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24-hour Test Drive of PC-BSD
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica has a concise introduction to PC-BSD, a FreeBSD derivative that emphasizes ease of use and aims to convert Windows users. The review describes the installation process, articulates the advantages of PC-BSD,and reveal some of the challenges that the reviewer faced along the way. From the article: 'In the end, I would suggest this distribution to new users provided they had someone to call in case of a driver malfunction during installation. I would also recommend PC-BSD to seasoned Unix users that have never tried using FreeBSD before and would prefer a shallower learning curve before getting down to business.'"
..who read that as 24hrs of Blue Screen of Death testing? :(
But when I did (usually FreeBSD) I always found it a quick and easy and once installed it was very fast. Linux always gave me more problems but to be fair I generally didn't care about getting sound drivers and maxing out the video drivers etc with FreeBSD since it was almost always a server.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Isn't that a Mac?
Flame On!
Seems everyone is in the business of making a user-friendly OS. No one has yet understood that we have tons of user-friendly OSes and that the OS is not the problem?
PC-BSD us a pretty friendly name, but I think I would have gone for uBSunDto.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
A cuter mascot?!?
iphone. Probably easier to use than a Mac.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Linux hasn't failed, it just takes a long time to gain market share from Microsoft. Open source is at a disadvantage sometimes. Most of us don't have the money to get developers to write the uninteresting code that no one wants to write themselves. I guess the Linux community has that advantage with companies like Redhat, IBM and Novell in the picture.
What I find interesting is the interest in BSD distros. I know some people don't like me using the term distro as applied to BSD, but its the easiest way to explain what it really is. What I don't understand is the duplication of effort. PC-BSD and DesktopBSD are both KDE and FreeBSD based desktop environments. At least my project is original, albeit unpopular.
The fundamental reason many of us think free desktops will prevail is still there. Think of BSD systems as a backup in case Linux fails in the desktop market. Even if we all fail, we may force Microsoft and Apple to innovate to stay ahead of us.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Seems to me like it's aiming to be BSD-based competition for Ubuntu.
My question is whether this would pull Windows users into it that might be put off by GPL or if it would snipe users of Ubuntu.
More Twoson than Cupertino
I tried this out recently after being given a disc at a linux fest. It's pretty nice. The guy giving out the discs explained that when you install applications, the applications come bundled with all of their dependencies included. This makes the apps use a little bit more disc space, but avoids the issue of two apps requiring two incompatible dependencies. That's pretty nice.
The downside, at least a couple months ago, was that the disc is an install disc rather than a live one. I think he said it takes over the whole drive as well, but I won't swear to that and it may have changed since then. Anyway, I had it in parallels for a while and although it wasn't enough to convince me to abandon ubuntu, I will say that installing software was brain dead easy -- not that synaptic is hard, but with synaptic you do need to know the name of what you want. With PC-BSD, you just pick from a menu of shiny icons and descriptions.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I would also recommend PC-BSD to seasoned Unix users that have never tried using FreeBSD before and would prefer a shallower learning curve before getting down to business.
I don't know... I always thought the learning curve for FreeBSD was pretty shallow. I used GNU/Linux for years before trying FreeBSD, and Linux distributions were all over the board; you never knew what bizarre software configuration you were going to get, or how the system was going to behave or configure. Even after steady use, Linux confused the hell out of me. When I tried FreeBSD, it took a little effort to learn the basics of managing the system: installing, updating, removing software packages. After that it was easy street. Tweaking the base system conf files was obvious... a little too obvious. They say editing text files isn't "intuitive", but this is as close as it gets. For the stuff you can't figure out, the documentation is complete and readily accessible.
Having a front end that helps you autoconfig stuff doesn't actually lesson the learning curve, but in my opinion steepens it. When the autoconfig goes wrong, you're pretty much stuck without a clue.
twice the leetness!
on a more serious note, with its very different license, i imagine it'd be more likely to get support from those outside the FOSS community. whether or not that's a good this is a matter of opinion.
Go back to the drawing board with the name. Windows users want something simple sounding. Putting BSD, Linux, or some pun based on the names of a Linux distribution in the title isn't going to help. In fact, it's probably going to hurt because Linux and BSD sound difficult and dorky. You use Linux and BSD as a selling point when people don't want Linux or BSD. Don't go out of your way to advertise it as a Linux or BSD project, make it look like something other than BSD or Linux, and go from there. As someone who works with marketing, it just always blows my mind that one of the simplest things the OS community could do, give a project an easy, accessible, and non-dorky name, is never even attempted.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Official PCBSD web and download page.
--
The easiest way to earn money with your web.
It won't. I don't say that because I'm some BSD hater, actually, I love BSD. I even have openbsd on some sparcstation lx at home. (sun4m iirc). The last full install I did was 4.10 forever ago, and I never touched 5. So about 4 months ago I say 'im gonna throw the newest bsd on my comp get busy'. Put 6 something on there. I got everything set up like I like it, and went go get x setup so I could game. Imagine my surprise when my 9750xt still didn't have anywhere near full functionality. I was so disgusted I killed that partition in shame.
when bsd gets videocard support surpassing that which linux has, it will be a good contender. until then, its server only.
there already is a FreeBSD derivative that's easy to use and attracting Windows users. It's called OS X :)
Not trolling just trying to be funny. More power to them.
You imply that Linux's "failure" is some sort of permanent state. All open source operating systems have gotten significantly easier to use over the past few years. We might not be able the point where the average joe can handle it, but we might be at the stage now where the average wannabe techie can. And all in all, both FreeBSD and derivatives, and Linux variants are generally getting easier to use. Open source operating systems are making great progress, so I'm not really sure where you are coming from.
