PC-BSD 1.3 Beta 2 Released

[Charles]

After much hard work, the PC-BSD team is pleased to announce that version 1.3 BETA2 is now available for download. This version adds support for installing in languages other than English, and addresses many numerous bugs found in BETA1. 1.3 BETA2 can be downloaded from the beta download page (http://pcbsd.org/?p=download13). You will also need to download 1.3 CD2 if you wish to install in languages other than English. Please report any and all unreported bugs on the BugsDB (http://bugs.pcbsd.org/) or the forums (http://forums.pcbsd.org/).

The PC-BSD team.

[TerryP]

Gonna download it and try and work on it tonite, nothing valuable on my 1.3b1 install.


EDIT: I noticed that the release notes shows 2 versions of bsdstats.

[dracheflieger]

Sweet Success!

Less than 20 mintues from reboot and starting the install to desktop and the Internet. I see we have a couple new PC-BSD programs under Settings...or maybe just renamed or moved. I see Sevices is no longer on the PC-BSD System (Manager).

So far, only one owee...the host name is stll truncated to only 5 characters in the Network Settings of the Control Center under the ethernet cards on the Domain Name System tab.

I fetching ports now, soon to begin the source.

> uname -a
FreeBSD poscom 6.1-RELEASE-p10 FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE-p10 #2: Mon Nov 20 10:37:50 PST 2006 root@PCBSD.localhost:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/PCBSDv1.3 i386
>


This looks great guys! Good work.

[nowax]

Great news! I'm starting to download. Tomorrow i'll check that version.

[peispud]

I don't see specific changes in the change log , so ;

a) will this release bork my Nvidia drivers ?
b) is cups fixed yet ?

[dracheflieger]

I don't see specific changes in the change log , so ;

a) will this release bork my Nvidia drivers ?
b) is cups fixed yet ?

It's a fresh install...no nVidia drivers to bork ;-) It opened to a 1600X1200 desktop on my 6200 EVGA AGP. A wee bit small for my viewing. Set it back to 1280X1024

I set up my network manually as I don't use DHCP at home. CUPSd started and was no problem (it was a problem last time with setting up the network incorrectly as I'm prone (not pr0n) to do with slip of the now lest than nimble fingers.

[Charles]

Good point, Drache, here's an update I did to the bug report: http://bugs.pcbsd.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=245&pos=0

Also, the hostname issue hasn't been fixed yet: http://bugs.pcbsd.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=139&pos=0

[scottro]

So far, just to nitpick, a little carelessness in the installation splash screens.

At the end, it says, click finish to reboot. However, the button, rather than saying finish, says reboot.

Obviously, this is a far from important issue, but, if easily changed, should be, just to avoid giving an appearance of carelessness.

There was also an error message when I started KDE. Ok, you might ask, what is it? I don't know yet. Why, you might ask, don't I know what it says, am I not he who has fearlessly submitted PR's to BSD, often with patches attached? Well, errm, yeah, but as they say, when you assume, you make an ass of you and me.

I assumed it was a sound device error that I often get on this box with various O/S's and distros that use KDE and clicked it off with an impatient, "tchah." However, as KDE opened, I heard the sound, therefore, I expect it is a different error message. I shall be back with it shortly.


Edited shortly after

Well, whatever the message was, my impatient "tchah" seems to have frightened it off. I tried logging out and logging in again, and then, a reboot, however, whatever it was, it has not returned.

So, the bugs that I noted in the last release (for instance, that hang on boot, that could be fixed with clt+c, and a couple of others that I vaguly remember seem to have been fixed.

Also, having played with a few Linux distros lately, I note that this KDE seems a little faster than say, PCLinuxOS. Of course, so far, I have little running on it, but
this is one of the things that attracted me to the BSDs in the first place, the relatively small initial installation.

As always congratulations to Kris, Charles and the rest of the group for all their hard work. PCBSD gets better with each release (including improving from Beta1 to Beta2).

[TerryP]

Burned at 8x in Nero Express 6 /w matching md5sums same as any other ISO burn I've made except I unchecked the data verification option.

On boot it pauses I've tried letting it sit for several minutes with no progress and no signs of HDD or CDROM access. Roughly this point (from memory):

CD Loader 1.2

Building the boot loader arguments
/BOOT/LOADER found....
*

Some thing like that /w the little dohicky thats usually spinning around not spinning. I don't know if the verification on a burn is important but this would other wise be my first coaster since I tried to burn my very first ISO job as a Knoppix audio cd by mistake.

