had my old K6-233 for YEARS running Windows 95. It still worked fine for what they do believe it or not. Came across some spare hardware, a Duron 800 with 512MB of RAM, figured it was time they had an upgrade. I put a PC-BSD pre 1.0 on it, believe it was RC2 had it installed here at the house forever, finally deployed it to them. Dad loves it, mom says he never gets off of it. Of course all they do with it is play Pysol, SameGame, and FrozenBubble. UT2k4 and Armagetron are installed on

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