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Interview With the PC-BSD Team
GeekyBodhi writes "FOSSEngineer.com has an interview with a couple of guys from the PC-BSD development team after the distro recently released their first stable version 1.0. PC-BSD is built on top of FreeBSD and aims to dumb down installation and daily usage, enabling a non-technical user to run it as his primary desktop. The guys talk about their pre-release journey, features unique to PC-BSD and why a minimal installation system is a good thing."
"We ain't TOUCHING sysinstall..."
Your comment is a little bit redundant. Anyone who's used both will attest that FreeBSD is a very different beast from OS X. OS X may use a lot of FreeBSD's userland, but it is NOT FreeBSD.
This poo is cold.
Not to be self promoting or anything but http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=2 7301 .
really bored? My blog
Unlike Mac OS X, PC BSD is open source and free.
Now if they could get this to run all Linux apps, that would be awesome.
I'm not taking that bet, because I can guess how much your time is worth. Apple-haters tend to be failures at life.
Bonsai Kitten: TNG
...and aims to dumb down installation and daily usage...
Why the hell would I want that? I would like a simplified interface that is easier to use, but no fscking way do I want something that's dumbed down!
p.s. Of course, PC-BSD is not dumbed down. It hasn't been stupidified. The submitter should have read the article and realized that it's 100% hardcore FreeBSD. Unfortunately, the poor choice of adjective will lead many to think that this is just the BSD version of Linspire. Sigh.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
If I may be so bold, if you know enough to know the difference between KDE and gnome, you aren't the target user. What matters is that it works, not whether it caters to a particular set of preferences. Even giving a neophyte choices can build up to rejection if there are too many choices that seem redundant or unimportant to them and their needs.
Its only dying in your mind.
Here are the facts:
There are currently 4 bsd projects that i'm aware of. They include FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD. In addition to these projects which each develop their own kernel and userland, there are linux style distros PC-BSD and DesktopBSD which do not develop their own kernel or low level userland. (they add gui shit) These two track freebsd progress as well as other projects like frenzy that do live cds.
I'm also in the process of starting a BSD project based on FreeBSD 6.x which is a fork like dragonfly was. My project is aimed at developing a desktop friendly bsd from the ground up. Another words, I want to make a BSD install with x11, a window manager and basic applications as well as reasonable defaults for desktop users. Its not like PC-BSD and DesktopBSD since I will be modifying the userland and kernel. I also don't plan on using KDE like they do as KDE users are covered by their efforts. BSD on the desktop is important in part because Macs have gone up in price during the intel switch. Plus if I accomplish my goals, apple may benefit from the source anyway. Finally, I plan on leaving as much BSD licensed as possible. The other projects prefer GPL.
I don't have a website up yet, but the uri will be http://www.midnightbsd.org/ (MidnightBSD)
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
OK... what's the correct procedure to clean up the registry when an errant program makes a mess of it? Especially after you attempt to uninstall. Or... what options are there to make Windows more flexible in a heterogenous environment without using SFU? Or... What is the single most important change you can make to your Windows installation to prevent or reduce the occurrence of spyware on your system (hint: it's not spyware removal tools)? Bonus points if you can do any or all of the above free of charge. Unless someone has the right answers to those questions I don't think they can say they know much about computers. I'm not attacking you BTW. I'm bringing up the questions to point out that there's always more to learn and that there isn't much point in getting into computers unless you're always learning something. With that said, Linux and the BSDs are much better learning tools for PCs than Windows. You learn a lot more about how the system works. And that knowledge is priceless.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
You mean start making up nonsense words that only have meaning if there's a giant marketing department behind them, like "Pentium" or "Zeta" or "Ubuntu?"
Okay, how about we rename it from PC-BSD to any of the following:
- Bonedai 1.0
- Genufal 1.0
- Marada 1.0
- Notege 1.0
- Imboldos 1.0
- Drimium 1.0
- Turbalus 1.0
At least you can explain that PC-BSD actually is representational in nature: Personal Computer Berkeley Software Distribution.
