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PC-BSD 9.0 Release
PuceBaboon writes "It's worth noting that, in addition to the main FreeBSD release covered here recently, PC-BSD has also released their 'Isotope' edition, based on FreeBSD 9.0. Why would you be interested? Well, PC-BSD, while not the first, is certainly the most current version of FreeBSD aimed squarely at the desktop user. Pre-configured for the desktop and using a graphical installer, the 9.0 release includes KDE, GNOME, XFCE and LXDE desktop environments, an update manager, WiFi 'quick connect,' BootCamp support and auto-configuration for most common hardware. Live-CD, VirtualBox and VMware release images for 32- and 64-bit architectures also make it easier than ever for users to test the release before committing to a full install. Check out the torrents (scroll down), main download page and the PC-BSD 9.0 manual pages."
Like someone up there ^ said, it is fairly uninteresting. I wouldn't go as far as saying "who cares" though. I used version 8.x and it was pretty decent and stable, it didn't have support for Intel video cards, maybe that is fixed.
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Fuck fuck fuck. I accidentally modded this funny. Undoing now.
Considering how many Macbooks I've seen at coffee shops lately, that might not be far off.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I wouldn't classify myself as solely a BSD fan, if it is Unix I'm fairly happy. But the short answer is BSD was/is Unix hackers porting Unix to the PC platform while GNU/Linux tends to be PC hackers porting Unix to the PC platform. There isn't as much hardware support in BSD but with BSD you tend to have much more rock solid code. Another attractive thing is that the entire source is developed and maintained in one branch by one community. (in some ways this is also a bad thing) Unless you get into the nitty gritty of implementation and design structure, you won't really feel a huge difference though.
Replace FreeBSD with Debian, and PC-BSD with Ubuntu. Lets hope the PC-BSD people don't get on some wacked out tablet interface failtrain.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The special packages it uses are jailed versions, which means I can't use some of the things I want to use from regular freebsd repository. that jailing is a feature pc-bsd has to protect the system from getting clobbered by the user.... maybe most desktop users wouldn't care about those "server" type softwares though.
I've finally had enough of Apple's vendor lock-in, I think I'll be on this for good.
...SimplyMEPIS (v11) is overall better (albeit the KDE version is older) for joe-average user, due to better hardware support under Linux amongst other things. Stability of Debian with a polished KDE setup; what can PC-BSD offer that it can't? (...and before anyone screams 'fanboi', i'm not from the Mepis community, I run ArchLinux myself, but i've found Mepis to be great for my novice-user family members and friends)
You've got the original BSD4.3, which spawned FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin, and more recently DragonFly BSD. Then you've got various offshoots like NanoBSD, FreeNAS, pfSense, DesktopBSD, GhostBSD, and a number of other stalled projects. I like BSD. I've got it running on my firewall and home server. I just don't see where this singular community you speak of is.
This looks like a seriously interesting release. My only gripe with PC-BSD before now was the PBI system whereby you would end up with a large number of redundant packages and libraries as everything was duplicated. Now it's probably got to the point where I can start recommending this over Linux Mint (although I do still need to test it for hardware support).
One big thing you will notice is that the BSD teams are a bit less deprecation-happy than Linux developers. Over in Linux land, components seem to have two states: unfinished and deprecated. BSDs tend not to replace things that work, tend to favour incremental improvements over complete rewrites, and care a lot about interface stability. Most of the administrative stuff I learned when I first used FreeBSD a decade ago is still valid now - the implementations have changed a lot, but the tools still appear to act the same way. They also put a lot of effort into maintaining binary compatibility for the core system.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
No recent open source AMD ones either. The recent open source AMD and Intel 'X.org' drivers are so full of Linux kernel dependencies that it's difficult to port them. This is a shame, because a lot of smaller operating systems (e.g. Haiku) base their 3D support off FreeBSD's DRI port. There is currently work underway to support the stuff needed for the Intel drivers, but AMD ones are a bit further away. The nVidia blob drivers are the best supported by FreeBSD.
