PC-BSD 8.0 Release Focuses On Desktop Use 154
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."
Still freeze with ZFS and moderate load? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How much RAM? ZFS loves RAM. I was locking up until I upgraded to 4GB. (I was hoping to go to 8GB but RAM prices shot up).
It makes a rock solid home server. NFS, SMB, CCXstream (XBMC), AFS (It's my time machine disk).
Congrats on the installer. Now you just need to Root on ZFS [freebsd.org] into the installer. (If you have any experience and can follow instructions, it's not hard at all, just long.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll second the need for RAM. I like virtual machines, use them a lot. I wouldn't consider building VM's on a machine with less than two full gig of memory, and really consider 3 gig to be minimum. 4 gig or more are in order if you're going to run multiple machines at the same time. Even if the individual VM's are only allocated a half gig of memory, there is overhead involved.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe the last version was based on FreeBSD 7 and ZFS support was still experimental. The first production ready build of ZFS on BSD is version 8. So I would imagine that it would be less buggy.
Re: (Score:2)
Most people will say you need more RAM; they are wrong. What you need is more ram reserved for the kernel. The basic problem is that the ARC (file system cache) has no upper limit, but kernel addressable memory does.
Linux Binary Compatible (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The layer is for the ABI, in other words the Application Binary Interface (it's like the API of a Kernel for applications). This is because FreeBSD is not Linux. With Linux the drivers are from within the kernel, or somewhat outside of it with modules.
However... If you want open source graphics drivers (I am sorry... I do not know your level of knowledge/expertice so just ignore what I am about to say if it makes you go like *whoooosh* ;) ) than these are tied into X.org (the graphical foundation upon which
Re: (Score:2)
No, binary emulation is for userland, not kernel objects.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I should expand on that, really what FBSD binary emulation is ... is just syscall emulation. You still use all the Linux libraries (some slightly patched to be more efficient on FBSD under the emulated syscall interface, but essentially unchanged and unchanged versions directly from a linux box will work).
The only thing the emulation layer does is tell the runtime linker to use a different syscall interface and a different library path for Linux libs, with some minor patches to the linux libs to make thing
Wait (Score:2, Funny)
The BSD community is no longer beleaguered??
No, i think all 4 of them are OK (Score:3, Funny)
And doing fine.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to nitpick BSD has a higher market share on the Desktop then Linux does. Based on the fact that OS X is based on BSD.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mac OS X is based on NeXT.
What Apple does is that they recycle open source bits for their own use, and they happened to use some BSD stuff, but Mac OS X is by far not based on BSD! Let's start with the fact that Mac OS X has two kernels instead of one... So there you go...
And also, Apple does occaisionally contribute some stuff back to FreeBSD, so in some sense BSD's marketshare is also a bit of Apple's by your definition...
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yeah, why not use GNUSTEP...
Re: (Score:2)
The Xnu kernel:
http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx//arch_xnu.html [osxbook.com]
No, I think you wanted to nitpick (Score:2)
And the original poster just wanted to make a joke.
HTH.
Re:Wait (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'
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
XNU features a POSIX api, a process model, networking, and various other bits from FreeBSD, although of course much altered from the original. It sort of wraps Mach.
Bad Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I read it as essentially, "PC-BSD 8.0 Released: Tagline about wtf PC-BSD is", or perhaps even "PC-BSD 8.0 Released: Why not just use FreeBSD?"
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, there are a lot of problems with PowerDevil and the current Nvidia driver. :D
It'll run forever with the VESA driver, or text only, but that's no fun
You can, of course, enable powerd manually (it's installed... just change enable_powerd="NO" to enable_powerd="YES" in the rc.conf)
But in my testing, this resulted in a plain black screen. What I do is much less user friendly. I change the CPU speed based on a script whenever it goes on battery.
This is something that *really* needs to be fixed.
Been testing it (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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, it doesn't really take very much to deliver a better impression than the stock FreeBSD installer. True, it works well enough, but a "You're done, please reboot" screen would be nice.
Re: (Score:2)
You should have seen the 5.x installer.
The "new" installer, is rather comfy and user friendly in comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the synaptic analogy is for the Linux guys :D
I couldn't agree more with the 'getting to a desktop' part. There are some gotchas and some non-intuitive steps to getting KDE or Gnome running on a BSD box (like installing X11, configuring /etc/ttys and whatnot). So PC-BSD is very good at being a clicky-clicky come back later to a desktop kind of thing.
I still prefer the FreeBSD vanilla, just because I don't care for KDE, but I very much respect what they've done.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Been testing it (Score:5, 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.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There's this saying, "Linux is for people who hate Microsoft, BSD is for people who love UNIX."
