PC-BSD 7.1 Released With Integrated Software Manager

Death Metal writes "PC-BSD 7.1 is built upon the FreeBSD 7.1-STABLE operating system. FreeBSD is a UNIX-based operating system that provides a high level of security and stability. The Galileo Edition of PC-BSD includes updated versions of KDE (4.2.2) and Xorg (7.4). The latest version of KDE includes new window effects, screen savers, and better 3D Acceleration. PC-BSD exclusively features the Push Button Installer, a software installation wizard with a wide range of applications. The latest version improves PBI self-containment to increase reliability. The Add / Remove Programs tool and the Update Manager have been consolidated into 'Software & Updates.'"

Comments

10 gigs?

[FudRucker]

of disk space for a friggin OS is just crazy! i like FreeBSD & PCBSD, but it is getting bloated!

i have the disk space (500gigs), but i would have to re-arrange some disk partitions which means i would have to burn several DVDs of backup so i don't lose data, you would think any OS would keep t3h bloat below 5 gigs!

Re:10 gigs?

[jdong]

It's a natural tradeoff when every application is designed to be self-contained. This is the same issue Mac OS X faces with its .app bundles -- each app basically ships a /usr like prefix with all of its dependencies on top of the base OS X API's, and application startup times on cold cache pales to a shared-dependency approach.

Re:10 gigs?

[palegray.net]

While I understand your point in principle, storage is beyond dirt cheap these days. I have a hard time finding laptops with less than a 100 GB drive, and a 1.5 TB drive can be had for $130 on Newegg.

Re:10 gigs?

[Sneeka2]

Vista default installation ~= 15GB
Obligatory M$ analogy = FAIL

Re:10 gigs?

[samriel]

Yeah, your analogy? Not so much. OSX apps are just
a) a startup script that is auto-run on launch,
b)the .NIB/.XIB interface files,
c) some images, etc. that the application needs to display, and
d) the executable itself.

If you spend any time at all looking through the guts of an OSX system, you'll notice that all the shared dependencies reside within the /Library or /(user)/Library folders.

The reason that a lot of OSX apps are large (not many are huge) is because the developers choose to make one big app with EVERY FRIGGIN LOCALIZATION PACK EVER contained within, instead of compiling a few different localized versions.

Re:10 gigs?

[samriel]

^^^Because I know I'm going to get called out, the dependencies live in /Library or /Users/(user)Library, not /(user)/Library.^^^

Re:10 gigs?

[Cyberax]

My new SSD drive is 64 GB and 10 GB is NOT a small amount.

Ubuntu works just fine with a fraction of that space.

Re:10 gigs?

[Ash-Fox]

Bloated, or featureful? Does Vista include a decent text editor? Compilers? Server software

You know... For average people, that sounds bloated.

Re:10 gigs?

[Nimey]

Then PC-BSD 7.1 is not for you. Good thing other operating systems work for you, isn't it?

Re:10 gigs?

[JonLatane]

Well, first off, dependencies are, much more often than just the "Library" directories, in their own "Framework" directories. Check /System/Library/Frameworks for the important core Mac OS X frameworks and /Library/Frameworks for your basic system frameworks. You've also probably got a ~/Library/Frameworks directory but there's probably nothing interesting in there unless you're a developer. The rest of the "Library" directories consists more of non-reusable stuff.

However, plenty of applications do just bundle their own versions of dependencies. Just taking a glance around my system, 26.9 of Adium's 60.2MB consists of the "Frameworks" directory in Adium. 122.2MB of iWeb is Frameworks, many of which would probably be useful if they were universally available to developers (FTPKit?). Open source (and open-source-based) applications tend to be the worst about this since they have a habit of packaging large parts of the Linux ecosystem since minor incompatibilities OS X's BSD-grounded system make proper ports less convenient. Having both Crossover and Crossover Games take so much space with so many identical dependencies is just silly. Other notable applications on this front include Battle for Wesnoth and OOo.

Across all applications, localizations are a bit more of a problem, as you said. An even bigger problem is that binaries are often larger simply because they're written in Obj-C; Obj-C supports some very, very cool runtime features not available in any other compiled language, but they add considerably to the binary size.

In general, though, you're right - OS X is far better than Windows about sharing dependencies properly, but there's pretty much no way to get the tight dependency management Ubuntu/Fedora/openSUSE has without having a repository-based package manager, which is an entirely different software management philosophy. (Although the idealist in me likes to hope it's not the case, that model doesn't really foster the develop-something-good-and-make-money-quickly environment that I like about Mac OS X, since there's such a big barrier between you and users).

Re:10 gigs?

[tomhudson]

i would have to burn several DVDs of backup so i don't lose data

Ah, the naiveté of youth ...

Real BSD users set up an rsync box.

Depending on burned dvds for backup is like depending on pulling out to prevent contraception. Ask Bristol Palin how well that form of "safe sex" worked out. When you lose your data, be sure to post the story to fmylife.com so we can all laugh at your angst- and hubris-filled story.

Obligatory nitpicking.

[kwabbles]

I'm pretty sure it's based on 7.2 PRE, not 7.1. The summary also makes it look like the software manager is a new feature, which it is not. The PBI system has been around for a while in PC-BSD.

Re:Obligatory nitpicking.

[FST777]

I'm pretty sure it's based on 7.2 PRE, not 7.1.

That is correct.

The official website states 7.2-PRERELEASE, but the press release says 7.1-STABLE. Depending on how you track and merge FreeBSD, both may be correct (tracking 7.1-STABLE and backporting functionality from 7.2 would do the trick).

Re:What about XFS?

[jdong]

I'm quite sure you mean ZFS. XFS is SGI's popular journaling filesystem.

Re:Xorg 7.4?

[jdong]

An easier way to tell is to try to change some mouse settings. The longer it takes you to figure out where the hell they hid the setting NOW, the newer your Xorg. *ducks*

Re:What about [X | Z]FS?

[FST777]

Since it is in FreeBSD, it will be in PC-BSD.

I believe ZFS has been in FreeBSD since 7.0. A quick google teaches me that PC-BSD is enjoying it since then too.

Re:Xorg 7.4?

[value_added]

How do I find out which version of Xorg I have?

The same as for version numbers for all your other other ports -- pkg_info(7)

pkg_info -Ex xorg

livecd?

[Tibor the Hun]

Can the DVD download also be used as a live-cd? I'd like to see what it's like before installing.

Re:livecd?

[Rynor]

Nobody is keeping you from adding the settings in xorg.conf, it just uses some defaults if they aren't there.

Re:Unix based?

[ducomputergeek]

BSD can be traced back to MaBell and Unix.

This video has a decent history of BSD in a nutshell:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7833143728685685343

It's linux that advertised itself as being "Unix-like".

So just like Ubuntu

[Gothmolly]

but with a different mascot, a different package manager, and different themes ?

Snark aside - what does this BSD do that any Linux distro or other BSD doesn't ?

Re:So just like Ubuntu

[Ian Alexander]

It's just FreeBSD with KDE and a convenient package manager- in addition to ports and conventional binary packages PC-BSD also supports PBI's, which are closer to .app bundles that you find on OS X than a traditional Linux package. It also comes with a (imho) well-designed installer that makes installing faster and easier than the normal FBSD installer.

Basically, if you like FreeBSD and KDE but don't really have the time or inclination to set it all up yourself, PC-BSD is convenient.