Alpha 9.0-current

[Skull Fire]

not an official release. still in developement stage. but anyone looking to test 9.0 i think this may be an update of the alpha release:
for 32bit full iso:
ftp://ftp.pcbsd.org/pub/snapshots/

for 64bit full iso:
ftp://ftp.pcbsd.org/pub/snapshots/9-CURRENT-20110414/amd64/PCBSD9-CURRENT-20110414-x64-DVD.iso

for the full list of snapshots including md5, live dvd, full installs, and usb installs:
ftp://ftp.pcbsd.org/pub/snapshots/9-CURRENT-20110414/
edited 4-15-2011

Note** i try to keep this edited and up to date, but if all else fails go here and search the relevent links:
ftp://ftp.pcbsd.org/pub/snapshots/

also a small news piece on 03/21:

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20110321#news

[kmoore134]

Those are our 9-CURRENT / ALPHA snapshots. If anybody is interested in
following along with development of that, I would recommend signing up
for the testing mailing list:

http://lists.pcbsd.org/mailman/listinfo/testing ('http://lists.pcbsd.org/mailman/listinfo/testing')

[pcbsd64]

Is there a USB image available? I'd love to test this latest snapshot,but I don't have an optical drive.

Found it here (ftp://ftp.pcbsd.org/pub/snapshots/9-CURRENT-20110315/amd64/PCBSD9-CURRENT-20110315-x64-USBFULL.img.bz2).

[Skull Fire]

you can choose a list of snapshots for 64bit or 32 bit here :

ftp://ftp.pcbsd.org/pub/snapshots/9-CURRENT-20110414/

if that link dies due to an updated version then try here:

ftp://ftp.pcbsd.org/pub/snapshots/

[Abdul]

How about compressing USB images with something that decompresses faster?

[DarkPhoenix]

Skull Fire That first link is most certainly down.

I'm looking through the second link and I cannot find the 9.0 LXDE iso for 32 or 64 bit. Can someone tell me the correct file name please?

[DarkPhoenix]

Hey perhaps one day in 2037 someone will see this. <grin>

About isotope. I Like it. I like it's looks and feel I like that it seems to handle ram (virtual) much better than 8,2 at least for me. I have run both of them through Virtual Box VM and the 9.0 is lots more usable than the 8.2. Can't dedicate a hard drive to it right now cus i'm testing Windows 8.

I did try 8.2 in a HD and it ran just a little faster than the VM, still 9.0 in a VM smokes 8.2 at least for me. I do not understand why this should be. Getting a new HD soon so I will test it the right way when I get it.

As an Os that's geared to the desktop user I find the choice of bundled apps is nice. Like the look and concept of the App Cafe. My big thing is useability with no command terminal. I think the future for the Unix desktop user will be all G U I at least with having to touch the terminal as little as you would with say Windows command prompt.

I can't wait till it's finished to see what more you guys add to it.

[windtalker]

Is there an educated guestimate as to when 9.0 may be ready for an official release?

[kmoore134]

The way it works is that we usually release a day or two after the
official FreeBSD release of the same version. So when FreeBSD 9.0 hits,
we will be right after it.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.0R/schedule.html ('http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.0R/schedule.html')

I know with .0 releases they tend to run a bit late, if I had to take a
guesstimate it would be late Sept, early Oct, baring any major issues
cropping up :)

[DarkPhoenix]

(deleted)

Darn.. I typed all the above in caps because I could not see my typing. I'm back on now with another browser but in konqueror, the text is invisible and the smilies to the right are all messed up. Don't know if thats a Isotope bug or not.

I installed the 64 bit version of isotope.

Anyway.. I have issues with Isotope installed that I did not have with running it in a VM.Is there a better place to post this? I do see a section about problems with the PCBSD installer but don't know if thats just for 8.2 or not.. seems to me there should be a place just for Isotope bugs and perhaps there is and I missed it.

Installing was a chore. took 4 times as long as it does in a VM. First time it wanted to freeze when loading BTX and again it froze when loading the Bios Config I think it was. If I just kept trying again, eventually it would get all the way to the desktop, after about 30 minutes. I don't think it's supposed to take that long if I remember correctly from when I installed under Virtual Box. Thats not installing.. only loading to the GUI for the first time. Then the install seemed to take forever too. I'd say total was about an hour and a half to install.

Speaking of which.. it feels like I am still using Virtual Box and not a native install. At times the mouse is slugish, expanding and colasping windows are slow. I have 4 gigs of ram, this thing should fly. I was unable to set my laptop default resolution at first boot. I would tell it to use ATI 3d with my 1336 x768 resolution and it would test and a 5th of the screen on the right side would be cut off, so I just left the default resolution for now.

For video I use an onboard ATI 4200 chip with 336 MB of dedicated ram but it's shared up to 1 gig. I have no idea if the os is using that properly or if I should look for other drivers.

Perhaps it would help if I told you my PC specs. They are the same as here but with 4 gigs of ram: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01980785&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=4125444

Edit:

After playing with all my installed DE's it seems my mouse and windows slowdowns were caused by KDE. Even Gnome is fast and works like normal. That's a plus. At least I know it isn't something internal that's causing slow downs. Flash works but I had to enable it through the terminal. Cannot find Java in the App Cafe like the FAQ says, it's just not listed.

[masinick]

Kris, do you anticipate having any Live images available during the testing cycle? That would be helpful to me for a quick look. Right now I can only run PC-BSD in a virtual environment because of my current configuration, but installing such an image (using an external USB disk that's really more for capacity backup than every day performance), coupled with a virtual environment makes installing it slow and trouble prone. Having the opportunity to at least peek it it live first would be quite helpful in this case. Is that going to be possible with the new approach you are using? Thanks!

[kmoore134]

We do have Live images on our FTP site, but I've added them to the
website now as well :)