It's tongue-in-cheek and very debatable, of course. But isn't there an undercurrent of truth in it, that BSD fans on average are driven by a positive force, and linux fans on average are driven by a negative one?
I'm ASKING, not trolling. FYI, while I conceptually prefer BSD, in practice I'm using linux.
Re:Been testing it (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
As you give a lot of negative examples of linux users, I feel obliged that I have had contacts with bsd users, who in my mind where much more ideological about their choice of licence. As if I did a crime by releasing _my_ cod
Re:Been testing it (Score:5, Insightful)
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'.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, FreeBSDs direct (not just idealogical) ancestors were here long before Linux. FreeBSD itself is younger than Linux.
And you are right, not all Linux users are like that, but I felt like putting my two cents in after Mr. AC who also commented on the same post.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Well, you know dick measure r. if you would have read the COMPLETE post. you would have seen I only flame back when the person gives me crap over MY NIX flavor of choice. I don't push it on anyone.
So get both your mind and hands off my dick. Because I don't give a fuck what OS you or anyone else use's.
What, you looking at my dick because your an asshole and trying to be filled?
Sweet! (Score:3, Funny)
It's finally the year of the BSD desktop! I knew this day would come.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
that link is wrong (Score:3, Informative)
PBI files (Score:5, 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/ [pbidir.com], the process is graphical, and they are easily uninstalled without fuss.
Re:PBI files (Score:4, 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.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, like I said, OS X uses a similar system already. Unfortunately, similar efforts on Linux never went anywhere, so users are locked into the vendors' repositories, unless they are knowledgable/brave and use third party ones.
Weirdly, it's these same people who often complain about iPhone lock-in with the app store...just saying.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait wait... downloading and installing a deb from a third party requires knowledge and bravery (apparently it's very scary to click the download link, then 2x click the package in Nautilus and say "yes" when it asks if you want to install it), but using a PBI is all beauty and light?
Interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
ROFL
I think the point is that PBIs are internally consistent, whereas a deb or rpm can make system-wide changes.
If I install a deb that upgrades something in /usr/lib without intending to, other apps may have issues.
Re: (Score:2)
ROFL
I think the point is that PBIs are internally consistent, whereas a deb or rpm can make system-wide changes.
If I install a deb that upgrades something in /usr/lib without intending to, other apps may have issues.
So a PBI ships with *all* it's dependencies? Isn't that, you know, horribly inefficient? What about system libraries like glibc, libstdc++, etc?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/20/26/ [pcbsd.org]
Pretty much everything that isn't included in the base install of the system. Each one is a full delta snapshot, so far as I understand it.
Yes. This is less disk efficient, but FAR more user time efficient, which is kind of the point.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not just disk inefficient, it's memory inefficient, too. In fact, this is really the definition of bloat. Every application that uses Gnome, Gtk, KDE, Qt, or some other large package might have to be shipped with a full set of libraries, all of which would have to be loaded into memory at runtime (no code sharing, since the libraries aren't actually shared). That's a *very* silly thing to do for, I would contend, a relatively small gain in user convenience.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the default install includes KDE (which is the only fully supported desktop), so any KDE app uses merely it's specific dependencies.
I'm sure I can run a vmstat or whatever you'd like and show you that the vast majority of the memory used is KDE, as opposed to any of the PBI apps.
But you are, of course, entitled to your opinion :)
Re: (Score:2)
So, wait, the entire KDE stack *isn't* shipped with KDE apps? So if a PBI is built against a newer version of KDE, it won't work...
How is it that PBIs are better, again?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, I think you missed something.
All PBIs are a delta snapshot of a specific PC-BSD release, and then whatever that app needs to run.
Therefore a PBI built on 8.0-RELEASE will not install on a PC-BSD 7 system. At all. It won't partially install and break things, it just won't install.
That's the whole point of the design. It's like someone else said with the app store, or like building from ports. If your system is wrong, it stops and says "Sorry". It won't break your system. The PBI builder is designed to be
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, I think you missed something.
All PBIs are a delta snapshot of a specific PC-BSD release, and then whatever that app needs to run.
Ah, interesting, I see. So if someone built Amarok against a newer version of KDE, then it'd be shipped with KDE in the package. Otherwise it'll just use the base version, because that was what it was built against.
So you still have to build packages against a given release, just like you do in any other distro. It just gives the package builder freedom to build against a n
Re: (Score:2)
I think that's pretty much it :)
Glad I could help - it's a pretty cool tool. :D
I'm playing with trying to get some other WMs and DEs in there
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It does when somebody updating a new library doesn't bother to double check that all the function calls for the old library work the same way in the new library, and your .deb requires the updated library.