As always I am baffled by the hardware platform. Clearly cost is not an issue for this test. Which means that any other factor is the driver. Security? Personal preference? Certainly not compatibility. So with this test and with any other, Ubuntu, Linspire, etc etc etc the point is not going to be the cost of the desktop and we can simply ignore the cost of Vista when looking at any head to head to comparison.
You make it sound like failing to overrun a *nix operating system with a deluge of whiny Windows lusers is a bad thing.
Try PC-BSD for your next fp. Goes from 0 to 2 GHz in 1 nanosecond.
Switch to decaff. Seriously.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to join your anti-cult cult. I hope you have a newsletter?
It doesn't need hope. It's already succeeded, in Mac OS X.
A surprisingly excellent post in a sea of otherwise illucid responses. Thank you.
Actually BSD doesn't use as much GNU stuff as Linux does otherwise RMS would be screaming that you should call it GNU/BSD.
For a while commercial Linux developers where using the BSD libc so they could statically link it to get around some major library problems Linux was having.
There are difference between BSD and Linux. For one BSD tends towards stability over features. It is a different set of trade offs.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I've already got VMs out the nose with different OSs I just had to try. The PC-BSD folks make one readily available at the following location:
PC-BSD VMWare Image
I recommend this method of trying out new OSs, or avoiding corrupting your computer's virtue by installing one is made by whichever large West Coast corporation you dislike.
technical writing / development
As a Mac user, I don't really understand all this effort to make Linux (or BSD) as easy to use as Windows. I don't find Windows particularly easy compared to the Mac.
Now if you could make Linux (or BSD) as easy to use as a Mac....
If this machine had been acquired without OS and the user, instead, decided to buy WindowsXP separately, this user would have had the same problems I had. In my case, the video device wasn't detected, the sound device wasn't detected and the network device wasn't detected. A beginner would also need to rely on someone with experience to get those issues resolved.
I have rather become accustomed to the idea of loading the OS and resolving driver and other hardware configuration issues as part of the installation process. It's the same in Windows as it is for Linux. (Not usually the case with Mac, but they control both the hardware AND the software and there's good reason for that.) The exceptions for this are when a hardware maker cobbles his own OS+Apps+Driver installation software to match the hardware or when, by some uncommon scenario, all hardware in the configuration is identified and supported by whatever comes with the OS. (It happens but it's rare.)
It shouldn't be said about Linux or Windows or *BSD that an expert or experienced user should be available in case of trouble as if this were a problem exclusive to it or to other OSes. It should be said because it's generally true of all.
My question is whether this would pull Windows users into it that might be put off by GPL
...
What, both of them? But seriously, I'm sure there are LOADS of windows users who'd like to try an alternative OS, but just can't get past the restrictions the GPL puts on them.
BWA-HA-hahahahahah!
Almost.
It's a Mac running VMWare Fusion http://www.vmware.com/beta/fusion/features.html.
- They may think that the (alleged) advantages of FreeBSD over Linux will carry over to desktops for the masses.
- They may think that one day one of these attempts will actually succeed and so would like to have a finger in the pie of mixed metaphors.
- FreeBSD is what they do. So when trying to make one of these Unix for the masses distro's that is what they started with.
I'm not optimistic, in particular because many things that end users may want on their systems (e.g., Flash) aren't native to FreeBSD but must run in linux compatibility mode.I don't want to start a FreeBSD vs Linux flaming session here. As long as most people recognize that a reasonable person (even if incorrect) could believe that FreeBSD has advantages over Linux than those (perceived) advantages may reasonably be seen as giving PC-BSD a better chance.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Not quite. Linux technically refers to just the kernel, but most people refer to it as the whole system (GNU,X,KDE/GNOME,etc). A BSD is generally a specific distribution that includes a kernel, a minimal set of core applications, and X (although X is optional).
Please. OS X is not BSD. It's a mostly new OS that was built on top of NextStep, which in turn was re-engineered from the Mach OS (ironic name, that). Mach uses BSD libraries, but that doesn't make every OS based on it BSD.
If Linux failed on the desktop, wouldn't BSD fail for the same reasons? I mean, it is all the same user-land software. FreeBSD doesn't really have much more/different to offer beyond the kernel. Heck, even as a sysadmin, I dont' really feel that FreeBSD and (certain distributions of) Linux are all the different. Again, they both run pretty much the same software.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
BSD is a whole operating system, with a full userland. Linux is just a kernel. As an example, the FreeBSD kernel is vastly different than the OpenBSD kernel, but Redhat and Ubuntu use basically the same kernel.
Why the rhetorical? You can not parse a sentence?
Ah, but you modified the statement. Is Linux "not gaining market share" as you said or is it just taking a while like the parent said?
If it's just taking a while, it hasn't failed (yet) unless you define that it must gain a certain market share in a certain amount of time.
I don't know the actual stats on any of that, but my guess is that Linux is probably not losing market share... just gaining it more slowly than some want it to. It may never get a majority market share, and that could be considered a failure, but I think it's too early to say.
Here are two comparisons and a (shameless plug) novice user's perspective.
With mac/darwin ports, I get all the ease of install of my favorite tool sets just like the ports tree with BSD and I can even purchase that *evil* commercial software like Quickbooks, Office, and *gasp* Photoshop.
I personally found FreeBSD easy to deal with and the ports tree a much better way of installing software than on the Linux systems of the day as there was no standard way to do this between distros. At least with FreeBSD, there was pretty much ONE FreeBSD.
If I was going to set up a simple inexpensive webserver, FreeBSD would still be my first choice on some cheap PC hardware.
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I've heard that what users care about is applications, and that is why even though Ubuntu is clearly ahead of Windows in many categories, it still hasn't crossed over to mass desktop use. I don't think that is true, because most of the applications people use for basic productivity are loaded on to Ubuntu already.
