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View Full Version : PC-BSD...I like it alot...

BlueTsunami
28-Jul-2005, 00:29
Well..I installed Gentoo....then got decided I wanted to go BSD :lol:

I'm using PC-BSD on my laptop and on my IBM S51 Workstation at work. The only thing that sucks is the fact that common Linux apps have to be ported over to BSD. I like though..that the most "common" apps, have been ported AND put in a neat little package.

PC-BSD (0.7.8 ) is mighty good for a non finished build of BSD. It works straight out-the-box, Put the CD in, specify if you want to use the whole harddisk or intall to a partition, Set up the bootloader (their version of BSD bootloader..which is a simple press F1 - PC-BSD, F2 - Windows XP, F3 - Gentoo etc etc), CD installs OS on hardisk and finally set up the ROOT password and create a user account and set up your password.

PC-BSD give you the newest version of KDE from the begining. You have a bunch of different apps at your disposal.

GUI: KDE

Web Browser: Konquer

Chat: Kopete, KSirc


It also comes with other various other apps. One which I like ALOT (especially that it comes pre-installed) is ARK. The downside is that the OS itself seems to not come with pre-packged with alot of librairies but the .pbi's that it uses kinda makes it ok. I also am very fond of KDE's Control Center. Their site is kinda light weight...but they have a nice little section of software downloads that are packeged as .pbi's (self installing packages). Among the packages are GIMP 2.2, Firefox, ThunderBird and OpenOffice (ones that stood out amongst the others).

This is a GREAT OS, I would recommend it to new *NIX users. The fact that it takes very little to get it going from the installation CD is wonderful. Even the veterans I belive would love the fact that its such a fast quick and efficient installation setup.

Heres where you can get it

PC-BSD (http://www.pcbsd.org)
gb25
28-Jul-2005, 00:44
How's the hardware detection? Did you have any problems getting any hardware set up? I've been wanting to try bsd. I downloaded freebsd 6, and for some reason I can't get the installer to work with my network card. I'm going to try pc-bsd, but I'm on dialup and have another couple of days before I get it downloaded though. Maybe it'll work with my nic.
Saem
28-Jul-2005, 01:44
The great thing about PC-BSD is that it's 100% freebsd under the hood, so if you have hardware compatability questions, just research FreeBSD.

It'll be neat once DragonflyBSD becomes more mature and there is a PC-BSD distro for it, I'd be a very happy camper. Their .pbi setup isn't half bad, but it's not all that good either, there is bloat and security issues.
BlueTsunami
28-Jul-2005, 01:51
How's the hardware detection? Did you have any problems getting any hardware set up? I've been wanting to try bsd. I downloaded freebsd 6, and for some reason I can't get the installer to work with my network card. I'm going to try pc-bsd, but I'm on dialup and have another couple of days before I get it downloaded though. Maybe it'll work with my nic.

Hardware detection has been good for me (on the NIC end) but wireless devices are a different story. Its a huge pain in the ass to get wirless pcmcia and NIC cards up because of the NDIS drivers. I'm currently trying to get this NDISulator up and going on my PC-BSD. Its supposed to be able to run Windows native NDIS drivers on any *nix system.

An example being..with my Wireless-G pcmcia card for my laptop, I would use my install CD for Windows XP. Pull down the .inf and .sys files and wrap them. I believe I then modprobe it and do as you normally do when you install new hardware. Seems simple and easy...but i'm guessing its not. I'll update on what happens with that venture.

Monitors support is also another pain....it doesn't seem to want to correctly detect Refresh rates and Resolutions correctly with some monitros. My Dell 19" FP at work is stuck at 1280x786 or something like that....I tried to edit the X11ORG file (I don't think thats spelt right..lol) and it just errors out on me. I haven't really been messing with that yet because I was talking to my Email Exchange Server guy at my job and told me that I would be able to connect to my Inbox with IMap under *nix...so I've been experimenting with that :o
Tokelil
28-Jul-2005, 01:55
Why BSD over Linux? (For the uneducated :) )
Saem
28-Jul-2005, 07:57
Linux is a kernel and that's it, in fact, it's a kernel, nothing more. People use that kernel with say the GNU userland and then build out GNU/Linux as most would end up using.

FreeBSD on the other hand is an entire system, it's a kernel, userland, and so on. It's more akin to an intensely well supported linux distro. Freebsd also seems to be much cleaner especially in terms of it's excellent documentation and general file system. There are quite a few differences, I suggest checking out the FreeBSD handbook as that'll give you a better idea.
Tokelil
28-Jul-2005, 12:49
Thx for the info. I think I might go dig a bit deeper and see what BSD has to offer...
Jimmers
28-Jul-2005, 19:12
GUI: KDE

Ugghh...I gave both KDE and Gnome a whirl and I was back with fluxbox within a day. To each his own I guess.
Rodéric
28-Jul-2005, 19:31
I liked it too... until it failed to find itself when I installed it on my SATA drive...
Saem
29-Jul-2005, 00:06
Jimmers, comparing a desktop environment to a window manager is hardly productive, out of curiosity, which version of GNOME and KDE?

I'm fairly certain there is a port for fluxbox and so you could install it for PC-BSD, if you're considering it.
Jimmers
29-Jul-2005, 07:47
Jimmers, comparing a desktop environment to a window manager is hardly productive, out of curiosity, which version of GNOME and KDE?

Recent ones, within the last 2 months (was bored, work was slow, needed some desktop change). I'm not exactly sure what makes a 'desktop suite' different from a 'window manager' other than the gui-ness, but I use the command line most of the time, so for me it doesn't matter too much. Fluxbox is there to draw a pretty picture in the background.

But yeah, Gnome was on my system for less than 5 mins and KDE even less. Granted, on a 1 GHz PPC, both were too slow for my taste, and I didn't even try to configure anything.
Saem
29-Jul-2005, 08:35
A DE is all about integration. If you have a quick look over say kde technologies, you'll see what I mean. Basically, a WM worries about windows. DEs, are much more involved, with libraries, utilities, apps and all sorts of other things, all cooperating to create a cohesive environment.