Our reviews of PC-BSD 0.7.5

[Valio]

I was thinking,let's write our reviews also, that way we can find the problems fast, if there's any :)

This is quick look of 0.7.5, maybe later i'll make a full review :)

My review's state at the moment:



I'm using vmware workstation 5.0 Build 13124

My hardware specs:
(dont know that this matter,as im using virtual machine, but here goes:))

AMD Athlon 64 +3000
Gigabyte K8VT800
Nvidia Geforce 6600 GT
LG DVD-ROM
512 MB


Beastie (http://www.beastie.com/) has return to home from Kris's hospital, let' see what is beastie's condition.

Installation:

After the boot, you can choose from the new menu:

install Start graphical installation
lang Change language
xreset Reset X to default VESA driver
shell Drop to emercency shell
reboot Reboot the system

The installer has go through also paintshop (http://www.pcbsd.org/?p=install&screen=2),as the process continues, worth a mention will be custom partitioning feature (http://www.pcbsd.org/?p=install&screen=3), which let you modify your disk partitions as you see fit.

Unfortunately not everything is a peace of cake, when the installation is finished and booting up, OS tries first connect to DHCP but it fails, then i get no devices connected (error 1 (http://www.geocities.com/tx8211/pic2.JPG),error2 (http://www.geocities.com/tx8211/pic.JPG))


I have tested so far: disable floppy and cdrom drive, disable and try different network settings, download a new iso, install again.

I installed PC-BSD with the FreeBSD option. I had no problems with 0.7


I havent tested with real hardware yet, hopefully we will see those reviews also :)

[scottro]

Installing it now. Unfortunately, I still have the problem that the installation CD will not boot unless I choose safe mode at the splash screen--it gets hung up at my second CD drive. I don't ~think~ it's a FreeBSD issue, as, when I installed 5.4 on this box, I didn't have the issue.

I'll post more after it's installed, but as I think this might be a major issue for those who aren't familiar with FreeBSD, figured I'd get the report in now. :)

[Valio]

Updated for now

[Charles]

I'm downloading it from BitTorrent. Kudos to Kris 8)

[Valio]

Yep, he has done excellent work, i had this destiny just this time :P

[Cancel]

I downloaded 0.7.5 in two hours with BitTorrent and installed it on a P4 1.3 with no problems at all. The one thing that does bother me about booting into PC-BSD it if you don't select verbose at boot time, you have no idea what is going on. I think there should be at least a progress bar to give the user an idea if everything is okay. Other than that, everything is great. I am going to have to adjust my resolution manually to bump it up to 1280x1024, but it was the same on 0.7. If this is aimed at newbies (like me) I am not sure how they will react. With that in mind, I searched the forum and there was a post on how to change to a higher resolution. I am going to install some .pbi's and see how things go.

I really have to tip my hat to the developers and the PC-BSD community. This is a great OS and the forum is full of help.

[pcbsdusr]

I Installed 0.75 minutes ago. Fortunately, My ISP finally updated my connection speed this morning.. :D

First, let me comment my own translating effort: It feels great installing PC-BSD on my own language. I now just have to change some of the sentences on my transation for it to look perfect! It's different translating on "linguist" and seing the result during instalation. Al in all, it seems very good but when i update the ransation t will be perfect! :twisted:

I loved the new splash screen with the yellow flowers! Great graphics always make great OS's look better...

The new partitioning tools "just worked" for me so no problems there too.

One thing missing in the installer is the option to change the keyboard layout on the system and on KDE. The option to change this should appear next to the language selection box or after it. It is a very needed feature.
I write this because i cant write my full name correctly unless the keyboard region is correct in KDE... It's annoying at least and we need to correct it.

Other feature which is also not implemented yet is an internet connection configuration wizard. I would like to have my connection working when i first boot into C-BSD

To finalize, there is a third change to be made. I aready posted a thread about this here:

http://www.pcbsd.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=535

I really think we should do this so we dont need to change the XF86Config file after logging in and reboot to get a nice resolution.


After installing i booted normally into KDE's desktop.

(i had to setup my internet connection, change XF86Config's resolution and refresh rates and reboot to start using the OS. THis shouldn't be necessary)
_________________________________________________
Update:
Feels great having KDE in Portuguese!!!
_________________________________________________

The icons and the theme are now different. It's just a matter of taste. I like the way it is now personally.