What seems to be the new stumbling block is peripherals. Its about whether you can hook up a digital camera, an ipod, or an all in one machine, and and have it work out of the box.
And so, is there anything technically in BSD that would make any of this easier? Probably not. Which makes me think this project isn't going to find its niche too quickly.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I've given this one a go. I'm mainly a linux man myself. I'm no stranger to the command line and often find bash the easiest way to fix problems with linux. This however did not give me any grounding for this BSD. Maybe this is just my fault... I suppose I should have been expecting some troubles. I think the biggest issue I had was with updating software. I wanted to upgrade firefox from the version that came on the DVD I was given (I think that it was 1.5.0.3 or something.
/.../www/firefox (that might be wrong, but you get the idea) and then type "make install clean". I tired to do that and just got loads of text output which didn't seem to be going anywhere. After about 15 mins I decided to kill that and look around.
The first thing I thought of was going to the firefox site and see if they had an installer for BSD but couldn't find one. Then I decided to search online to see if there was an easy way to do it. The thing I looked at suggested cd-ing into the directory
I found another site which listed the 9 ways he'd tried to update firefox and how in the end none of them work properly. He got flamed in the comments on his blog with comments calling him an ignorant n00b etc. (which would be an image which would put me off going on the forums... or at least make me nervous). In the end I decided that it'd just be a hell of a lot less of a headache to go back to fedora and do "yum update" to update the whole system - there's even a GUI if thats your thing.
So if you think that I've missed something really obvious about this OS or that I've got it totally wrong, you could be right... it doesn't really matter. It still highlights the fact that it just isn't a "user friendly windows alternative" in the same way that a lot of linuxes are.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Certainly! Oh boy, I'm so excited! I can't wait to... wait a moment. That doesn't look like a United States address....
I knew it! You're a communist agent implanted to do away with truth, liberty, justice, and apple pie! DIE YOU COMMIE BASTARD!!!
Considering that it runs the exact same drivers as every other X.org-based X server, that will basically never happen. In other news, neither Windows nor OS X have better X.org drivers than Linux.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
It's got a complete BSD user space, and its kernel (xnu, not Mach) is a mixture of Mach and BSD.
If you were to completely excise BSD from OS X, even though most of what makes OS X what it is would remain, OS X would no longer function.
OS X is a Unix (properly certified, even, in Leopard), and it's derived in no small part from BSD.
It depends on the BSD release. PC-BSD, being based on FreeBSD, has DRI/DRM support in the kernel. The 9750XT (presumably a Radeon R300-based card, the 9700 is) *could* work with DRI using the open source r300 drivers, but not optimally. ATI/AMD does not make their fglrx driver available for *BSD. I'm not sure whether or not the FreeBSD kernel has the most recent DRI code, and I know that unless it was released in the past few weeks, PC-BSD is still based on Xorg 6.9, so I can see it being behind on 3d acceleration. the GP mentioned gaming).
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
Sounds terribly userfriendly, even my mother would have no trouble installing this.
wait...
Having used FreeBSD for a couple months, I'd say the biggest beef I've had is their bug handling (especially reporting) system. It's fantastically slow to submit (several minutes even when no files are attached), submissions are not acknowledged, it can take up to 15 minutes for submissions to show up in the system (making for ~30 minutes in total to verify submission of a single bug), it's hard to search properly (search "Text in single-line fields", WTF?), the default search lists all bugs on one page, searching for "State: Any" doesn't show closed bugs, it shows HTML escape codes for special characters (e.g., "ł"), and their wiki page on improving the bug tracking system is immutable. And yes, most of this has already been reported, but not fixed.
In open source, having an easy to use bug tracking system is IMO paramount.
The core difference ( if you ignore the heritage of both ) :
Linux is a kernel BSD is a system.
There are of course other differences in how things run.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You had to ride the short bus to school didn't you?
It depends on why it failed. If its a licensing issue, BSD might work out. If its a technical issue, then it maybe in the same boat with BSD. The third reason would be user's view of Linux and BSD.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
I know some people don't like me using the term distro as applied to BSD, but its the easiest way to explain what it really is.
The big difference is that many perceive that Linux is an OS where it is not. Linux needs userland, and fits well with GNU. AFAIK all BSD's are OS's on their own, and are maintained as an OS in the source tree whereas Linux is just the kernel. Each flavour of BSD is an OS of itself. DesktopBSD and PC-BSD are maintained in parallel to FreeBSD. As compared to DragonflyBSD which is a 4.x fork, or NetBSD or OpenBSD which too are forks.
Just say it with me - Linux is not an OS. Linux/GNU is an OS. Add some a package manager and you have a distribution.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
No. "Linux", strictly speaking, refers only to the kernel, but, for better or worse, it's also used to refer to complete systems ("distributions") built around that kernel, e.g. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" or "SUSE Linux Enterprise" or "Mandriva Linux" (some distributions that use the L word in their names) or "Debian GNU/Linux" (a distribution that uses the L word in its name, but adds "GNU" to refer to the GNU project software in the distribution) or Ubuntu or Fedora (two distributions that don't use the L word). (I.e., if you will, people sometimes use the word "Linux" to refer to Linux distributions, not just the Linux kernel.)
{Free,Net,Open,DragonFly}BSD, and derivatives of them such as PC-BSD, are complete systems; if, for example, you go to http://www.freebsd.org/developers/cvs.html, it gives instructions for getting access to the CVS tree for the complete system - kernel, libraries, applications, daemons, etc..
The Linux kernel, the C library used in most distributions (GNU libc), many of the other libraries in most distributions, and many (most?) application programs and daemons in most distributions, are GPLed. GTK+/GNOME and Qt/KDE are also under the GPL or LGPL. Other software in the distributions might be under other licenses, e.g. BSD licenses, MIT license for X11, etc..