[Trismegistos]

There is also a PBI to update pcbsd 1.3b1 to 1.3b2, or the only way is to upgrade using the cdrom ?

Excelent to see one of my top 3 favorite icon sets as the default. Very nice look with the crystal windeco but one thing is that the non-active windows get a wierd negative effect on the border.
I am also still having the nve issue. It is listed in the network devices and stays there no matter how many times I deactivate it. I have tried everything to make it not load but it still does at boot time. So, I still get the lag effect while it is polling for DHCP servers.
I still disagree with Noatun - :twisted:
Other than that, It looks great so far. Check it out at 5 minutes up, doing cvsup to 6.2-pre... :D

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/243/pcbsd13b21ai2.th.jpg (http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pcbsd13b21ai2.jpg) Great job...

[kafkaesk]

Could not find Primary Volume Descriptor

I get this error on boot from the cd.. *cry*

[Arabian]

Great stuff,

I noticed Beta 1 was using ULE as scheduler is commented out now and use 4BSD?

Many reports saying ULE has many problems, and FreeBSD Core team works on new SCHD_Core instead of ULE and 4BSD for 7.0-Current.

I also noticed the max swap I can go for is 1000MB while my laptop has 768 MB of ram.

Why I can't increase the swap size?

[nowax]

Great stuff,

I noticed Beta 1 was using ULE as scheduler is commented out now and use 4BSD?

Many reports saying ULE has many problems, and FreeBSD Core team works on new SCHD_Core instead of ULE and 4BSD for 7.0-Current.

I also noticed the max swap I can go for is 1000MB while my laptop has 768 MB of ram.

Why I can't increase the swap size?

If you have so much ram you don't need so big swap partition.

[Arabian]

Great stuff,

I noticed Beta 1 was using ULE as scheduler is commented out now and use 4BSD?

Many reports saying ULE has many problems, and FreeBSD Core team works on new SCHD_Core instead of ULE and 4BSD for 7.0-Current.

I also noticed the max swap I can go for is 1000MB while my laptop has 768 MB of ram.

Why I can't increase the swap size?

If you have so much ram you don't need so big swap partition.

I know, I just to need to know the reason the guys don't allow bigger swap from tech point of view.

[nowax]

Maybe they figured it out that more than 1GB is no need.

[antik]

Why I can't increase the swap size?

I can. You should shrink other partitions to make larger swap in first place.

[nowax]

I've installed BETA2. Right now almos everything works well except
- FAT32 partitions are not automaticly mounted (it was working in 1.2 and 1.3BETA1);
- still have a problem with hanging up system for 1-2 sec. http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?t ... ht=hanging (http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?t=4596&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=hanging)

[Charles]

Thank you guys, I've gone through all your problems and filed bug reports.

[fukodlak]

I've installed BETA2. Right now almos everything works well except
- FAT32 partitions are not automaticly mounted (it was working in 1.2 and 1.3BETA1);
- still have a problem with hanging up system for 1-2 sec. http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?t ... ht=hanging (http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?t=4596&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=hanging)

so did i, and my radeon x550 won't work no matter what i tried, so i'm back to linux. i'm quite pissed about that. hoped to get rid of these nerds forever.
solaris is no option, 'cause it would have a same problems like bsd, at least with the ati radeon.

anyway, 1.3 won't solve that hanging stuff 'cause it's about drivers to nvidia motherboard. someone correct me if i'm wrong.

so, you'll have to wait for another version of freebsd with better drivers or buy a new machine.

i'll be back when i buy a new machine with nvidia graphic card and some other motherboard...

[nowax]

I'll try later to update kernel to 6.2rc1 and maybe this will help a little.

[dracheflieger]

To expand on what scottro has posted in this thread, and keep in mind that these are nits, nothing important at all.

1) The splash screens while installing are very impressive and make it look very professional but I saw them all 3 times and started a 4th time in the less than 20 minutes it took to install.

2) When I input my IP manually under Advanced and clicked the Apply button, nothing indicated that it was applied. Clicking on it a second time did no damage.

