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FreeSBIE 1.1 Screenshot Tour

Posted by timothy on from the cuteness-and-light dept.

linuxbeta writes "FreeSBIE is a FreeBSD LiveCD, or an operating system that is able to load directly from a bootable CD, without any installation process, without any hard disk. It's possible to use the BSDInstaller to install FreeSBIE on your hard drive, and then turn it into FreeBSD 5.3-STABLE by means of cvsup. At OSDir we installed FreeSBIE 1.1 and grabbed a series of great screenshots of this slick FreeBSD OS."

40 comments

  1. Uh-huh by Rie+Beam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "LiveCD, or an operating system that is able to load directly from a bootable CD, without any installation process, without any hard disk."

    I'm sad to report that the above statement was half the summary.

  2. xfce4....as heavy? by endx7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wow, FreeSBIE must be trying for lightweight if they consider xfce4 to be heavy.

    I mean, if you are going to talk about heavy you have to talk about gnome or kde :P

    1. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by setagllib · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's pretty heavy given its lack of functionality. For most uses, Fluxbox with a pager and use of ~/.gtkrc[-2.0] is enough, but at less than a tenth the size. A large part of its size is its image-based themes though.

      I tried GNOME 2.8 before and was heftily disappointed. It has about a third of the functionality of KDE but with about ~30MiB extra compressed source to download. If it wasn't for its less-evil-than-Qt license it would have no merit at all.

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      Sam ty sig.
    2. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by Santana · · Score: 1

      And Qt is evil because ...

      --
      The best way to predict the future is to invent it
    3. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by theonetruekeebler · · Score: 1

      It's a fair warning, though---you never know when your LiveCD is going to be used to resurrect a crashed Pentium II that's being used as a print server. My primary computer is a PII/300 laptop with 64MB; the first time I booted Debian/Woody, the system was thrashing so hard that booting back into Windows 98 was something of a relief...

      --
      This is not my sandwich.
    4. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by evilviper · · Score: 2, Funny
      Wow, FreeSBIE must be trying for lightweight if they consider xfce4 to be heavy.

      No, xfce4 just simply is heavy, I'm afraid. The fact that there are elephant-sized window managers out there doesn't make a horse lightweight.

      If you've been using XFce for long, you know that it used-to be FAR lighter. Before the switch to GTK-2, the panel + window manager used up about 6MBs of RAM, and was incredibly fast. Some of it is the fault of XFce4 including many more eye-candy features, but it's mostly GTK-2.
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    5. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      And Qt is evil because ...
      ...Trolltech still hasn't grovelled before the feet of Richard M. Stallman.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    6. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by setagllib · · Score: 1

      You either need a special license or a legal copy of MSVC++ to use it. In this sense it is even more restrictive than MFC, though admittedly more useful.

      GTK is GPL (or LGPL? anyway..) and hence can be used safely for most things, provided you don't use the code itself in a way that would conflict with the GPL. That's okay though.

      --
      Sam ty sig.
    7. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by Santana · · Score: 1

      I need a legal copy of MSVC++?? How they dare...

      Seriously, you're free to develop open source software with Qt on MacOS X and UNIX/UNIX-like OSes. So, no, you don't need a special license nor a copy of MSVC++ to use Qt

      If you want to develop proprietary software or develop software for Windows you have to buy a commercial license of course. And that is not more evil than you wanting to write proprietary software/for Windows.

      --
      The best way to predict the future is to invent it
    8. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      If you want to develop proprietary software or develop software for Windows you have to buy a commercial license of course. And that is not more evil than you wanting to write proprietary software/for Windows.

      I believe setagllib's point is that you can write software for Windows without paying Microsoft to use their Windows API. It doesn't matter what license you license your software under.

      But you can't write software for KDE unless you 1) GPL it or 2) buy a license from QT. Stop. Period. No third choice.

    9. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GNOME used to be like this until the libs were (loudly) placed under the LGPL.

    10. Re:xfce4....as heavy? by R.Caley · · Score: 1
      I mean, if you are going to talk about heavy you have to talk about gnome or kde :P

      • twm => Heavy
      • xfce4 => Elephantine
      • kde => Degenerate
      • gnome => Singularity
      --
      _O_
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  3. Why screenshots from an OS? by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That is rubish. Most likely they are screenshoots of the window manager.

    If one is talking about the advantages and disadvantages of an OS one should talk about what the OS does better and what the OS has still to achieve.

    I am sick and tired of the fanboys of eye candy "reviewing" an OS based on how "nice" the window manager looks (who cares if the window manager itself is a PITA to configure).

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Why screenshots from an OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      this wasnt a review of an OS, but of the packaging of an OS and how it looked and what was included. the screenshots were very relivant and they accomplished exactly what they set out to do.

      as far as the superiority of FreeBSD... well if you dont know its because you havent used it. you know that whole "build it and they will come" thing? they werent talking about you i guess. :D

      p.s. just for the record, it IS superior. ;|;;

    2. Re:Why screenshots from an OS? by ShogZilla · · Score: 2, Informative

      That is rubish. Most likely they are screenshoots of the window manager.