The BSD kernels are, not surprisingly, under a BSD license. The C libraries used in the BSDs are also under a BSD license, and are not based on the same code as GNU libc; the same applies to some libraries that are GPLed in Linux distributions. That also applies to utilities. In particular:
you guessed incorrectly - Linux distributions have an ls from GNU, while the BSDs have their own BSD-licensed versions of ls.
However:
that part is true - although it's also true of many commercial UN*Xes. So:
you probably would notice few, if any differences - unless you opened xterm or Konsole or GNOME Terminal or... and started poking around, in which case you'd see more differences.
From the perspective of a non-power-user mainly using a GUI, probably very little, except to the extent that particular features of the GUI are or aren't supported by particular OSes; a command-line user might see more differences, which might make be more notable if they're differences from what they're used to on whatever flavor of UN*X they mainly use.
That also is true of many commercial UN*Xes, as almost all of them have X11 and could run, for example, KDE or GNOME (I think the primary GUI for Solaris is GNOME-based at this point, although I think CDE is still available). The primary exception is, of course, OS X.
There are BSDs and Linux distributions that could run on the machine on which I'm typing this - and none of them would use "int 0x80" ("0x80h" is redundant, it's either "0x80" or "80h" to say "hex 80") system calls, because that instruction isn't present on PowerPC. :-) Even on x86 processors, with later processors a system might use "sysenter" or "syscall" rather than "int 0x80". And, in any case, system call traps are at a level below the API - read() is an API, the under
One word, Vista.
They could easily do away with the BSD components and not that many users would know or care. It's not a remarkably large coding task to re-implement the "BSD components"
There is a certain geek appeal and it's definitely a small feather in the cap but it's not the BSD stuff that makes OS X what it is. the other BSDs are far off from what OS X is also.
- Wine.
- Flash.
- Program load-time.
- Program availability.
- Update cycle.
I still love FreeBSD though. I like the philosophy, the system is stable as a rock and configuration is quite easy, when you're not afraid of the command line. I'd use it on all servers I'd install any day. But for the desktop, FreeBSD is usually one year behind Linux. That isn't much, but for me it's too much.I read in TFA that wine with PC-BSD is working great. That was a surprise for me. I've not been able to run wine to the full potential on FreeBSD for at least 1.5 years.
Flash 7 works on FreeBSD, with some quircks. Crashes sometimes. Flash 9 is not useable last time I tried. And all are run through Linux compatibility. Since Flash was the only reason for that, I used a lot of diskspace just to run Flash.
OpenOffice takes ages to load on a FreeBSD system. KDE is indeed snappy. Firefox is dead slow to load.
There are loads of programs available on Linux. A lot of the Open Source ones are ported to FreeBSD. Some are not, and most commercial ones definitely aren't (take Google Earth). Some are not as stable or up to date (like Java).
The standard way of updating FreeBSD is compiling. That takes (too much) time. Updating the installed packages / ports is tedious too.
I love the userfriendlyness of openSUSE, but sometimes I feel trapped. With FreeBSD, I always knew where to look and which file to edit to suit my needs. But *BSD is still more suitable on a server than on a desktop. Note, though, that I have been using FreeBSD as my desktop for five years now, without ever using anything else. My conversion does not mean that FreeBSD is bad, it just shows how much better Linux has become recently.
(As a funny twist, I post this from Vista. Mums new PC, needs to be able to play the latest games for my sisters...)
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
It contains significant portions of BSD code. Jordon Hubbard, a co-founder of FreeBSD and its leader for a number of years, has been working at Apple doing OS-X kernal/system development for a few years now.
How is that different than DesktopBSD or PC-BSD? Redhat is a combination of the linux kernel + gnu tools + desktops.. its maintained in parallel with the movement of those projects and snapshots of that work are releases. Redhat has a package manager as does FreeBSD, and the other BSDs. The most noticable difference between using FreeBSD by itself or using one of the ripoffs is the package manager has a nice custom gui that's preloaded.
Also it has been argued many times that the term Linux can also be applied as a common name for the various distros using the kernel. Its an accepted use even if its not correct. If you go into a bookstore and look for a book on Linux its not about the kernel, but rather the software that makes up an OS including the linux kernel. O'Reilly published books with Linux kernel or Linux driver development in the names to distinguish. Your argument would have been useful 15 years ago, but now you've lost the battle. My first book on the os was called "Teach yourself Linux in 24 hours". I bought that in 1999. (or was it 98) It included Redhat 5.0 anyway. Even Robert Love's book on the Linux kernel is called "Linux Kernel Development." I have it sitting on my bookshelf right now in this very room.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
It installed nicely for me under Parallels 3 on my company's MacBook Pro. However, once up and running, the display was set to 1280x1024 and would not change, which means I had to scroll just to see the whole desktop on my 1440x900 screen. I'd go to the control panel, set it to 1024x768, press OK or apply (I tried both) and it would bounce me out to the login screen, and when I logged back in, I was still at 1280x1024. I can't log into the GUI as root (not allowed) to see if that makes a difference, nor could I find an obviously relevant line to change in xorg.conf (which I would not have even known was the place to go were it not for the Ars article.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I wish I had mod points. Since when is having an opinion (which he was perfect honest about possibly being because of his own misunderstandings) trolling? Because it doesn't suit you? I guess it's easier to write opinions off you dislike then taking them on their merit. But it's cheap and I don't understand how you got modded up. The parent offered an on-topic opinion and even worded it with a little humility. You berate his post and offer very little in terms of discussion. THAT is trolling.
An appropriate post would have simply been informational. Who knows, maybe he would have gone back and tried it? At the very least people would have been able to balance what was his experience with your knowledge. Instead you supply a curt and dismissive remark effectively cutting the conversation.
Quack, quack.