Better than "Zzemdaxa" or "Mmulema" or "Panaxap" or [insert another nonsense word here, maybe with the words "Desktop 1.0" after it].
One more for good measure, say, Eetharalia Desktop 1.0 Pro.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I love PC-BSD's self contained software installer above all. It brings the simplicity and elegance of Windows and Mac software installation to the nix world.
Package managers like Synaptic don't make too much sense to me. They are great as long as every computer that you manage has a broadband connection. There are many people in the world, especially in developing nations, that can not afford that luxury. I'd much rather keep copies of software on CDs to distribute instead of having to connect every computer to a fat pipe whenever I want to install a software package. Yes, I understand that you can configure removable media as a source, but the process in not intuitive and you have to make sure that every dependency is available on the CD to begin with.
If PC-BSD were to release a GNOME centric version of its software I would switch all of my machines in a heartbeat.
Just why would anyone want a FreeBSD desktop?
Why not?
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
I don't think most NIX users get it. I like dumbed down installs and self configuring stuff. That said, I'm a programmer. I like dumbed down installs because I don't like wasting my time configuring everything. At the same time, I don't like installing distros which require me to track down additional software. Why not release a distro which includes a bunch of software and gui configuration tools? I mean, command line utilities are great, but I don't really want to learn them unless it's necessary. I want something that I don't have to learn, or spend much time setting up. I'm sure I might get flamed from the "you should learn how all your software you use works" crowd, but honestly, I don't want to compile, I don't want download libraries, I just want to freakin software to work. I don't want to have to spend time reading man pages, I want to hit buttons. If I decide I want to use the CLI to find tune settings, that's great, but that's not priority to getting some piece of software usable first. Dumbed down shouldn't be minimal learning curve with minimal software. Dumbed down should be minimal learning curve with more software. So far Fedora comes closest to this for me. A lot of common tasks can be done in not very much time with the gui configuration tools.
>too many choices that seem redundant or unimportant to them and their needs.
Redundant, unimportant, or SCARY specially when making the wrong choice might lead to a broken system and a support geek being patronizing because *everyone* knows that option was incompatible with that kernel version if you're running an AMD and an early rev of the wireless card firmware from right after the vendor switched chipsets.
Choices should be possible to make given the information available. Too many installations are like the one in Dilbert which said "To configure the system, enter the name of next year's Academy Award winner".
I've used FreeBSD as a desktop OS since version 4.0, in like 99. I just recently started using Linux (gentoo) and I like it. The documentation is great and I don't have to jump through hoops to get certain things working. I haven't noticed any stability issues, but I will tell you this, and this is just my opinion based on my own experience, and that is: FreeBSD is faster. It just is. Its the fastest OS I've ever used, and unlike Linux, doesn't ever seem sluggish under heavy load (I believe that this is due to the dramatically different process scheduling algorithms in place on each). Also, aside from possibly the Gentoo package management system, there really isn't anything on par with the ports collection. If you have an extra machine and some extra time, do consider playing around with it--if nothing else its an education.
This is the one area where *BSD is the most problematic. The free/open Java components (GNU CLASSPATH, gcj, kaffe, and JamVM) are not yet up to real "work" use. I know that Eclipse now can run with pure free Java, but NetBeans is probably six months away, and Tomcat 5.5.* doesn't run at all.
I'm sure those things will be working on the free Javas later this year, and then I can finally have my OpenBSD / Java desktop.
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Carry a gun in California, legally
Who is PC-BSD for? Who specifically wants to use BSD, and not Linux, yet isn't comfortable installing BSD?
If you want a desktop unix there are plenty of Linux distros out there, which have support for more proprietary drivers and software than BSD, and have larger teams and communities behind them.
If you want to use BSD because you prefer BSD to System V then you'll be perfectly happy using the not-quite-so-friendly installers of the regular BSDs.
