PC-BSD 8.0 Release Focuses On Desktop Use

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

PC-BSD 8.0 Release Focuses On Desktop Use

Posted by kdawson on Friday February 26, 2010 @04:32AM from the fresh-bits dept.

donadony writes "Last Monday PC-BSD 8.0 was released. PC-BSD is based on FreeBSD and uses KDE as its default desktop environment. PC-BSD is designed to make BSD much easier for desktop use. The 8.0 release includes support for 3D acceleration with NVIDIA drivers on amd64 and improvements in the USB subsystem. The PC-BSD team has also developed a friendly package manager system with a simple-to-use GUI tool (see the screenshots tour). For a full list of changes, refer to the changelog."

14 of 154 comments (clear)

Re:Linux Binary Compatible by ig88b · 2010-02-26 04:43 · Score: 3, Informative

Just applications.
Re:Am I the only ignorant one to think... by CSHARP123 · 2010-02-26 04:44 · Score: 3, Informative

Only difference is, this is not from Microsoft and it works Just out of the box. You do not need to struggle like how you do with Windows. Hope this helps.
Bad Headline by Vyse+of+Arcadia · 2010-02-26 04:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

Every PC-BSD release focuses on desktop use. It's a desktop distribution.
Been testing it by WinterSolstice · 2010-02-26 04:57 · Score: 3, Informative

And this is a BIG improvement over version 7. Still some bugs to be worked out, but it's got far better integration with the PBI installer (similar to synaptic), a very good GUI installer, and the very latest nvidia drivers.
Very nice, very well executed. They turned it out pretty fast too.

--
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
1. Re:Been testing it by ByOhTek · 2010-02-26 05:53 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Anything complimenting BSD on /. tends to get an initial troll mod I've found. It's amazing how much hate Linux users have for it.
  My experience is quite different from the above AC (of course, both are anecdotal, take your grain of salt - and mine are with FreeBSD, not BSD in general). FreeBSD users tend to be pretty laid back, if it isn't working, they recognize it. They may not care, they don't need it, or they may be working on it.
  Linux users tend to get up in arms if you don't treat FreeBSD like the second coming of satan for taking away a small amount of their user base and development power, when Linux is obviously the true and correct solution.
  
  --
  Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
2. Re:Been testing it by bsDaemon · 2010-02-26 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Linux, particularly the GNU/FSF types, tend to be more ideologically motivated, I find, and I think most of the hate against Free/Net/Open BSD is hate against the BSD license because it doesn't fit into their framework of how the world should be. They're the ones that are going to be on about "software freedom" and all that, rather than "this works, let's use it."
  
  Case in point, I mentioned above that I actually paid money for a commercial X server about 11 years ago. If BSDi BSD/OS hadn't been $1000, I'd probably have bought the "commercial" BSD, too. However, FreeBSD tended to get most of the worth while improvements rolled back from BSDi, and it only cost me like $30 to order it on CD-ROM (the dark days of dial-up and all that). My current company uses FreeBSD as the basis of our product to avoid GPL issues, as does Juniper and others. The FSF-types, of course, aren't going to be down with that and look at it as "theft" (never mind the fact that I know my company, and possibly Juniper as well, have committers on the pay roll) or something.
  
  I think it has to do with the fact that Linux is more readily obtained and there has been a concerted effort to recruits new users. Its sort of like the Mormon Unix, in a way. What this means in practicality is that there is a large portion of the user base that has the "zeal of the convert" -- I'm not going to say that I didn't feel that way when I was 12/13/14 years old and was first starting out, but it's a real thing. As Theo once said, 'bsd is for people who love unix; linux is for people who hate microsoft.' That's kind of a classic troll, but its kind of true, too, to an extent.
  
  I think that the type of people who are into BSD are generally older, have more experience in the industry, and are less ideologically driven in their OS choice than say, high school kids who saw pretty screen shots carefully crafted to look like something out of 'swordfish' or 'the matrix' an want to be 'l33t'. That's not to say that there aren't a lot of professional, neutral-minded Linux people, but then that's going to be the difference between the RHEL/CentOS-type of users and say, Mint (which I've tried and used before and I don't hate it, but let's face it -- we're not putting that on a production server any time soon).
  