So basically you're saying that desktop Linux needs more time. As I recall, all the enthusiasm for Linux as a Windows alternative started around the beginning of 2000. (That was when Borland, which previously had offered only Windows development tools, hired me to help document Linux versions of their tools.) So in effect you're saying we've been "almost there" for seven years. Not encouraging.
To explain it further, a BSD is a specific 'distribution' that usually has a single unified userland. As in: instead of little clusters of tarballs that consist of apps from all over, all with their varying build methods, needs and requirements, a BSD userland, like a BSD kernel, builds from a common consistent source tree. Which is maintained as a whole.
For comparison purposes, most Linux 'distros' have userlands composed of pieces grabbed from all over and lumped together.
If BSD and Linux are the alternatives, they will fail together if "open source UNIX on the desktop" in general fails. The reason to this is that the end user only sees either KDE or Gnome, and makes his decisions based on that. They couldn't care less what is running under the hood, and in this regard, I am pretty sure both are good enough (although Linux probably has the lead in hardware support and the like).
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
OK, so BSD technology is key to making OS X work. Still doesn't make it the "same OS". That's like saying a cockatoo is the same as a dinosaur, just because it's got dinosaur genes.
People don't use OS X because of its BSD-ness — they do it because they like all the fancy features that Apple has built onto the OS. Developers who want to create OS X apps don't code against BSD APIs — they code against various Apple APIs. Yes, those APIs are built on a BSD foundation, but they could have just as easily been built on a System V foundation.
I recently had occasion to study the structure of OS X, because my department has a Mac lying around, and we were thinking it would be handy for hosting a TWiki. I discovered a lot of radical changes in the basic architecture of the system (file system layout; administrative tools; command line conventions) that made my experience with Unix and Linux pretty irrelevant. I admit I haven't used a BSD-based system in a couple of decades, but the BSD I recall was closer to the System V-derived Unixes I still work with (Solaris, IRIX, UnixWare) than it is to this (basically new) OS that Apple has created.
I ended up running the TWiki on a Fedora system. And Fedora, even though it contains no Unix libraries at all, is much closer (indeed, almost identical) to the Unix systems I'm familiar with.
I've been looking for my next desktop replacement in the next, dunno, 2-3 years? I am running a gaggle of what will be my last turn of the crank of MS operating systems. Because I am cheap. For me there's zero upside to replace all my hardware just to support the next version of Windows, itself of dubious incremental value. So when the time comes it will be along the lines of old equipment. Not obsolete but certainly not new. Right now, for my purposes the likely candidates, if the decision was today, is Ubuntu, Linspire/Freespire or a mini Mac. Given that notebook machines will probably dip under the price of desktops by then at least at the low end that may or may not throw another problem in. If a Mac notebook is in the sweet spot then that's the pick, else a cheap Lenovo or similar running one of the above OS's.
Linux does have a lead in hardware support. Binary blobs are available and BSDs can't tap the drivers written because of licensing to catch up. The Linux community is much more accepting of commercial endevors. Sometimes that is a good trait and sometimes its not. OpenBSD has gained attention for fighting binary blobs. FreeBSD has embrased binary blobs with their intel wireless deal. OpenBSD's approach is better down the road, but FreeBSD is arguably a better desktop right now because they have drivers. What happens when FreeBSD 8 or 9 come out and vendors stop supporting the new or old versions?
You are right that most users see Gnome or KDE. I've chosen a GNUstep path with some (hopefully) custom software additions for MidnightBSD for just this reason. No one else is doing it. Apple has used some open source software in OS X and it seems to be gaining momentum. Their market share is going up. I think Apple and Mozilla has demonstrated that people don't care if they use OSS or not. We won't win them over with philosophy, but with better software at a cheaper (read free) price.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
combatically speaking, a demon with a pitchfork can wreck almost all varieties of penguins in a fight
Well, Linux is getting more time regardless of whether it needs it or not.
My argument was that you said 'In this context, "failing" and "not gaining market share" are the same thing.' The parent had used the term "long time to gain market share". There is a big difference between not gaining market share and taking time to do it. Your statement modified the original to make your own seem more plausible. If there is some gain, even if slowly and over time, it is still gain from the other and that is very different than none at all.
Please. OS X is not BSD. It's a mostly new OS that was built on top of NextStep, [...]
It would be more accurate to say it's mostly NeXTSTEP (5.x) with a new shell and display system.
OS X is to NeXTSTEP as Vista is to Windows 2003.
>What I don't understand is the duplication of effort. PC-BSD and DesktopBSD are both KDE and FreeBSD based desktop environments.
/Programs and .pbi's.
;)) than a pre-packaged 'proper' FreeBSD as DBSD is, both have work that gets submitted back into FreeBSD core thus benefiting one another. It's not, therefore, a duplication of effort; they have different ideals and goals and manage to co-exist happily in a healthy duopoly. I for one like it better than the hundreds of disparate Linux distributions, though Ubuntu is making some great strides in merging the cream of the crop back into a concise set of distros.
*ahem*
PC-BSD is FreeBSD + KDE + Their own customisations eg
DesktopBSD is FreeBSD + KDE + Their own tools eg a front end for PORTS, drive mounters et al.
I won't go too much into the philosophical differences. You can install the DBSD tools on PC-BSD and FreeBSD, you can install FreeBSD, X and any WM you like and still install the DBSD tools from PORTS and run them. And where PC-BSD appears to be more of a fork (not full-blown, so let's call it a spork
The true problem here, though, is GPL-zealots bleating on about the BSD licence because it's not the sacred GPL and it's keeping RMS awake at night. This kind of attitude in FOSS is why things aren't going forward as fast as they should - there's too much infighting, too much preaching, too much focus on defining what seperates us. There aren't enough people pointing out what makes us the same - we're tired of MS, we're tired of DRM, we're tired of viruses and malware, we're tired of having EULA's rammed into every orifice, we're tired of not being able to get under the hood and fix problems ourselves, and we're tired of emptying our wallets for the supposed pleasure. We, collectively and regardless of licence, kernel and distribution choice, are a community. The sooner we collectively realise that, the sooner we can focus on kicking some arse!
