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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."
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.
Here's to hoping there's a LiveCD version. So far, the only LiveCD that recognizes my wireless card (Broadcom in an HP laptop) is Simply Mepis.
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First of all, if you're using FreeBSD chances are you know how to configure an X11 environment. It's easy. Also, you have your choice of window managers; not everyone will choose KDE. Package management is already extremely easy with ports, especially with portupgrade. I definitely agree that FreeBSD with an official GUI would be awesome (the opposite approach of Windows, where the interface would simply be a frontend for scripts), but for a half-hearted attempt there's not much of a demographic.
It's great how the fancy graphical installation screen crashes back to an ugly terminal font in Screen10. It kind of throws off the whole good vibe that I'd been getting during the previous steps. Also, why is there a Next button active when the installation script obviously wants me to press Reboot? Strange, to say the least.
But when it comes down to it, installation is only the gateway to the system. It isn't the system itself. MacOS could have the world's worst installation system, but the OS itself runs so nicely that people just love to be running it.
There should be no "Configure my Installation" step. It should choose a default "best-fit" confiuration based on the detected hardware (mostly screen resolution) and leave any further customization to the user to do later. It is more important to have the system up and running than to have it customized just so.
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 installed FreeBSD previously and didn't have any trouble there. The questions were just as straightforward as this installer and within an hour I had a full BSD installation with graphical interface to boot. It wasn't "ready for the desktop" in any sense of the term, though, unfortunately.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Screenshots are great, but only when they're relevant.
... and I knew that before I looked at the screenshots.
;)
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
I like the KDE background, though
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.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
We're all on the same team -- only if we FOCUS our efforts into the OS with the best chance (Linux) can we defeat the DRM-infested, money-grabbing proprietary OSs like M$ Vista and Apple OS X.
:)
Must start using the one true F/OSS operating system... Oh wait, screw that. I like my BSDs here. Reason #1 why I use FreeBSD over Linux, I just want a Unix-like OS without a revolution packaged with it. Talk about bloat.
No, noone is going to convince you. This isn't a sales pitch. (Why was that moded interesting? Its not).
Also, BSD is NOT linux. Read for yourself what they do. Here they are.
http://www.freebsd.org/
http://www.openbsd.org/
http://www.netbsd.org/
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.
"Face it, Linux has a head start and is enjoying far more corporate support (due partly to the fact that Linux is licensed GPLv2, which compells big companies to share back their improvements).
We're all on the same team -- only if we FOCUS our efforts into the OS with the best chance (Linux) can we defeat the DRM-infested, money-grabbing proprietary OSs like M$ Vista and Apple OS X."
Why must every good thing be turned into some kind of zealot-fest, rally to my agenda? How about we all simply enjoy the damn distro without trying to conquor this, push agenda that, holy-war upon everything that doesn't agree with me?
When is starts to fracture.
For awhile there, we only had 3, and life was good. Now we have DragonFly, Darwin, and now DesktopBSD. Any system that splits up so much must be dead or dying!!
> Too bad, all that developer talent could have gone into making Linux better suited for the desktop.
Every annum for the past 6 years, headlines claimed that it was the year of "desktop Linux." Yet nothing came of it save for a bunch of Windows-esque clones with no innovation. Then Apple came along and revolutionized the desktop experience. So maybe it is time for someone else to give it a go.
Have they fixed the bug where you can't select boot with USB keyboard because you're using a USB keyboard?
"Welcome to the DesktopBSD Installation! This wizard will guide you through the process of installing DesktopBSD on your computer. Please take the time to carefully through all texts and explanations because improper settings can cause data loss."
Always nice when you install a new OS and the first screen you see is a paragraph that has obviously not been proofread.
Of course not! It's not the standard text editor!
can we defeat the DRM-infested, money-grabbing proprietary OSs like M$ Vista and Apple OS X.
dude, take it easy. turn off the che rhetoric for a bit, tell your poly sci prof to lighten up on the indoctrination, and be thankful that we have money-grabbing corporations or else we'd all be living in mud huts. from each according to their ability doesn't work in the real world. now, i'm no fan of microsoft, but tell me this: how many people do you employ? how much do you pay in taxes? how many people use your software to run their businesses, etc. i own two ibooks, and have run linux on my pc's since '98. however, profit is not a dirty word. people pursue profit and it stimulates innovtion. why is it that people bitch up and down about "evil M$", yet barely say a word about all the hardware companies? eh? aren't they money grabbing? you like your dual core pentium 4's, well, they ain't making them because they're nice people.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Yep. Grammar notwithstanding, that's totally worry-free and friendly stuff, right there.
