PC-BSD 1.4: An Initial Look
This is a release I’ve been waiting for quite a while; it’s a nifty front-end installer for FreeBSD 6.2 (the latest and greatest version of FreeBSD) that takes all the hassle out of installing a Unix-like system, with the added benefit of being completely dummy-proof in adding apps with a series of push-button installers (pbi’s) that package all the dependencies/support files in a single package, much like the installers for Windows programs (exe?) or Mac OS X (dmg) do–no chance of getting caught in a Linux dependency hell (though increasingly rare, it does happen).
Initially I was going to install this in VirtualBox, as I had the ISO files (CDs one and two) but was too lazy to burn them to CD; VirtualBox refused to cooperate, so I ended up installing the system to an old Compaq laptop, maxed out with 1 Gb of ram and a 120 Gb HDD.
The installation process took around 30 minutes total, and that was only because I chose to add some additional items from the second CD–the initial base install took a total of 17 minutes: first asking me identify my timezone/keyboard layout/language on one screen, then root password/user name/Real name/user password/shell account (I chose bash, as that’s what is used with most Linux distros, and the one I’m familiar with); this was followed by a disk partition screen, where I chose ‘use the whole disk’–though the option to use only a sub-section was available under ‘advanced options’.
The next fifteen minutes or so I was treated to a screen show touting PC-BSD’s features while the installer did its work; at the end of this process I was prompted to insert the 2nd CD to install Firefox, KOffice, and the FreeBSD ports tree (the source for compiling software, should you want to get your hands dirty and avoid the pbi’s).
Sadly, this old laptop has an ancient ATI graphics card, and though compiz-fusion is supported on Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSuse with this very same card, PC-BSD doesn’t have it, as ATI has not provided them with the necessary drivers.
The KDE desktop in PC-BSD is truly lovely, so much so that even Konqueror ( a web browser) looked snazzy–once KDE4 is released and integrated into this system it’s going to be a tough system to resist: uber-secure and stable, beautifully polished, and a total no-brain-needed situation as regards updating/adding new software. The perfect system for those completely new to the Open Source world–I can’t believe it’s free (as in beer)!
There are graphical menus for literally everything, with helpful desktop icons that lead to the PC-BSD homepage (which has links to their forums), the pbi directory (where you can download tons of wonderful apps, and install them with a simple double click of the mouse–un-installing is just another double-click away), a quick install guide, your home directory, and the trash.
Flash, mp3 playing, and watching DVDs is ready as soon as you are in your new desktop, and after playing around a bit with the various settings, tweaking the wallpaper and menu bars, I headed over to the pbi directory to download a couple of apps.
Installation was flawless, though you will need to enter the root (or superuser) password on each installation (for security reasons); the system came with a firewall already set up (along with denyhosts), and scrolling through the various menus and launching apps was very quick and responsive, even on this old machine.
On the first boot, an automatic X server configuration tool popped up, allowing for easy setup of the graphic card/monitor resolution–no more using the command line to edit xorg.conf files!
Kudos to Charles, antik, and the rest of the PC-BSD team for a system that is just absolutely a joy to install and run; after having tried (and failed) to get straight FreeBSD going (startx, i.e., getting a KDE desktop just wouldn’t take), it was nice to have a FreeBSD system that was super easy to install and use.
If you are a new user, there is everything here for you; equally so if you are an experienced techie you can get into the FreeBSD ports tree and compile to your hearts content. Something for everyone here, no matter their level of knowledge or expertise.
As always, if I have omitted anything or failed to make anything clear, please feel free to drop a comment below.
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September 28th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Cool review, I have tried pcbsd in the past and enjoyed it. I have always liked the idea of ports, compiling from source gives you a better app for your particular system. I think I’m gonna try it again thx to your review on my fileserver.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Thanks! You can use it as the basic compile from ports, or go for the graphical front end push button installer–good for both those experienced and novices alike.
Cheers!
September 29th, 2007 at 5:58 am
[…] Published September 29th, 2007 BSD , Open Source , PC-BSD , Unix This is a review on Cthulhu Linux Blog This is a release I’ve been waiting for quite a while; it’s a nifty front-end installer for […]
September 30th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Sorry if this has nothing to do with this review –
Why do I never have luck with *BSD distrib on my hardware, I read all of you guys telling how cool PCBSD is and how happy you are … But on what kind of computer are you installing it ( a 386 computer??? )
Every time ( excepted in VMWare of course ) I download it, burn it and then boot it, I never get those little COMMON USB User INPUT DEVICES called a KEYBOARD and a MICE working. I read that even PCBSD have NATIVE support for NVidia 3d accel driver … But how can I install it when I have no mouse nor keyboard detected and usable ?? ( If I set the keyboard to legacy USB for DOS in my bios, I still have no mice! ) I really have preferences to go on open sources Unix and like new environments. No lucks for me BSD always feels some eras behind … This is Sad.
Sorry for my upset comments but you know, frustration is the opposite of joy, a joy I would want to feel with BSD.
hahaha
September 30th, 2007 at 8:36 am
bretzel: I’m sorry for your poor experience; I’m hardly an expert (far from it!) on things related to *BSD–I installed this on a seven year old Compaq laptop that could barely run XP (it was that sloooooww…) and it had no problems; perhaps you could go to the irc channel #pcbsd and ask a couple of questions there, or post a message in their forum. Just a couple of suggestions. It truly is a nice system to use and run, but I can see the problems inherent with having no input devices. Cheers!