      Screenshots 1-5 are of the bootloader and subsequent setup - no WM to be found. Admittedley, from that point forward it's all X+WM.

    3. Re:Why screenshots from an OS? by Spoing · · Score: 1
      1. That is rubish. Most likely they are screenshoots of the window manager.

      Look at the *other* screenshots listed on the osdir.com site. Most of them are also of the WM & or WM+desktop.

      If you don't like that, you can take them up on the offer of replacing them with other shots; " We love screenshots! Got a new release to show us? Ping us where to pick them up!".

      Either way, I *DO* like the screenshot previews...they are SCREENSHOTS not detailed OS comparisons.

      --
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  4. oh the joy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ive seen a few BSD based live CDs, but this ones nice. ive been using it for a few days and i must say that the maker(s) put a lot of thought into it. the best thing about this CD is that its really nice to use as a desktop, which makes it unique in the BSD world.

    i have one complaint though, and its relatively minor.

    i would preferr a larger kernel with more devices compiled in. dont get me wrong, the hardware support is comparatively good, but out of a few obscure pieces that i have one wasnt recognized. i was able to load a module though so its okay =].

    i would like to recommend also that they create a quick utility for adding packages to a post-boot running system, similar to what trinux used to do. it wouldnt take much effort, although maybe some bandwith =].

  5. Images slashdotted, here is a mirror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BSD screenshots

  6. Re:*BSD - a litany of failure by Spoing · · Score: 2, Insightful
    1. So why now? Why did *BSD fail?

    None of the major BSDs -- Free/Net/Open -- have failed. I'm sure that in raw numbers -- not counting OSX -- more people use the BSDs now than in the past.

    The BSDs are Unix/Unix-like, and as such are useful to anyone who knows *nix. As a Linux/Solaris/Windows guy, I would neither have a problem with specifically suggesting FreeBSD or using it myself.

    --
    A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
  7. Re:*BSD is dying by ic0wb0y · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If any other OS had been as dead as FBSD, it would really be dead. FBSD can survive a nuclear attack. When all other OS's die, BSD will still be chugging. What can kill it? Invenstors can't pull out. Stock can't decline. Marketers can't abandon it. Idiots have never even used it in the first place, so abandonment can't be a factor. Writers have tried to contribute to it's demise but have been unsucceful. OS wars haven't made a dent in it's armor. BSD may not be a gleeming superstar, but it is the salt of the Earth. Amazing Kreskin will be long dead and forgotten but BSD will remain its cosmogonic self, and still catching flak just like all the other Gods have since the dawn of man.

  8. What is that? by numbski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the upper right hand corner of the desktop?

    I've been looking for something similar to Mac OS X's GeekTool for X11, but hadn't found anything yet. That looks like what I'm looking for.

    Anyone know?

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    1. Re:What is that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Torsmo

    2. Re:What is that? by 0racle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have xrootconsole displaying the contents of the syslog, but it doesn't handle a log swtich over well. If you use KDE there is superkaramba, for Gnome I assume gDesklets can do the same thing.

      I would also like to know what that thing in the top right was aswell though.

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    3. Re:What is that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      torsmo

    4. Re:What is that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      torsmo I think (http://torsmo.sourceforge.net/)

    5. Re:What is that? by SnoBall · · Score: 0

      The montior happens to be called Torsmo and it paints itself to the root window of X11, which is nice and nifty ( you can get it to ... blend in.)

      You can see more screenshots here

      ~SnoBall

      --
      Don't eat me ... *looks at nickname* ... okay, eat me.
    6. Re:What is that? by Raagshinnah · · Score: 2, Informative

      I would also like to know what that thing in the top right was aswell though.

      That`s torsmo.

  9. Re:*BSD is dying by Mal1 · · Score: 0

    Well said.

  10. Different? by cuteseal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How is this different to the hundreds (ok I exaggerate) of other "boot off a usb keydrive / cd rom" distros out there?

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    1. Re:Different? by andreyw · · Score: 1

      Its FreeBSD? The only distro of FreeBSD is (duh!) FreeBSD, lol. RTFA.

    2. Re:Different? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fooey. Debian are making a FreeBSD distribution. Numbnuts.

    3. Re:Different? by Filmwatcher888 · · Score: 1

      This is the first one for FreeBSD.

  11. I wrote a review of FreeSBIE over by p.rican · · Score: 1
    here.

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    /. --"Demented and sad....but social" -Judd Nelson

  12. About non RTFMing bastards like me... by El+Icaro · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What software does it contain? Its probably much faster than knoppix and it surely has apache and tons of networking software. Does it contain some sort of an office suite? Id be much more confortable with a quick, light an secure system than a (sorry, but I consider it true) bloated knopppix cd. Im also considering slax but it doesnt have captive ntfs. So, whats the software its made out of?

  13. Re:*BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you do realize that you are responding to a troll which is so old that it is a joke, right