Anything that uses X-Windows will not get widespread user adoption.
DesktopBSD looks good for a BSD, but it's still at least seven years behind the market.
Will you quit using the "Royal We"?
OpenBSD is my main operating system, with some Linux on the side. I don't want BSD to be like Linux. That's why I use it instead of Linux. That's why people use BSD. It does the job for them in a way that they like better. If they wanted Linux, they'd use Linux.
Both systems have their strengths. BSD is great if you want something lean. Linux is good if you want something very easy to maintain and don't mind a little GNU-bloat.* BSD is great if you want traditional Unix. Linux is good if you're not very philosophical and just want something that works. BSD is great if you don't want to recompile your kernel. Linux is great if you don't want to recompile your userland. BSD seems to consume less memory. Linux supports more binary-only software.
The point is, they have different goals, different strengths and weaknesses. I'm not in any hurry to see them merge. In fact seeing people advocate that here on Slashdot annoys the hell out of me. And I can tell you, the BSD developers and Linux afficionados out there would find the idea stupid too. If you posted your comment to a developer mailing list, if there'd be any reply at all, it would be along the lines of, "No. That's ridiculous. Stop getting in the way of our work." Though perhaps more polite.
* Yes, GNU has a noble goal but can be bloated. It's mostly bloated because it tries to be all things to all people. See the infamous GNU echo joke.
Well I know you're opening up the whole KDE vs. GNOME can of worms, but I don't think you're a troll. I think it's actually worth discussing again, and again, and again... :)
Anyway, I'd tend to disagree with you. I think right now GNOME is the better of the two, however I would have agreed with you last year.
Basically as it stands, all the best apps are GTK apps. If you want to run a fully native desktop, you're only gonna do that in GNOME. Whenever I use KDE, I find myself enjoying it as a desktop, but hating it as a toolkit. And I always find myself running GTK apps, like Firefox, GAIM, X-chat, Evolution/Thunderbird, the list goes on.
Now I do like a lot of QT apps. I personally think Konqueror is very nice, even though I hate the defaults. I also *love* k3b and some of the smaller KDE apps like kdf.
That said, neither is perfect. But I think GNOME is improving faster than KDE. KDE is bloated, it has poor defaults, and QT is uglier than GTK (QT has too many borders! too many borders!). And GNOME is too lacking in features. Well, each release of GNOME goes a long way towards solving its features problem. Each release of KDE does little to solve its bloat, poor defaults, and ugly QT.
Given that GNOME is cleaner, better looking, better defaults, is constantly tackling its weak spots, and most good apps are GTK, I can easily see why most distros push GNOME.
But again, it's all personal preference. Both GNOME and KDE are fantastic projects and I wish distros didn't push one or the other but supported them equally. I use Fedora and personally I think Fedora's KDE support is excellent even though it defaults to GNOME.
Anyway, I'll get back to coding in Kate and chatting on GAIM whilst browsing with Firefox in GNOME while burning a dvd with k3b... Unix desktops are not as simple as one DE, one toolkit, one kernel.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
RC2 is actually out, just not listed on their download page. I found it on the Oregon Mirror, however that mirror is extremely slow -- (20K/sec).
I'm hosting a mirror of DesktopBSD-1.0-RC2-x86-CD.iso
May this post be indexed by spiders, and archived for all to see as my Internet epitaph.
The BSD license isn't a packaged revolution. It's simply a notice of sharing. Sharing has been around even since before the cro magnon realized that a mammoth was too much for one hunter to eat.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Why not do it in a sane way such as:
This is my hope for a desktop oriented BSD. I'm typing this from OS X on my powerbook, but I think the world still needs a compelling open platform.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
Linux is just a kernel, this isn't my opinion, its a fact. How did you want me to back that up exactly? The userland included with every linux distro I know of come from a variety of authors, have far too many useless options, have outdated, incomplete or non-existant documentation in a variety of formats, and have nothing in common besides being lumped into a distro. If that's not "random assorted crap" I don't know what is.
If you don't know wether or not something is true, find out. Me saying its true in more words isn't going to change anything, learn to think for yourself. Its not hard to install a BSD and check out how EVERYTHING has an accurate and up to date man page. How man pages not being clear enough is considered a bug and is fixed. How the same group of people are responsable for the entire OS, and ensure consistant and sane behaviour from all userland tools. Compare it to your linux distro of choice, its not hard to see the difference.
but unfortunately it allows people to not 'share back' the stuff they took and improved.
