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DesktopBSD 1.0 Final Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the devilishly-good-desktops dept.

Don Church writes "DesktopBSD is reporting that the 1.0 Final of DesktopBSD was released today for both 32-bit and 64-bit x86 architectures. This cutting edge FreeBSD derivative now includes KDE 3.5.1 and a host of tools designed to make the BSD experience more palatable to novices. The DVD release even includes Amarok, Firefox and other popular software ready to go. They are offering downloads via several mirrors or the official torrent."

13 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. torrent by Graham_Hodgson · · Score: 5, Informative

    Torrent here: http://linuxtracker.org/download.php?id=1734&name= DesktopBSD-1.0-x86-DVD.iso.torrent

  2. Re:Ready for the desktop? by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Interesting
    You think this is bad? Microsoft says Vista will need a "modern" CPU. That means it should run on a Power Macintosh G5 right? Well, if you click on that link you get to this, which in turn gives you links to Intel, AMD, and VIA CPU thingies. And what are these CPUs that, say, Intel (I think it says "Intel inside" on my Dell, but doesn't that mean I have a Dell CPU?) has? Well, on "Desktop" platforms (another link) it says I need a "Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 600 sequence with HT Technology and Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology."

    I don't know about you but all this stuff about HT Technology and stuff is very confusing. Do I have that?

    This just proves that Vista is unready for the desktop. I guess that's why they cancelled it. Har har! Har har. Har, har. *sigh*

    Seriously, what exactly is DesktopBSD's website supposed to say? The thing you quote seems reasonable to me, anyone who doesn't understand it is unlikely to find any way of wording it useful anyway, unless it was worded in such a way that'd make it useless to an actual computer professional.

    It's not like they'll be installing it. They'll be asking us to do it, as usual.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  3. It's dead, Jim... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mirrordot cache: http://mirrordot.org/stories/e7cd62fa4b24ca2788721 1c05d686136/index.html

    And Coral Cache:
    http://www.desktopbsd.net.nyud.net:8080/index.php? id=43&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=15&tx_ttnews%5BbackPi d%5D=55&cHash=cddb1e432f

    When will slashcode be modified to automatically use the cached pages? Harumph! </SARCASM>

    Muwahahaha

  4. Re:choice is good, but ... by evilviper · · Score: 4, Insightful
    BAD MODS!

    This is just a baseless troll, without any real information.

    At any given time, I was never able to run more than about 75% of the desktop apps that I wanted to run. I tried portupgrade, but that often did more harm than good.

    WTF? I can't remember the last time I saw FreeBSD ports break. Not even a SINGLE package. They ALL compile and install perfectly every time. Hell, I've UPGRADED my system from FreeBSD version to version, never bothered uninstalling the old ports, and everything continues to work fine. I've never seen ANY other OS handle upgrades remotely as gracefully.

    Besides, even if you did have a problem with compiling from ports (which I have a very hard time believing), why didn't you just install from the binary packages, instead?

    I can't believe this is anything other than another anti-BSD troll.
    --
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  5. BSD could beat Linux to the desktop by teslatug · · Score: 3, Interesting

    FreeBSD could still beat Linux to the desktop just because it's standardised on what comes with it, and you could release packages for it a lot more easily. What's lacking is hardware support (which is even more miserable than linux), and desktop performance. If they worked on desktop performance, I think they could easily get drivers by porting them from Linux. I wouldn't mind running FreeBSD on my laptop if only they'd get the performance right. I have actually dual booted FreeBSD and Linux on the same box, both running the same version of KDE, and FreeBSD is just dog slow compared to Linux, which isn't that fast to begin with. Sure KDE can be a hog, but it's either more of a hog on FreeBSD or FreeBSD just doesn't pay attention to a desktop user's needs.

    1. Re:BSD could beat Linux to the desktop by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Sure KDE can be a hog, but it's either more of a hog on FreeBSD or FreeBSD just doesn't pay attention to a desktop user's needs.

      I recently switched my work desktop from FreeBSD to Gentoo because of a harddrive failure and the need to try something different. I think you're at least partially right: KDE "felt" much more responsive under Linux than FreeBSD, even under the same hardware, compiled with the same compiler version, and using similar CFLAGS.

      However, I think that's partly because FreeBSD has traditionally been optimized for throughput instead of interactivity. On idle systems, Linux seems to respond more quickly to user input. However, the FreeBSD system seemed to stand up better to high loads than Linux ("how on earth did my load average get up to 10? It's been there for how long?") without becoming jerky or noticeably less responsive.

      I have zero real evidence to support this idea, but personal observation makes me think I'm basically right. Maybe you were seeing the same low-load behavior but didn't notice the corresponding high-load advantage?

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    2. Re:BSD could beat Linux to the desktop by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Are you sure that applies to FBSD 5.x and above?