If anyone at AMD or Intel is reading this: please get your driver team to pay a bit of attention to portability...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What's the support like? How many years will this be updated without having to wipe and reinstall? One thing that drives me mad about Linux is you are supposed to wipe and reinstall every 6 damned months or plan your life around LTS releases which as a retailer is right out. Despite all the "Linux is ready for the desktop" BS the support situation is quite bad. Corporations may throw out their desktops every 3 years so they are always under hardware support but home users? Keep a system for an average of 6-8 years before it is finally tossed or given away.
So how many years does this version get for support? Can it do an in place upgrade using GUI ONLY without puking on its own drivers and dying hard which is what Linux seems to do anymore? I thought for sure when I started messing with Linux in 04 my shelves would have Linux boxes right next to the Windows machines by 2010 tops but the whole mess with PulseAudio and the DEs getting trashed means it'll probably be 5 years before anything is really stable back in Linux land again, so how is PC-BSD? Does it work on laptops? How is its wireless support? I have limited bandwidth here so I hate to give it my "Is it safe" test and waste 20Gb+ if it is simply gonna puke. "IS it safe" simulates what would happen to a customer who bought the machine from me and kept it for 3 years by taking the version from 3 years ago and updating/upgrading it to current. What are the odds BSD will pass? Good, poor? Remember that home users do NOT buy support contracts and they are not gonna pay more than Windows for a strange OS so once it leaves the shop it has to KEEP running with minimal user skill.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
My FreeBSD box has to be seven or more years old. It's gone from one of the 5's through 9.0 without a reinstall. I don't use it 24/7 (but I have). Its primary purpose is to be my cvs code repository. To tech-date the system, subversion was just emerging, hence, cvs. Probably should go git.
I did use a FreeBSD system for a desktop, but this was for a year and a half around 2001. I got an iBook in September 2001, but I had already left the Windows fold for my home computing, so the desktop went FreeBSD. I do prefer OS X because of the gui integration. For a small business where I was the de facto IT guy, I used FreeBSD/squid for a web proxy and solved some huge problems with an ancient Windows SMB server at zero cost: I had used an off lease machine that was constitutionally unsuited for the business's CAD work.
Documentation for BSDs is great. I was considering a wipe and reinstall, as the path of least resistance, as I went from 8.2 to 9 yesterday, but I ate my veggies, built character, and went and looked up the step I had forgotten from the last time a version upgrade occurred. An up to date manual for FreeBSD is available at www.freebsd.org. It also is downloadable as part of the system sources and the local version is kept in sync via cvsup/make. At the site, you might find the release engineering, errata, and security update histories illuminating.
PC-BSD has some interesting ideas and I do run it virtually. It has had application sandboxing for a while, which is something I see the popular, consumer oses implementing. The project is also working on the package dependency issue and I like the way they are thinking. So, while PC-BSD is relatively new, the project keeps its kernel and userland synchronized tightly with FreeBSD. They got good folks there and I expect that its stability should be good, though not as good as FreeBSD, because of the concerns with third-party windowing parties.
Now, as I look at your summary of your problem, I'm not sure that it quite makes sense as a general question for guidance. The computers that are off-lease have to be 2 or 3 years old. You don't need seven more years from them. If you could, you'd have put Windows 7 on them. Well, PC-BSD is no more a substitute for Windows than Windows is a substitute for PC-BSD. (Yes, that's right, if one has set up a productive Unix-like environment, then Windows is a degraded experience, with quite a few "You can't get there from here." issues.) I hope this isn't a case when someone sets up a problem in order to have others offer suggestions that are swatted down, because the constraints are such that it has moved out of the power spot of the technology being discussed. Besides, the applications are far more important than the underlying os in terms of box longevity. If the cost of wiping and reinstalling saves thousands of dollars in licensing fees, well?
Any way, to summarize, you need seven more years of Windows or Windows-substitue usage from your computers and Windows 7 is too expensive, there's only to be one more wipe and reinstall, Linux doesn't help you out, and the BSDs, with their windowing systems being orthogonal to the kernel development, though very stable, may not support the applications and processor that you want to keep using. Then, I wish you good luck, because I don't think any one else other than you is trying to solve your precise problem.