Calm down people, its a religion not an operating system.
but unfortunately it allows people to not 'share back' the stuff they took and improved.
Sharing isn't the word your want. Sharing isn't about attaching strings to your generosity. The word you're looking for is "reciprocality". Please don't confuse the two.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I suspect Intel and AMD and most companies have much lower profit margins than Microsoft, and don't spend nearly as much time trying to screw the customer. There's a difference between an ordinary profit-seeking company, and a company that tries to squeeze as much money as possible from its customers -- and can get away with it.
Apple began to "come along and revolutionise the desktop environment" before Linux was a spark in Linus' eye. Almost all the technology that is MacOS X was either in the classic Mac operating systems or (for the majority) in NeXTSTEP back in the late 1980s. They just jazzed up its look a bit and switched parts of the kernel. It took NeXTSTEP over a decade to get to the stage it (as MacOS X) was in in 2001. Why should you expect a much more poorly-funded group of programmers to do the same in half that time?
GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and other similar operating systems, however, have been designed with a different userbase in mind. Clearly, they excel in that domain. More recently (beginning after your six-years-ago date), desktop environments have either attempted either to court a different userbase (e.g. Gnome) or they have become so good that they are able to be attractive to that different userbase (e.g. KDE). Considering where they came from, and where we've suddenly expected them to go, Free desktops have made outstanding progress.
Aside from that, there will be no 'year of desktop Linux'. It will just be that over time, a relatively large proportion of non-geeks will come to use Free desktops.
Look out!
Umm, I think using the word "revolutionised" is probably as over the top as claiming Linux running KDE or Gnome or whatever will "take over" the desktop market.
My iBook (which is downstairs that i use every night), is no more or less revolutionary, better or worse than my PC that i use everyday that runs KDE.
Both have things i love and rant about, that are new and different, both have things that shit me to tears.
The difference? When i get shitty at KDE, or some OS application i think "It's free and look at the awsome stuff it does". When i get shitty at OSX, i think, "ooohh look the MIGHTY OSX being a pain in the arse, whats that? I need to spend *more money* on yet another stupid shareware application to perform some inane task like putting my iPhoto library into a different place?"
Revolutionised indeed, a revolution would be holographic projectors that can read my thoughts or some awesome shit like that, little bouncing icons and an automatic window organiser is *not* revolutionary.
(Sorry, just bitter after wrestling with OSX for a few hours yet again).
Yeah, and my "Desktop Solaris" also looks like "your desktop Linux but with a different wallpaper" as well. (hint: I'm running KDE 3.4.1, with all the same software any "Linux user" would otherwise use as well)
All that glorious "Linux software" you all gloat about is really not "Linux software". It's "UNIX-compatable software" and benefits users of just about any *NIX-like system out there.
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.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
I've seen teams require a regulation sized ball and a regulation sized field with paid and licenced officials to enforce the rules.
Microsoft can field a team anywhere for any field. But it most likely won't be a winning team of super stars.
Linux, BSD, and OSX have specific uses (Linux and BSD more so than OSX) and they shine at them. In my mind that's the difference. I don't want a whole team, I just want a really good Linebacker.
Most F/OSS I know of has capital-letter support build right in instead of being a value-added option you obviously were too cheap to spring for. You had to cut'n'paste to get "M$" into your post, didn't you?
This is not my sandwich.
I know it's not a free download...
But there already is an easy to use BSD for the desktop. It's called Mac OS X.
Yes. Yes. I know it only runs on Apple hardware (at this point).
- dj
Hey now, don't reach too far, that Holy Grail of verbal sophistry just isn't worth it, Brunhilde.
To use "in common with others" means that you and others draw from the same pool. There is absolutely no implication of a return.
You don't share so you can get something out of it -- you share because it's the right thing to do. Imposing debt is not sharing.
Well, I will not go toe-to-toe with a history teacher. I do appreciate the reply and clarification. Modern business, economics, etc. is indeed a balance. Too much government stifles/too little creates oligarchy.
am well aware of the rise of the corporation. which by the way, was not capitalism.
Yes, but was it capitalization?
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I care about two main things...
First, the existence of organizations like the BSA indicates a deep and troubling flaw in the legal system. When you have to encourage people to rat on eachother in order to enforce laws you have a system of laws that are broken and wrong.
The deep and troubling flaw is the extension of copyright beyond commercial reproduction. Commercial reproduction is easy to find and deal with. Controlling it represents no big loss. Controlling copying at a personal level is inherently invasive.