      I used to be a FBSD fanatic. 5.0 turned me off and 6.0 made me leave. Its I/O and threading is slower than 4.x and its much less stable not to mention my hardware worked fine with 4.x but has issued with 5.x and higher. Strange indeed?

      Linux has improved with low latency timers in the kernel which make it alot faster than earlier versions. Version 2.4 and FBSD 4.x it was a no brainer on which was faster and that was FBSD. But times are changing.

      I still have hope in the dragonflyBSD project.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    3. Re:BSD could beat Linux to the desktop by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Interesting
      However, the FreeBSD system seemed to stand up better to high loads than Linux

      Not sure about FreeBSD, but I have noticed that NetBSD performs better than Linux when resources are scarce. I tried redhat, and then NetBSD on a very old laptop which I got second hand. NetBSD was more responsive under heavy load.

      I put this down to history. BSD had to function on very slow computers in the 80's before linux was written, so the kernel is written with different assumptions about resources.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    4. Re:BSD could beat Linux to the desktop by the+chao+goes+mu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Regarding throughput, I know in terms of network this is true. BSD reaps closed sockets almost immediately while Linux (and Solaris, the other OS with which I am familiar enough to comment) tend to wait a long-ish time before cleaning up old sockets. This can lead to real problems in machines handling messaging and other, similar tasks, where there are huge number of rapid, small data packets coming from a large number of sources. Guess it isn't exaclty a "throughput" optimiziation after all, more that BSD is better as a server. Which means this is completely off-topic. Nevermind.

      --
      Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
    5. Re:BSD could beat Linux to the desktop by Eivind+Eklund · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Your assumption is correct - we've generally optimized for throughput on large loads. Traditionally, our #1 benchmark has been "How fast can this make world?", meaning a full build of the entire system. Benchmarking systems was able to measure this at an accuracy of better than +- 0.1%. That's pretty damn good: To get that kind of accuracy required GPS clocks (accurate to better than 1ppm), cache preloading, and extreme temperature control of the machine.

      I can't say how things are going right at the moment (I've been mostly offline from the FreeBSD development process for a couple of years), but when I "left" there was a number of things going on that should improve this: Preemtable kernel, pluggable schedulers, etc.

      I think the ULE scheduler would give you more of the same performance curve as Linux, and it might be more suitable for desktop work. In general, I've found FreeBSD's performance fine for my personal desktop needs - it's been snappy enough, and my only issues have been when web browsers or similar eat enormous amounts of RAM and I/O capacity. I've not tested Linux for desktops for a good many years, so I don't have direct experience to say how it compares in practice.

      Eivind (FreeBSD developer "in exile").

      --
      Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
  6. Try it before you bash it... by shrapnull · · Score: 4, Informative

    Before we get into the usual banter about BSD, Netcraft, or whatever they've confirmed recently, I have to say that I use BSD more now then ever.

    It would never have dawned on me to bother with trying BSD as a desktop until I had some extra cash in the account and setup a system for network monitoring and packet scanning. With the bulk of the load being network-based, I figured this might as well be my desktop system too to garner more bang for the buck. This, mind you, after having used GNU/Linux and Windows for years and relegating BSD to beige server boxen only.

    That was a about a year ago. Today every PC I own runs FreeBSD as the primary desktop.

    It's not without it's issues when you install from the standard FreeBSD disks. I had to compile OOOrg from ports using flags (with cups, kde), and I had to install the linuxflashplayer-wrapper and tinker with it for a while to get it running...so yes, there are dozens of "little" things that keep this from desktop adoption.

    If a distribution such as DesktopBSD can create prepackaged desktop installations with a preconfigured flash-player, OOOrg, etc...I don't see why many people wouldn't at least try it out. The package management from a desktop user perspective has been great (I prefer it over apt, yum or portage), I have no failed installations due to -cpio bad magic, checksig errors (when I know the keys are installed), etc...

    Be prepared though, with this install you get a basic desktop. There is still much work to be done, but this is a nice start from a group of guys I can totally relate to.

    --
    If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
  7. Re:Ready for the desktop? by GT_Onizuka · · Score: 3, Funny

    *Wooosh*

    --
    If you take out Country Kitchen buffet, old people won't know what to do.
  8. Re:choice is good, but ... by killjoe · · Score: 3, Informative

    "WTF? I can't remember the last time I saw FreeBSD ports break. Not even a SINGLE package."

    Ah come on now. I have run freebsd servers for years and I can tell you from direct experience that there have been numerous times I could not get one port or another to build. The one I remember being pissed off the most was net-snmp for a while. I waited for months and emailed the author but it still didn't get fixed so I had to compile from source (something I do not like to do as a matter of course).

    With all those ports there are bound to be defects at some time or another. I also remember I had problems with sablotron for a while too.

    --
    evil is as evil does