PC-BSD Reviews [Archive]

Valio

06-02-2005, 03:25 PM

0.7.8:

Jakilinux (Polish) (http://jakilinux.org/show_news.php?id=54), Installing and Configuring PC-BSDPart 1 (http://michael-and-mary.net/intro/?q=node/23) - Part 2 (http://michael-and-mary.net/intro/?q=node/49), more comments of part 1 at OSNews (http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=11322)

0.7.5:

Tarun Agnani's Pages (http://agnani.blogspot.com/2005/06/pc-bsd-075-review.html), some comments you can find also in here (http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=11021)

0.7:

Tod-os (Spanish) (http://www.tod-os.com/index.php?p=1332) - English version (http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tod-os.com%2Findex.php%3Fp%3D1332&langpair=es%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8)

0.6:

Escritoriya (Spanish) (http://www.escritorioya.com.ar/opinion/pcbsd.html) - English version (http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.escritorioya.com.ar%2 Fopinion%2Fpcbsd.html&langpair=es%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8)
tuxmachines (http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/804)

0.5:

OSNews (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10480)
O'Reilly Developer Weblog (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6948)

Translators: Google translator (http://www.google.com/translate_t) & Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/)

06-17-2005, 12:00 AM

Here is the review posted at:
http://www.tod-os.com/index.php?p=1332

I have tried to keep it as true to original without it being an unintelligble 'Babelfish' translation. Feel free to make any corrections, but remember, I am not the author only the translator. "Don't shoot the Messenger!"

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BSD systems are well known for their stability and robustness and are UNIX in the purest fashion, nevertheless these advantages do not save most users from the difficulties associated with the command line, a requirement to install and configure the traditional BSDs. With the arrival of PC-BSD (based on FreeBSD) something has changed in the conception of these systems.
In this article I will take a quick look at PC-BSD (which is still only at version 0.7), a system in which we can notice that there are things that still need incorporated/improved before the final version 1.0, but that makes good marks for those who dislike complicated configuration and that are not friendly with a command line environment.
Test system:

AMD Opteron 246
Tyan 2875 Motherboard
GeForce 6800GT
512 MB DDR333 registered

-Installation
As previously mentioned PC-BSD attempts to be an operating system focused for the desktop without complications, and for them the first step is to have an installer which is simple as possible. In order to install PC-BSD it is necessary to have an available partition already created (or use the complete hard drive). Simply download the .iso image, burn to CD and boot from the CD in the drive. The first thing you will notice is that the install is completely graphical, and after choosing where you want to install you will start the installation process (about 15 minutes). You will have the option of choosing the bootloader (if you already have a bootloader it is best to not install another), and then choose your root and user passwords. This is all it takes to have PC-BSD installed on your computer, simply after a few mouse clicks.

-Use
Allow me to clearly explain what you will find in PC-BSD 0.7, both what it has and what it is lacking.
PC-BSD 0.7 has a complete KDE interface, it has a directory structure that is a traditional "Program archive", it has a "Software uninstaller", it has an autoconfigurator for networking via DHCP, it has a package installer that is free of dependency problems (I will explain later), and its core is a complete FreeBSD 5.4 system (for those that want to set up a more complex system or want to learn more).
PC-BSD is lacking (based on its intended purpose) the ability to select the desired language in the graphical installer, a graphical hardware configuration tool, and needs improvement in many of the things it does already have.
It is certainly more than a few folks who have been surprised with the baffling setup procedures for Windows systems, but the installer provided by PC-BSD tends to make things a lot simpler. In order to install software easily we direct you to the official website pcbsd.org, then choose "Get PC-BSD Software" and search for the package you wish to install. Once you have downloaded and uncompressed (all done graphically) we execute, and we find an assisting wizard which will ask you what user privileges we desire. Simply with this simple method we have installed our software, and added icons to our desktop and our "My Programs" menu, as well as installing everything in folder /usr/local/MyPrograms automatically by way of the program archiver.
When I mentioned earlier that there were no dependencies to worry about, I did not mean that the system installs these dependencies on its own, but rather that the installations are static, that is, each time you install a program it installs everything that is needed in a folder in /usr/local/MyPrograms, including all the necessary libraries that are needed for that program. This avoids many problems, on the other hand, this system occupies more space on your hard drive.
To uninstall software that we have already installed you only have to run the graphical "PC-BSD program manager", where you will find a list of all that has been installed and provides us with the option of removing by clicking on "remove".
For those advanced users you may also install software with more traditional FreeBSD methods by using sysinstall by using the FreeBSD ftp as the repository (I was able to install nvidia drivers without problems).
In regards to what it doesn't have, well, you cannot choose the install language, hardware and system configuration requires use of the command line, however by modifying /etc/X11/XF86Config more than half of the most common problems will be solved. Another negative point, this one more unavoidable given the philosophy of its design, is that making static installations make the hard drive work harder (the applications are larger) and the time it takes for the programs to load is longer.

-Conclusion
Reaching a positive or negative conclusion about PC-BSD would be a compromise. On one hand the system still needs improvement, the software available via the easy online install method is limited, if you require to install anything out of the ordinary you will have to delve into the command line to do it. On the other hand from my point of view it offers the first approachable BSD system for those that are not familiarized with the workings of UNIX, and still keeping a certain sense of familiarity for those that are accustomed to Windows.
Those that will clearly benefit the most are the folks that would like to learn about FreeBSD, since the default installation will give you a completely functional system that can be relied on, and since you have FreeBSD as its base one can experiment all you want with sysinstall, port installs, configuration, servers and so on...
-Addendum
To add PC-BSD to your Grub bootloader (which is what I use), you can use the same code as for Windows, but of course changing the partition.

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from Tod-OS.com

Best Regards,
malomarski