The second issue is this...
If you ever look at the Windows platform, the home of proprietary software, the vast majority of programs on it do many things the users of those programs are not aware of, and are things that are not in those user's best interests. Basically, when you run a piece of proprietary software, you are giving control of your computer to someone else. It's no longer your computer.
If OS X were GPL, I would most likely buy copies of OS X. I do not care if it is free of charge. But I do care that I know what it's doing when it runs, and that it's actions are independently verifiable and auditable. This is likely going to be a real problem when Apple adopts hardware-level DRM.
Also, the GPL is a simple license. It states its intentions at the beginning in simple language, and the legalese is there to support those intentions in a clear and precise manner. It's the most pleasant to read legal document I've ever read.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
now, i'm no fan of microsoft, but tell me this: . . . how much do you pay in taxes?
A lot more than Microsoft, it appears.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Are you sure you need journalling, though? FreeBSD's softupdates cover most of the advantages of a journal, and the background fsck (which mainly makes sure that unallocated blocks are actually marked as such) lets you boot quickly.
I certainly don't think journals are a bad thing, but I've honestly not missed them.
Regarding vinum: what do you like better about Linux's logical volume management? gvinum (GEOM-based vinum) has been pleasant enough for what I've asked of it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
For most of the mid 80s to mid 90s, every year you could count on some major prediction that next year would be the year of the network. Never happened, without any explosive growth networks ended up anywhere.
Short answer: because FreeBSD has softupdates, which for most people turn out to be just as good, and for some better.
There are two ways to get the advantages most people want from a journaling file system. The obvious is to write a journal. FreeBSD instead spent time to make sure that meta-data could not get out of date in the first place, and thus there is no need for a journal. The latter is harder to implement, but has some significant advantages, and other disadvantages. For most people either will work fine, for those who have a case where it matters FreeBSD is implementing the journal. The real question is why nobody else is implementing softupdates so they don't need a journal in the cases where it is worse.
Remember, this is not a case where journals are always better than softupdates. For some workloads journals are better, for others softupdates is better. FreeBSD will soon be the only one to let you choose based on your real-world needs.
"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."
I agree, this is a big one. I think the best system is the one OS X uses, application folders.
I like the fact that DesktopBSD has helpful "control panels" and configuration/installation wizards, it's good stuff.
However, PC-BSD has application folders and that's why I'm going with that. I just think it's the most usable system of progam installation and more importantly, the easiest system for getting RID of programs. Getting rid of a program that's installed it's files all over your HD demands the help of a thing called a package manager or "uninstall wizard" which need a perfect log of where all the little files were installed to.
In practice, the perfect installation log system is never perfect. It happens that it's either not recorded correctly or something changed after the installation which causes the uninstall to fail. If you want to be SURE you just install every program into it's own folder and you'll know that you've gotten rid of everything if you see the folder gone. It's conceptually easier to get your head around and it's just more usable in practice (drag the folder to another PC and it's "installed" there).
Hopefully DesktopBSD will see the light, they're doing well in every other departement.
Good luck guys.
- -- Truth addict for life.
First thing to know about 64-bit systems, whether they be Linux, Windows, or BSD: avoid the nForce chipsets. They are not worth the hassle to get working reliably.
:)
That's your first mistake.
Second thing to know about 64-bit systems, whether they be Linux, Windows or BSD: avoid the very latest, bleeding-edge, "I'm so cool, I got it first" technology. It's not worth the hassle to get working reliably.
That's your second mistake.
Third thing to know about 64-bit systems, whether they be Linux, Windows, or BSD: always, always, always research the hardware support before purchasing any hardware. It's not worth the hassle to get things supported after-the-fact. Doing this would have prevented the first two mistakes.
Hmmm, is it really so hard to:
/dev/sndstat
/boot/loader.conf
/boot/kernel/, all there for the loading if you need them. You only need to recompile the kernel to remove drivers.
kldload snd_driver
(loads every sound driver on the system)
cat
(read the output to see exactly which sound driver is being used)
echo 'snd__load="YES"' >>
(tell the kernel to load the specific sound module at bootup)
Remember, 95% of all device drivers in FreeBSD are compiled as modules and stored under
POSIX is great, but it doesn't go far enough. POSIX + LSB + FreeDesktop.org is more like what I'm talking about, but even it's just a start!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
not difficult at all, but as they say who wants to go CLI to fix sound, also when i installed freebsd 5.4 release last week kldload snd_driver didn't do anything for me and I ended up recompiling it.