Now if you need to update the software dependent on that function that was changed you're hosed and you'll have no idea what caused it.
It happens, and it's a pain in the ass.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but if your distribution is sane (ie is Debian) and you're sane (ie not using Unstable), you won't have a version of Gimp that requires libraries that the rest of your distribution can't use, unless you try to get it from somewhere else.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
+1 PBIs rock. (Score:2)
Limited selection of PBIs (Score:2)
I've tried PC-BSD a couple of times and liked it but I've never stuck with it. The lack of a PBI to install a proper usenet newsreader has always been the deal-killer for me.
Re: (Score:2)
There isn't a PBI for Mozilla Thunderbird or KNews? PC-BSD uses KDE as its desktop environment, right?
Those two are pretty decent Usenet clients IMO...
Re: (Score:2)
SLRN? I'm not *that* old-school. I'm simply spoiled by the graphical newsreaders that have been available for Windows for so many years. I want easy, automatic handling of binaries, rar files (including repairs), yenc, and everything else. I want to point, click, and have my ISO. Or my set of jpgs. Or my discussion thread.
Under Linux, I've used Pan but it has some problems and lacks all the features I can get from Windows newsreaders. I've tried various Windows newsreaders under Wine but they've all
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you get a lot of redundant libraries that way. Why not just go back to statically linking everything if you're going to do that? The proper solution is to support multiple versions of a library in your package manager. I don't know why package managers don't do that.
Re: (Score:2)
And a big library is, what 100k? Maybe?
Seriously, redundant libraries were a big deal 15 years ago, now it's just smart.
Repeat after me: Redundancy is a good thing, not a bad thing.
The proper solution is to support multiple versions of a library in your package manager. I don't know why package managers don't do that.
Because it's freaking hard to get right. See all of Microsoft's efforts to deal with this, it's the #1 flaw of the dll system (any shared library system, actually) and it has been from the start, the system used in .Net is their best effort so far - it uses manifests for each library to track and point software to the correct ve
Re: (Score:2)
And a big library is, what 100k? Maybe?
Uhuh. Try again buddy:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1027760 2010-01-10 09:52 libstdc++.so.6.0.13
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4231296 2010-01-24 13:54 libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0.1800.3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8932320 2009-10-07 12:17 libqt-mt.so.3.3.8
Now multiply those sizes by the number of processes you're currently running, as the lack of shared libraries means no shared code pages. Suddenly RAM usage spikes, your disk cache is wasted, and performance drops as a consequence. Yeah... gr
Re: (Score:2)
We've had this for well over a decade in FreeBSD, it's called Ports. It may not be GUI, but going cd /usr/ports/whatever/i/want make install clean isn't that hard.
Re: (Score:2)
Ports does dependency resolution, etc. PBIs do not, because they don't have to.
Re: (Score:2)
What? Just because the package is included doesn't mean it gets installed. A shared library installed by one app is still used and shared by other apps.
This is no different than Windows games including the directx installer and running it as part of their own install. After the first install, the rest of the games you install that also install directx only update it if they are newer or have special versions of the files, you don't install a new copy every time.
Have you used computers very long or are yo
UNIX vs. Linux? (Score:2)
I've been using Linux now (SUSE > openSUSE > Ubuntu) for several years now in both a desktop and server environments. My office still has a few HP 3000 (MPE) servers lying around running applications.
In speaking to other analysts and whatnot, while advocating Linux, the question comes up - why not UNIX?
I honestly can't answer. Can someone tell me why one would choose UNIX over Linux or the other way around? Is there an advantage to one over the other?
Re: (Score:2)
Go for it if you want, OpenSolaris is well developed. It isn't going to be nearly as flexible, and there isn't nearly the community development behind it, but there's nothing stopping you.
Linux isn't 100% Unix compliant, so a lot of the goodies probably don't work, but it is certainly a powerful system.
I wouldn't really recommend it for desktop purposes though, much less so than I recommend Linux (which is not at all).
Re: (Score:2)
The best answer I've seen is basically that *BSD is a much more cohesive experience, with a smaller number of contributors and a project that is under tighter control. This has some real downsides - progress is slower in some areas - but things also feel more unified, like they came from one source rather than many.
Mind you, a good Linux distribution will do its best to give you that same impression, and there are always going to be programs that don't look or act quite like anything else on the system, but
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno - just always wondering...