What would have been better is if they had created a friendlier installer for FreeBSD, and a better GUI for the ports system, and tried to get that into FreeBSD, rather than creating a whole new brand of BSD.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
There are currently 4 bsd projects that i'm aware of. They include FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD. In addition to these projects which each develop their own kernel and userland, there are linux style distros PC-BSD and DesktopBSD which do not develop their own kernel or low level userland. (they add gui shit) These two track freebsd progress as well as other projects like frenzy that do live cds.
E -Live-CD-Download-9067.html).
:-P) actually prefers it over XP or Mandriva.
.PBI software packages aren't too numerous as yet, but there has been steady development with new .PBIs appearing at a fast enough pace that I'm sure the number will be respectable before too long.
Just to add to what you've listed, there are some lesser-known but quite interesting *BSD projects out there.
AnonymOS, an OpenBSD 3.8-based LiveCD with strong encryption and a preconfigured TOR proxy service for net anonymoity.
http://kaos.to/cms/content/view/14/32/
NeWBIE, a NetBSD-based LiveCD aimed at being a desktop LiveCD that includes the Fluxbox desktop environment.
http://arudius.sourceforge.net/
FreeeSBIE, a FreeBSD-based LiveCD (includes install script) which includes Fluxbox and XFCE4 desktop environments. The FreeSBIE toolkit to produce custom LiveCDs is even included in FreeBSDs' ports tree. (There is a Romanian-created flavor called RoFreeSBIE, links at Softpedia http://linux.softpedia.com/progDownload/RoFreeSBI
http://www.freesbie.org/
There may be other projects, but those are the ones I'm familiar with. They are all very nice, and worth a try.
As to PC-BSD, I'm more knowledgeable than the average PC user, but I found PC-BSD to be quite impressive and usable, without being too terribly dumbed-down.My G/F (Yes, I have one, but I'm 48 and also play lead guitar in a gigging and recording blues band.
The
Bravo, laffer! I wish you luck with MidnightBSD, and I'll keep checking that URL. I look forward to any new ideas being applied to FreeBSD, as it seems a very solid base, and IMHO has not been taken anywhere near its' capabilities yet as a desktop.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I consider myself a brain surgeon, but I've never actually bothered to hold a scalpel. If it were really easy, I probably would though.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Additionally, there's OliveBSD, which is based on OpenBSD 3.8. From the website:
OliveBSD is a LiveCD based on OpenBSD 3.8 with graphical environment and various softwares like Firefox, Thunderbird, Gimp, Gaim, Xmms, etc.
I must say I agree here :-)
I never used bsd until a couple of weeks ago, when I ended up without a laptop, and a friend lend me an old one (celeron 1ghz, 128mb ram). As a long time debian user, I started by installing the last touted "desktop os" based on debian: ubuntu. Everything worked as usual and was recognized, but.. it was sluggish (those pesky 128Mb were the cause more than the celeron, I believe). Still, I was outraged: I started linux on a p166+ with 24Mb of ram, and it was faster (or at least in my memory) to use, even after ditching gnome and installing window maker + gnustep apps.
Then, on a whim, I installed OpenBSD 3.9, just to test -- why did I never try bsd before in all those years, after all ? Well,.. it felt even slower -- probably because of X11 though. But I liked OpenBSD a lot -- very neat, excellent docs, and it just felt "clean".
So I installed FreeBSD 6. And. Wow. That's friggin FAST :-) even on this machine. I even recompiled the kernel to change the scheduler, and now it's even more responsive under X11 (although it _seems_ things are slightly slower to start, but the trade off is good on this machine).
So count me in the *BSD supporters now -- although apt is wonderful, pkg/ports are quite ok. And I like how it feels like unix again ;-)
OpenBSD really is slower. However, that's because of its security functionality (cryptographically random process IDs and encrypted swap, anyone?) and not because of poor design. My understanding is that a crypto accelerator board actually makes all of OpenBSD quite a lot quicker but I haven't personally used one and can't vouch for them.
I agree about FreeBSD, though. It's just plain fast.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?