In my opinion:
Linux takes care of the innovation and the bleeding edge
BSD takes care of the polish and the code maturity
Neither should concern themselves with religious preaching
>At least my project is original, albeit unpopular.
What makes you think that it's unpopular?
>The fundamental reason many of us think free desktops will prevail is still there. Think of BSD systems as a backup in case Linux fails in the desktop market. Even if we all fail, we may force Microsoft and Apple to innovate to stay ahead of us.
With big companies focusing again on network delivered software under the current 2.0 guise "Software as a Service" or "SaaS", the base OS should become increasingly transparent. So there should be some focusing on getting the likes of NX or SGD along with a roaming profile (either web-stored or portable-stored, or both) Imagine plugging a USB stick into any PC and instantly you have your Desktop and documents available to you - any changes you make are saved to the USB stick and then DFS/rsync'd back to your web storage. When the USB stick dies - get a new one and sync it back up with your web based copy. For security, logging into the desktop is "something you know", the USB stick itself or a token on it is "something you have" and with some biometrics eg fingerprint scanner you've got "something you are" - Sandisk are doing such fingerprint enabled sticks now.
Again, this is not an issue of Linux vs BSD, or BSD vs GPL, this is an issue of Open Source vs Close Source and there should be an effort to ensure that the best parts of Open Source are ready for any push towards SaaS. I personally think that with the current state of the internet it will flop, but it should spark some great development, and this is where lightweight distributions can shine - bundle in an ICA client, an RDP client, an NX client etc and you're set.
The productivity tools people using now - today - are in Microsoft Office.
The same tools they have been using for the last ten to fifteen years. OpenOffice has some "brand name" recognition. But, beyond that, there is almost nothing that would ring a bell.
The geek assumes that some functional similarity in an unfamiliar app makes it a practical substitute.
Cuter than this http://photofile.ru/simple/frame/fishki_net/276342 2/53926786/? No way.
(NSFW, but not nasty)
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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Meanwhile with the Windows Platform SDK, I know anything I link to is safe and I don't have to worry about restrictions about redistributing anything, so long as the end user's copy of Windows has everything installed.
If I drop the terse legalese of the EULA for the terse legalese of GPL, what have I won, really? BSD is free without any strings attached. I don't have to worry about my builds or what I link to or have any worries beyond, gasp, actually coding. Closed but complete is not necessarily a bad thing for non-technical end users, nor is open as in libre for developers or users.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Test the following: Grab a Joe Average, get them in front of a freshly installed Windows XP machine, give them a regular h264 video file, and ask them to play it. Watch him suffer. Windows freshly installed is not as tinkering-free as you make it seem ;)
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I'd love to see that for Windows XP so I can run Vista programs and DX10 without feeling tainted.
Well, I got into FreeBSD a while ago, when I was setting up my server. I guess the problem with FreeBSD is that it worked too well, and now I don't remember how to maintain it. Something about "make world", but I have to update the ports tree, and there's something about rebuilding the kernel, and it's a headless server, and I remember the last time I tried to do that, some configuration file got messed up and I had to find a monitor and a keyboard.
Hopefully my IP address isn't publically available, because I'm sure my server is full of security holes, since I haven't updated anything in years.
... or is it just me?
What you describe is a windows install disc.
We all feel terribly saddened at our loss. I'm sure you would be a great asset to the community.
If you want to be listened to rather than just offend a bunch of people, try not to have a subject like "Note to Open Source OS pushers..." for your comment
Saying someone is "pushing" something makes them appear aggressive and opinionated, or at least says you think they are. This colors everything you say after it in a very negative light. As someone that never works with marketting, I'm amazed this didn't occur to you, unless it did and you were just seeking attention.
I'm guessing you got stuck with Windows then..
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
One of the more significant differences I've been able to discern is that BSD traces it's lineage directly to AT&T Unix, whereas Linux began life as a (perhaps unwitting) POSIX OS. This differentiation almost certainly seems trivial, and I'd be hard-pressed not to agree should I lack the background I have.
Think of it this way. Let's say your family has had generations of chefs that have both made their living with this trade and propagated the blood-line doing so. Now along comes Racheal Ray, cute along a fashion, but not a generational chef. Were you a person in the multi-generational chef line, the recipes given on her show might be thought of as delightful yet not resplendent with your unique, experienced touch. Not that there is anything lacking, it's simply your opinion backed by decades of experience that there are different ways to make the meal (better or worse is left as an exercise for the ego).
Now Mrs. Ray may take such a perspective with a pinch (self.map { |pun| pun.downcase }) of indignation and reply that there are two main things to consider. First, the meal is quite delicious. And second, you don't have to be a trained, licensed, bonded, insured chef to put together a lovely meal. Emulating a chef, to the degree where one cannot tell the difference between ultimate product, could be considered being a chef so long as the meal is as expected.
At some point, emulation will lead to exploration, and both the generational chef and the emulator will discover different aspects about their recipes from each other. Given enough time, the student will play both the role of master and peer. And the veteran chef, if they wise, takes the creativity of the newcomer into their approach.
Oh anonymous coward, how full of wisdom you continue to be. Linux actually runs usably on all my hardware, which windows does not.
