Another Step Towards BSD on the Desktop

linuxbeta writes "DesktopBSD is the latest easy to install BSD aimed squarely at the desktop. Installation screen shots. From their site: 'DesktopBSD aims at being a stable and powerful operating system for desktop users. DesktopBSD combines the stability of FreeBSD, the usability and functionality of KDE and the simplicity of specially developed software to provide a system that's easy to use and install.' DesktopBSD joins the ranks of PC-BSD and FreeSBIE."

Comments

BSD v Linux

[Mantus]

Could someone point me to (or post) a lowdown on the potential benefits of BSD has over linux (or vice versa) that doesn't include wild speculation and unfounded cynicism?

Isn't a BSD distro going to be about the same as a Linux distro? Does the kernel make that big of a difference?

Note the question marks. I am asking.

BSD or KDE?

[vandan]

Screenshots are great, but only when they're relevant.

People who are keen enough to be interested in BSD will already know what KDE looks like. It would be far more instructive to show screenshots of things that are unique to this particular distribution of BSD. How about showing the GUI tool for software installation, or samba configuration, or something.

All I know now is that BSD runs KDE ... and I knew that before I looked at the screenshots.

I like the KDE background, though ;)

Re:Too bad, fragmentation of FOSS Desktop efforts

[mrchaotica]

It would also help if we worked harder on well-defined and standardized APIs, so that it would be easier to get things working with each other. For example, a standardized hardware configuration API would help make "control center" type apps a lot easier to make, etc.

Its not the kernel.

[Some Random Username]

No, the kernel doesn't make that big of a difference, and the kernel is all that linux is. BSDs are complete operating systems. The reason I don't use linux is because every distro comes with a messy userland full of random assorted crap from various sources, and most of the core utilities are bloated, poorly documented GNU junk.

The BSDs have sane, useful, documented and functional userlands, which makes them a joy to use. There is no reason that linux distros couldn't be made with a nice userland too, but nobody seems to have done it. It seems like most linux users have never used a nice unix system, so they don't realize what they are missing.

Re:Its not the kernel.

[sn00ker]

is the driver support in BSD up to the same level as Linux?

Mostly, yes. If it's not hardware that's running on the bleeding edge, FreeBSD drivers are often better than Linux drivers - in some cases, FreeBSD drivers exist where Linux is stuck using *shudder* Project Evil drivers.
If the hardware is a year old, you're reasonably certain that it will be supported well in FreeBSD if it's supported in Linux. The caveat is hardware where there is no open-source driver, such as with nVidia and their persistent non-support of FreeBSD on amd64.

External storage devices are a joy to use under FreeBSD. Provided you've kept the da and umass drivers, things as diverse as top-end Minolta cameras and cheap USB memory card readers will happily work. Even cheap USB bluetooth adaptors work, though I'm still wrestling with how to get my Palm to use one to connect to the 'net - not that that's any different to XP, which has managed to stop recognising my Palm entirely and has also stopped recognising the bluetooth dongle.

Short version, if you want to live on the bleeding edge you want to be running Linux. If you're OK with waiting six to 12 months before you get the latest new toy (entirely new technology, not necessarily latest model. eg: NCQ-capable SATA drives), you are almost guaranteed that your FreeBSD box will recognise it, play nice with it, and have good man pages to explain how to use the drivers.

Personal anecdote: My workstation at work uses the Intel ICH5 chipset for SATA. Three different Linux distros (this is 13 months ago) wouldn't install. Couldn't see the hard drive. FreeBSD 5.1 didn't care, which is good because I've long had a soft spot for the demon. Last night I finished converting my home servers to FreeBSD, from debian. Feels good :)

Re:Funny installation steps

[Fweeky]

"And in the end, you're still dealing with BSD, which is great if you're running a server, but sluggish (response times to system interrupts is slow, compared to Windows and MacOS) when running in a user-centric scenario."

I'm sorry? I run both Linux, FreeBSD and WinXP desktops on a variety of hardware; "sluggish" isn't what I'd call FreeBSD. It plays a mean game of UT2004 too.

Re:Too bad, fragmentation of FOSS Desktop efforts

[vhogemann]

Come on! The desktop is alredy here, both GNOME and KDE are very usable, and in some points better than Windows.

The problem is how to integrate them to the underlying OS! Until recently there was no standart way to do it, every distro implemented its own hardware discovery scheme.

Now we got udev, pmount, hal and others to help. Have you tried a modern desktop targeted distro recently, like Ubuntu for example? Get a usb drive, plug it and bang! It appears on the desktop MacOSX style.

The only BIG problem left is easy, next-next-finish style, standart installation packages across every distro. But hopefully they'll handle this one too.