SUS and POSIX are identical (Score:3, Insightful)
POSIX is the portable OS interface, it was originally intended for Unix derivitatives, but it does not define what UNIX is. The Open Group defines what UNIX is
POSIX:2001 and Single UNIX Specification version 3 are identical [wikipedia.org].
I love it (Score:4, Interesting)
Bah! (Score:4, 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.
Re:Am I the only ignorant one to think... (Score:4, Informative)
Not drowning but waving.... (Score:2, Funny)
Mod me troll if you please, but you may think of it as struggling, I prefer to think of it as consulting. If it was easy, who'd pay me for it?
Re: (Score:2)
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], both NetBSD and OpenBSD have UVC kernel drivers, while FreeBSD is able to make use of Linux's UVC drivers by running them in userspace.
Re: (Score:2)
The world needs to see his 'member' just as much as it needs your extremely anti-social post...
Why Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While Windows has the best hardware support coverage among all operating systems
That's not true. Linux supports a much greater set of hardware. Since we're not at the mercy of the vendor to keep their drivers updated, Linux is often able to support old hardware that new versions of Windows won't. Not to mention all the architectures Linux has been ported to.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Security. Go ahead, pass me a .exe file via one of your hacked web pages. Wait, it doesn't run on my unix/linux box. Damn, you can't infect and make my desktop part of your botnet.
And no, i did not mean you. Sorry, just the only way I could think of phrasing that.
i still use windows as my primary desktop, but I am performing more and more tasks from my FreeBSD KDE desktop.
Definatly ALL my email.
Most of my surfing.
I don't game, so what do I care about games.
open office opens ALL the microsoft files that I n
Re: (Score:2)
Why do we need Linux for the desktop?
Good question. I prefer FreeBSD on the desktop, and so do the folks at PC-BSD.
Re: (Score:2)
While Windows has the best hardware support coverage among all operating systems,
This is not quite true. Don't count on Windows supporting legacy hardware, specialized custom-built industrial/hobby hardware, or even decent media drivers (because of the pressure from the movie/content/cable industry).
Re: (Score:2)
True, the linux wins in mind share, and to some extent therefore also in market share. But the BSDs do provide superior performance, which is very evident in the server market share.
But hey, why not offer server performance for desktops, too? :-)
Re: (Score:2)
But the BSDs do provide superior performance, which is very evident in the server market share.
And you have modern, meaningful benchmarks demonstrating this to be the case, I presume? I mean, this isn't just nonsense rooted in your personal biases, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Well yes, from Netcraft, in spite of the almost mandatory "is dead" joke ... not that I can find the figures for you right now, though.
I didn't intend to be boastful or nitpicky; perhaps I should have rephrased it to something in along "many very large web sites are hosted on BSD systems.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean you can't find it because this [netcraft.com] shows Linux ahead of FreeBSD (for reliability)? Or this [phoronix.com], where several different Linux distros beat FreeBSD soundly in most benchmarks?
Sorry, but your nonsense about FreeBSD performing better than Linux is just that: nonsense. In some cases it does, in other cases it doesn't. Use the tool you think suits you best (and there are plenty of reasons to prefer BSD), but claims that FreeBSD generally performs "better" is just delusional fanboy bullshit. It's still a good, c
Re: (Score:2)
And you have modern, meaningful benchmarks demonstrating this to be the case, I presume?
Apparently not, no. The benchmarks I was thinking of had the gall to let themselves get several years old since I thought of them last! So nevermind me, I'm living in the past.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Touché.
Re: (Score:2)
Audio for one. BSD audio mixes everything in the kernel with no nasty incompatible user space audio servers. Ever had a Linux app refuse to play audio because it was configured for ESD while you happen to be playing something through ALSA? It should "just work" and on BSD it does.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
FreeBSD makes a great developer's desktop, at least for those of us who know how to do what we need to with the CLI (presumably PC-BSD's raison d'etre is to make that caviat obsolete). Excellent performance, satisfying consistency, and it's a very clean system. Gotta love a system whose kernel is
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why we need the BSD kernel for desktop? While the Linux kernel has the best hardware support coverage among all open source kernels, I am curious what's the reasons behind to pick BSD for a desktop oriented distro.
The only thing worse than a loaded question is one that is loaded with an unsubstantiated claim. Even if your assumption were true, the number of hardware drivers a kernel has available for it is a very naive metric for its usefulness.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You can download .pbi file, click, use application.
You can cd /usr/ports/..., make install clean.
You can pkg_add.
If you like using ports, then just think of PC-BSD as getting a desktop up and running quickly without having to manually choose X and KDE during the install.