I was looking forward to this article so I could read about the interesting experiences of other PC-BSD users or Linux converts; what a disappointment. Here's a couple of points for folks who haven't used PC-BSD yet and are wondering what it's all about:
1. It's not a new kind of BSD, it's FreeBSD with a graphical installer and the KDE desktop
2. It's FreeBSD. Before you start complaining about how unfriendly you think the OS is, go learn about FreeBSD first. FreeBSD isn't about giving you a fun user experience or the latest version of software, it's about producing a rock-solid Unix OS in a well-engineered environment. That means the man pages are awesome, the choices are well explained, and the system as a coherent whole seems to be better put together than a lot of distros. You don't get a flash plugin for Firefox, you don't get the latest and greatest in drivers. It's FreeBSD.
I have gradually grown frustrated with Linux distros after floating from SUSE to Mepis to Ubuntu to Mandriva to Slackware to Dream and back to SUSE. I thought I'd give BSD a try, but was simply not clever enough to get a straight-up version of FreeBSD to install on my laptop. PC-BSD not only installed with as much ease as SUSE 9.3 (detecting all my hardware, setting up the network, the sound card, and everything else) but left me with a good looking, modern KDE desktop (early write up is here: http://therandymon.com/content/view/87/79/). Now that it's installed I can start learning about BSDs the old fashioned way - by learning with some books.
It's got some other interesting things. Its packages are intuitive and easy to use, something I wish Linux distros would adopt for userland software, leaving apt-get and equivalents for system software and power users. I was able to add Opera, my favorite browser, with no fuss and no muss.
It's lacking the driver support of a lot of Linux distros because FreeBSD has always lagged behind in the driver department, and it's not Linux it's BSD so those of you who are looking for another flashy Linux experience will be disappointed to learn it's FreeBSD and requires you to learn some new things.
Basically: if you're looking for a good Unix experience or need help installing FreeBSD on your machine, this is a great way to do it. It's a better introduction to the Unix world than most Linuxes are. It is not however just another Linux distro, and Linux users expecting that will be disappointed, as the comments in this article seem to confirm.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
I for one haven't made the switch because of the GPL. It's complicated..
..when a thread about it comes up on /. everyone's got an opinion on what's allowed and there's never any full consensus.
But why do you care? As a user it has no impact on you at all. That makes it easier to understand than a Microsoft or Apple EULA.
Luckily Slashdot is not the final arbiter of the GPL. Why not just go straight to the horses mouth? That can't be hard, can it?
One of the problems with GNU/Linux distributions is that they are NOT different versions of the same OS, and should, as such, be referred to as completely different operating systems. They're organized differently, they're configured differently, and you manage applications differently. It doesn't matter if the code is the same; from a user's standpoint, Ubuntu is a completely different system than Mandriva.
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45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Cuter Mascots??? Try going here and looking at the "Ceren Ercen" section, then we'll talk about cuter :)
http://wigen.net/data/bsdmascots/
There's no shitty brushed metal so it can't be a Mac.
...why BSD has any hope of success where Linux has failed?
In this context, "failing" and "not gaining market share" are the same thing.
Erm. How about OSX? I'd call that a fairly successful BSD desktop derivative?! The licencing issues clearly give a leg up since, as Apple did, one could pump money into making something from BSD without it neccessarily disappearing into a "free" black hole. If you're competing against one of the richest companies in the world, most would say it's going to take a bit of cash to make progress at any kind of rate. "Linux", on the other hand, isn't throwing cash at the contest, but has made astounding headway considering. That's not failure; that's determination, innovation and enthusiasm working as hard as it can against not inconsiderable odds.
CheShA: Manchester Breakcore / Drill and Bass Yes I'm a s
Why would you want it to be harder to learn?
Look at a curve on a graph (with time on the x axis, as is normal) and you'll see what I mean.
ON SECURITY:
I have asked folks from the LINUX world to try the CIS Tool on their machines, vs. a fully secured Windows Server 2003 SP #2 system I have here, & they would NOT "take" on this freely offered comparison here:
http://linux.sys-con.com/read/382946_f.htm
Now, I suspect more than a few TRIED to exceed my score of 84.735 on this test (my using the OS setup above) vs. theirs, & they could NOT exceed my score.
Many said "if you want security, go BSD"... that said?
Will any of you BSD users (this one, or variants) take the challenge?
(MacOS X users are going to be "let down" though, because there isn't a version of CIS Tool for them yet... this is a case of "more softwares are available for Windows vs. MacOS X" though, a clearly cut one in fact!)
CIS (center for internet security) Tool 1.x downloads for BSD, Linux, Windows etc. et al users are here:
http://www.cisecurity.org/index.html
(Amongst all others they have)
Good luck, I would like to do such a comparison, & I would like any photos of results sent my way, here:
apk4776239@hotmail.com
And, I, in turn? Will send the photo result of my CIS Tool 1.x score back to you in return.
NOTE: The program requires Java runtimes!
APK
P.S.=> I am out to see which OS can be secured the BEST online is why. I get no takers from the Linux world, & suggestions to "GO BSD", so... put your monies where your mouths are I guess! I am willing to do so, how about you? apk
There was one FreeBSD just like there was one Red Hat Linux. Or does the netcraft confirmation make NetBSD, OpenBSD, DesktopBSD, DragonflyBSD and now PC-BSD not count?
Yeah, that's a better way of putting it. Taking it a little further: if OS X is a kind of BSD, then Vista is a kind of MS-DOS!
Well user space is different these days.
Is Samba, Apache, PHP, Perl, KDE, and or Gnome part of the user space or not.
I do agree with you I would love to see the BSD user space ported to Linux just to shut up RMS.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Sigh. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=238993&thresho ld=2&commentsort=3&mode=nested&cid=19569869
Well I suggest you look at the FreeBSD handbook on their website. FreeBSD has some of the best documentation of any OS I've ever used. What you need to do depends on the OS version you are running.
