DesktopBSD 1.0 Final Released

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."

Comments

torrent

[Graham_Hodgson]

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

Re:Ready for the desktop?

[squiggleslash]

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.

Re:choice is good, but ...

[evilviper]

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.

Try it before you bash it...

[shrapnull]

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.

Re:BSD could beat Linux to the desktop

[Just Some Guy]

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?