September 30th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Good review there mate. I have used both PC-BSD 1.4 and Desktop BSD 1.6 RC3 on the same Dell Latitude 8100 with 512MB of RAM. I honestly can’t say which to use. They both give the same performance with out lag, they both have good repositories full of extra software. But I might go with PC-BSD, as I feel it is somewhat more polished, even if I had a nightmare with updating it. As a side note have you been following 30 Days with PC-BSD?
September 30th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
EmyrB: Thanks for the link! I agree with you that PC-BSD is a bit more polished, though they are both very nice. Cheers!
September 30th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
bretzel — The USB Keyboard and USB Mouse are not recognized. Your computer should be able to accommodate a ps2 keyboard and mouse, many of which are available for $5-$10 each, and you will be able to use BSD “out of the box.” I believe that there is likely to be USB keyboard and mouse support, but that will require a little research into the FreeBSD Handbook (or searching the web) to find what kernel modules you will have to load. (They can be loaded automatically once you know which ones to use. It is not rocket science.)
One user had this experience:
My only USB device is the keyboard, but I don’t have a USB to PS/2 adapter handy. So I booted without the keyboard plugged in (no error) then when I got to the install menu, I re-plugged the keyboard in AND IT WORKED.
I cannot say this will work for you, but you now have three workarounds:
1. Change to ps2 keyboard and mouse.
2. Get a USB to ps2 adapter.
3. Try booting unplugged and then plug in later.
Or. . . 4. Research further.
October 1st, 2007 at 6:20 am
I have been reading the comments above. I had a very frustrating experience with PC-BSD 1.3. I really do not know what is there in BSD that is not there in Linux. I have tried PCLOS2007, SUSE, Dream Linux 2.2, Mint 3.1, Wolvix, Mepis and they are at par with or should I say better that vista. I see security as the only reason to stick to PC-BSD. However, I am sure 1.4 da vinci may be a very different experience. The trick of unplugging the key board and then pluging it in later is very clever indeed! thanks to the writer Ian.
Hope some BSD expert will comment on pc BSD vs Linux Mint or Ubuntu or PCLOS.
October 1st, 2007 at 4:34 pm
I agree with the technical aspects of your evaluation PCBSD 1.4 with one major exception. The version of Flash Player in PCBSD 1.4 is much older release 7, (current Windows/Mac and Linux version is 9) and rejected by most of the NEWS Organizations and dozens of the high traffic web sites that I frequent.
This will have to be corrected before the use of PCBSD can be as efficient and productivve as any of the GNU/Linux distros or the best it can be, otherwise this particular issue could be a deal-breaker.
The use of RealPlayer rel 10 or later may also be an issue.
W. Anderson
wanderson@nac.net
October 1st, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I agree with W. Anderson… PCBSD really needs Flash 9. I tried downloading a beta PBI of windows firefox running under wine with flash 9 put out by a PCBSD dev, but as soon as it hit a web page with flash, it locked up. I could easily terminate the app and PCBSD was still chugging along nicely, but man that would have been nice.
I really like this OS, but there are just a few little gotcha’s here…
Also, I went over to http://pbis.in/ to grab Real Player 10 PBI (which worked fine under PCBSD 1.3) and it does not seem to install properly in PCBSD 1.4. Although there are a few other working gems at that site.
Cheers,
D.
October 1st, 2007 at 9:11 pm
For those who wish to try Firefox 2.0.0.7 running under wine with Flash 9, here is the PBI link…
http://www.pcbsd.org/~kris/pbi/FireFoxWine2.0.0.7-PV01.pbi
enjoy,
D.
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Good review, but a niggle:
That “PC-BSD doesn’t have [compiz-fusion] as ATI has not provided them with the necessary drivers” makes it sound like ATI has provided a Linux-only driver that supports Compiz/AIGLX, which is not the case. AIGLX support for ATI cards is only available through the open source Xorg ati/radeon driver (although the next release of ATI’s proprietary driver will apparently have AIGLX support).
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:28 am
[…] spuneam c? a ap?rut PC-BSD 1.4! Azi spun c? au ap?rut ?i primele review-uri ale acestuia (review 1 ?i review […]
October 14th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Can I install and run application in PCBSD like the one I install in windows xp? greatfull if you can give me a hint I want to shift our OS to PCBSD but afraid that most of the application installed on xp will not run on this flatform.
October 27th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I am using Fedora Linux for a few years (since FC3).
Maybe its just me, but I never “got caught in a Linux dependency hell”, as you put it. Whenever I want to install new software, I select “Add or Remove Package” from the main menu, and then I push the button - just like your push-button installers. The only difference is, that I don’t have to open the web browser and go to the web site, I can do it from my desktop.
Actually, there is another small difference: according to my short PcBSD experience, PBIs don’t work at all!
After I installed the system I wanted to add Abiword - the word processing application. I downloaded it from the PBI Directory, installed it, and double clicked on the new launcher on my desktop. I got a nice and friendly message: KDEInit could not launch /usr/local/bin/abiword.
A short investigation of my file system showed that this file is actually a link to /usr/local/MyPrograms/.sbin/abiword - a file that does not exist at all, much like the .sbin directory it was supposed to reside in.
After having the same experience with KOffice, I gave up and went back to my Linux to do some actual work.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:45 am
[…] has been a flurry of reviews (PC BSD Day 30 Verdict, Joe Sixpack Goes BSD, and PC-BSD an initial look) corresponding to the PC-BSD 1.4 (Leonardo) release. I’ve been aware of PC-BSD, and other […]
November 30th, 2007 at 9:50 am
while bsd oses are similar to linux, the latter is more mature. i never got freebsd to do very useful everyday tasks. post-installation configuration is hell. the phrase ‘linux dependancy hell’ is VERY misleading! on debian based systems ‘apt-get’ does the trick and similar on rpm based systems use either ‘yast’ or ‘yum’.