The "K" menu was reorganized and looks better now. I think it needs a "Konsole" icon on it as we still have to use it a lot during current PC-BSD's early development stage.

One other tiny problem i have is the placement of the little deamon on the default PC-BSD walpaper. I use my taskbar on the top of the screen and the mascot gets covered by it. This aso happens if i place the taskbar on the right. This s really easy to fix, The mascott just has to come down and to the left a little bit.

So i just wrote a review of the nstallation... I had just told Valio i wasn't really into reviews and it shows.. I cant stop writing once i start.

Support for mouse with extra buttons is needed. My Logitech usb mouse works fine but without the extra 3 buttons.

I obviously focused almost exclusively on the problems i feel need to be corrected. Not that i had any real problem during the instalation.

This s positive criticism! Of course, if al this is fixed in version 0.76 i will post here writing wonders about our dear developer :D ...

Lets get this issues ironed out so we can move forward!

Cheers!

Renato Flórido

Update: Forgot to post My Machine specs...

Pentium IV Northwood 3.0c
Asus P4c800eDeluxe
Intel onboard Gigabit Nic
1GB Kingston Double Channel DDR400
SATA 120GB (PC-BSD instals on the third partition)
SATA 160GB
ATA 40GB
DVD-RAM
Radeon 9800PRO128MB
Creative SoundBLasterLive5.1
Sony 17" LCD
Logitech usb mouse

[darkside]

The new Splash Screen is really good!

:arrow: Why don´t use it as wallpaper too? like SUSE...

:arrow: The option to change the keyboard layout during system install

:arrow: internet configuration wizard, or DHCP by default.

:arrow: More "Desktop Apps" like amarok, Apollon.

:arrow: Use the new Crystal Clear icons.


Specs:

Pentium IV Prescott 3.0c
Asus P4S800-X
512 GB Kingston Double Channel DDR400
SATA 120GB Seagate
LG DVD-RW/CD-RW
MSI GeForce FX 5200
Smasung 17" 753v
Microsoft usb mouse

All OK.

[Charles]

I've got a couple issues here. I have tried to install it on 2 computers, I can't use it on neither one.

On the 1st computer I can't install it because after I click the "install using graphic mode" option, I get a black screen with root@pcbsd, and nothing happens.

On the 2nd computer, I can install it, but my touchpad has no pointer. Also, the keyboard layout is still in English. I tried to configure X.org, but now I can't even open KDE. I have no network either. The screen had a maximum resolution of only 1024x768@60Hz (Sony VAIO PCG-F409) :cry:

I'm gonna wait until .8 or something. .75 doesn't seem to add anything crucial to what I really need (Printer and scanner services).

But, it's still a good general "cleaning up" of the system.

Good work Kris.

[pcbsdusr]

Please instal it anyway. You could help us solve bugs and make sugestions by using it. This was an extremely important release to me as i finally have PC-BSD in my native language.

I also have a clearer view of what i need to improve/correct in my translation and what problems should be corrected next.

Surely, Printing and scanning devices are super important but i think people must be able to install without any problems first while not having to manually edit files to get the correct resolution for their monitors or having to set up their internet connection and rebooting after having logged in for the first time...

I also have some issues with sound, unmounted ntfs drives and not having the floppy drive working...

Please register on the forum ok?

Cheers!

Renato

[dean_fry]

well the installer looks really nice mow :D
but for thew window-decoration...wow it was soooo big...so i reduced the size...maybe the default shouldn't be that big...

too bad that kde 3.4.1 is not on board :(
as it is only a bugfix version i thought it would be easy to move to that version...

splash screen looks nice too...never thought it would be default when it was posted here ;) thats a great thing that kris embraces some of our suggestions and thoughts...

keep up the good work!

[bhna]

splash screen looks nice too...never thought it would be default when it was posted here ;) thats a great thing that kris embraces some of our suggestions and thoughts...

keep up the good work!

thank you. there is a new one http://www.pcbsd.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=537

[popey]

I think the improvements are great, the installer looks much slicker and the minor improvements all help.
I'm amazed at the progress in such a short time, I would add though, there's no rush, lets give Kris and everyone else all the time they need to develop PC-BSD, I'd rather wait another year than see a rush job giving BSD a bad name.
That said, good work Kris, keep it up. :D