/usr/src/UPDATING often has directions that you need to read. Also, I usually just skip single user mode. If the OS version isn't that far apart you can usually get away with it. Its not correct, but it works.
cvsup your src, make buildworld, make buildkernel, make installkernel, reboot on the new kernel in single user mode, make installworld, mergemaster (carefully). Sometimes you need a mergemaster -p in there.
If its a recent version, you can just run portsnap to update ports.
portsnap fetch extract (first time use)
portsnap fetch update (every other time)
You can install portsnap from ports if you have a slightly older version.
The mergemaster step is when you'll possibly overwrite your config files for src updates. make world is a very old way to do it. You wouldn't use that now except for building jails.
The important advice is to read the handbook. Feel free to ask questions on the freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list too. They tend to be quite nice on there.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
How is that different than DesktopBSD or PC-BSD? Redhat is a combination of the linux kernel + gnu tools + desktops.
As another poster wrote, BSD does not use GNU userland.
Just remember DesktopBSD or PC-BSD is FreeBSD + graphical installer. It maintains direct compatibility with FreeBSD. They aren't forks, they are addons.
FreeBSD and NetBSD are derived from 4.3BSD from Berkley, and OpenBSD was a fork from NetBSD. Linux distros move together with kernel releases; BSD operating systems do not.
You can call them flavours of BSD if you like, but not distros.
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By the time you pile on all the end-user applicaitons (mostly GPL, AFAIK), the licensing differences between Linux and BSD are pretty insignificant. The system will be at like 90% GPL either way.
I dont' think most people will 1) know the difference between Linux and BSD or 2) care about the difference. It'll look and feel nearly identical to them either way. Because, again, it is nearly identical software.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
If it was 1998 then you had "Learn Linux in 21 Days" ... the next year they added three chapters and merely renamed it "Learn Linux in 24 Hours" (sold way more copies that way, since nobody wants to spend 3 weeks when you can do it in 1 day)
the article says and i quote: i don't get this i always thought freebsd used ipfw and not pf as its packet filter, so what does this mean?
has the author made a mistake or has freebsd's native ipfw been replaced by a pc-bsd's implementation of OBSD's pf ?
or is ipfw essentially a pf fork as well? or am i just plain wrong, can someone please explain
Emphasis mine.
If your BSD experience is "decades" old, then it's irrelevant. Modern NetBSD or FreeBSD will seem just as foreign as Darwin/OS X does.
Try telneting into an OS X machine, and launching your favorite shell. It has all the regulars. Then treat it exactly as you would a BSD machine. ifconfig? Works.
Correct, OS X is *NOT* BSD. But it *IS* an "official UNIX", and it is closer to BSD than Solaris or IRIX are, by a longshot. (UnixWare? You mean people still use that? I thought that died back in the '90s.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Ifconfig is hardly a good example of a BSD-specific feature -- every Linux and Unix has it.
I was talking about things like the directory hierarchy (totally reworked for OS X) and the huge number of command line administrative tools that Apple has added (necessary to provide command-line equivalents for their GUI tools). These are major additions to the OS.
You ignore all this and point to a minor thing like ifconfig and say, "See! It's still BSD!" That's like saying two cars are the same because they both have the same kind of windshield wipers.
Yeah - instead of /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/sbin, /usr/libexec, /usr/share etc., OS X has /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/sbin, /usr/libexec, /usr/share etc.. (It also has all those funny directories with names that begin with capital letters, but that's mostly for GUI stuff.)
I know this is really old, but I want to take a minute to look at how utterly retarded this comment is:
I don't say that because I'm some BSD hater, actually, I love BSD. I even have openbsd on some sparcstation lx at home. (sun4m iirc). The last full install I did was 4.10 forever ago, and I never touched 5. So about 4 months ago I say 'im gonna throw the newest bsd on my comp get busy'. Put 6 something on there. I got everything set up like I like it, and went go get x setup so I could game.
First, OpenBSD has never achieved a version 4.10, it just now reached 4.1 this year. Neither has NetBSD, which is currently at 3.1
In fact, the only BSD to reach 4.10 was FreeBSD, which is strange because they first added support for Sparc64 in their 5.x branch. 4.x never got anything more than i386 and Alpha support.
Next, there are ways to get full driver support that use the drivers from Sun, they just don't come in default installs since they can't legally distribute them. I have two Elite3d accelerators that work beautifully.
Now, lets ignore all that and look at the rest here. A Sparcstation LX? First, all Sparcstations used v8 Sparc CPUs (32-bit, regular sparc). That's a lunchbox model, so yes, it used a Sun4m (microSparc). FreeBSD still does not run on SPARC computers and it never will. It will only run on Ultrasparc derivatives, it only works on 64-bit CPUs.
This leaves us with knowledge about two things: 1) You did not run FreeBSD, the only BSD to reach any 4.10, 5.x, or 6.x versions, 2) You have no idea what you are doing, nor any idea what you are running, 3) Your opinion and any information you try to add to anything in the future is worthless because you can't even keep your version numbers straight.
Actually, custom kernel configuration is even easier than editing the GENERIC config file, which changes from time to time in ways that one may want to port to one's custom configurations. My custom config for Nokia IP440s looks something like this:
And so forth. This takes out the drivers I don't need, but if some kernel option or device driver gets added to GENERIC in the mean time, my config doesn't break. It beats the hell out of the Linux kernel build configuration especially since it's moderately future-proof and human-readable, and on the rare occasion when a particular option or driver doesn't have a manual page, there's at least a line or two in src/sys/conf/LINT or src/sys/<arch>/conf/LINT that will clue you in. I hate building custom kernels on Linux because it's such a pain compared to the BSD's kernel build system (and yes, I know about "make reconfigure").I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
Ok what's with this there is "ONE FBSD" mentality? I can effectively do the same thing by only using Ubuntu and say there is only ONE UBUNTU.