  BSD and Linux have their places, as do Windows and MacOSX. I (obviously) prefer BSD to Linux (though I've worked as an admin on a CentOS farm before), and Mac to Windows (though I didn't really have any problems with Vista 64 Ultimate as a desktop OS, just the command line was still for crap), but I can use the other and often do, and I'm at a point in my life where just getting the work done with the minimum headache is more important than what tool i use to get it done. From what I know of Linus, he seems to be of similar mind, too.
3. Re:Been testing it by bsDaemon · 2010-02-26 09:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  KDE took hold in the FreeBSD community because Qt wasn't its self "free software" until relatively recently. A lot of people seem to forget that, and that the reason that Gnome was started (as an official part of the GNU project) was due to wanting a "completely free" desktop. A lot of the big linux distributions couldn't or wouldn't include KDE or other Qt-based software back then because of it.
  
  KDE projects themselves were GPL/LGPL, but not being married to the license as a pre-requesite for using Qt made it more "acceptable" in the BSD world. At least that's my take on it, having watched it all gone down.
  
  I'll admit that I'm not crazy about the GPL but if people want to release code under it, that's their prerogative. I don't like KDE 'cause I think its ugly and unwieldy and frankly, I prefer Gnome to KDE... not that I really like Gnome much either, but oh well.
  
  That stuff aside, I think the issue both of us were talking about really just boils down to "damn kids, get off my lawn." Hell, I'm only 26 myself, but this is my authentic 5-digit ID. I like to think I grew out of the b.s. a long time ago.. plus, I never liked 'swordfish'.
Sweet! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-26 05:28 · Score: 3, Funny

It's finally the year of the BSD desktop! I knew this day would come.
that link is wrong by tresstatus · 2010-02-26 05:35 · Score: 3, Informative

not to point out the obvious, but when you go to the change log link from the summary, you actually wind up going to http://www.unixmen.com/content/view/151/11/ which tells you how to install nagios. here is a link to the pcbsd 8.0 changelog... http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/151/11/

--
stephen
PBI files by abigor · 2010-02-26 05:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

One of the nicest things about PC-BSD is the whole PBI idea, which are basically like .pkg files on OS X. When installing apps via PBIs, you get all the dependencies in one shot, which means you don't destabilise your whole system when installing from a central repository where app A requires a library version that breaks apps B, C, D.... This is particularly true when you want to use third party repositories.
PBIs are simply downloaded and installed from places like http://www.pbidir.com/, the process is graphical, and they are easily uninstalled without fuss.
1. Re:PBI files by WinterSolstice · 2010-02-26 05:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I'm a huge fan of the PBIs and I think they're a really good way to quickly install objects that would otherwise require ports and complex dependencies.
  The best part is they don't interfere with each other, unlike some of the apt-get/yum type packages. For the most part they encapsulate everything that would have been in the ports build.
  When the PBI is updated, you get a notification and can just clicky click to upgrade it (without trashing the rest of your system just because Gimp 9.9 requires some lib that everything else hates)
  Easy to make too - just get the PBI installer, and then build them from the existing port. Porting still remains an exercise for the reader ;)
  Installing Firefox, Quake, America's Army, Rhythmbox or Gnome like this is awesome. I hope that it takes off as a model.
  
  --
  An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
Re:Wait by flydpnkrtn · 2010-02-26 05:47 · Score: 5, Informative

Er, well that's not quite true. It seems there's a lot of confusion in this area...
The OS X kernel is called XNU, and is Mach-based. It's not the FreeBSD kernel.
OS X's userland is called Darwin, is open source, and IS based on a FreeBSD userland (not kernel)
Just sayin'

--
Here's to the crazy ones
I love it by not+already+in+use · 2010-02-26 07:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

I would love nothing more than to see a BSD licensed solution succeed on the desktop, if nothing more, than to prove to FSF folks the definition of irony when it comes to being "free and open."

--
Similes are like metaphors
Bah! by OverZealous.com · 2010-02-26 09:59 · Score: 3, Funny

BSD will never work on the desktop! It's far too Unixy.
Now, excuse me as I get back to work on my user-friendly Mac.