However, on a more positive side, I have two built in NICs on this board. The last beta showed both and I had to choose which to set up and I knew the correct one...this beta only showed the active one so that's one less choice for the uninitiated.

As always, an atta boy to all the developers for their hard work and dedication.

I am still having the fstab issue. My cd-rw & dvd-rw in my desktop, and the dvd-rom in my laptop, plus my usb stick, are all unreachable, even after adding them to fstab.
I tried different options and nothing has worked thus far. I am off to venture into La La land for a while. Hopefully this will be worked out soon. :(

[Arabian]

Why I can't increase the swap size?

I can. You should shrink other partitions to make larger swap in first place.

antik,

I'm talking about fresh setup, I went to advanced to check the partition, then I wanted to set the swap to 1510, but the setup didn't allow me to do so.

[Charles]

Arabian, did you make sure you had enough space available to increase disk space for your swap?

[Arabian]

Arabian, did you make sure you had enough space available to increase disk space for your swap?

Charels,

I'll double check this when I install fresh 1.3 Beta 2 in my Compaq laptop which has 70 GB.

What about the ULE part in kernel? are you sure it's stable more than 4BSD?

[Charles]

What about the ULE part in kernel? are you sure it's stable more than 4BSD?

Correct, BETA1 was on ULE, but I've since switched it to 4BSD, exactly
because of various devs telling me to stay away from it for now.
(Stability issues and the like they tell me)

[fukodlak]

I'll try later to update kernel to 6.2rc1 and maybe this will help a little.

if it does, do send me a private message on this forum, and i'll just buy nvidia graphic card and switch to pcbsd again.

and i'm waiting for that moment eagerly.

[Arabian]

What about the ULE part in kernel? are you sure it's stable more than 4BSD?

Correct, BETA1 was on ULE, but I've since switched it to 4BSD, exactly
because of various devs telling me to stay away from it for now.
(Stability issues and the like they tell me)

Great news :D

[antik]

What about the ULE part in kernel? are you sure it's stable more than 4BSD?

Correct, BETA1 was on ULE, but I've since switched it to 4BSD, exactly
because of various devs telling me to stay away from it for now.
(Stability issues and the like they tell me)

Great news :D
I haven't encountered any "stability issues" with ULE, but I see that with 4BSD scheduler my computer is less responsive and slower.

[Arabian]

What about the ULE part in kernel? are you sure it's stable more than 4BSD?

Correct, BETA1 was on ULE, but I've since switched it to 4BSD, exactly
because of various devs telling me to stay away from it for now.
(Stability issues and the like they tell me)

Great news :D
I haven't encountered any "stability issues" with ULE, but I see that with 4BSD scheduler my computer is less responsive and slower.

Do you mind telling me about your cpu and ram, beside the video card and it's memory?

[antik]

I haven't encountered any "stability issues" with ULE, but I see that with 4BSD scheduler my computer is less responsive and slower.

Do you mind telling me about your cpu and ram, beside the video card and it's memory?

AMD Athlon2500+ (1,83GHz)
nForce2-400 chipset
2x256MB DDR-3200 memory (Dual-Channel)
ATI Radeon 9600Pro 128MB AGP VGA
120GB Seagate 8MB 7200RPM PATA

[kafkaesk]

Could not find Primary Volume Descriptor

I get this error on boot from the cd.. *cry*

*push* is that bug fixable to me?

[Arabian]

These mirrors don't have CD 1.

05
09

mirror 12 has dns problem.

[TerryP]

I haven't encountered any "stability issues" with ULE, but I see that with 4BSD scheduler my computer is less responsive and slower.

I have yet to encounter any problems or improvements on both SMP (Dual Core that is) and UP systems when PC-BSD had switched. I've just always heard that the ULE one was crap ^_^

Generally when I do an install I srink the root partitions size down to nothing then set up my other partitions and set a swap size of 4096 MB (2x my RAM) so 1 swap partition will be always equal to or greater then my RAM even if I upgrade. While keeping a nack for numbers disvisable by 2 for some reason.

I'm very axious to install the Beta but it won't boot correctly on my test machine so....

[Apatewna]

Argh! I am so irritated by software problems! I think I am going to start developing again! Argh!

P.S. I am currently downloading the beta2. Please stop using the Internet until I finish the download :D

[peispud]

"It's a fresh install...no nVidia drivers to bork"
No upgrade option ? Last time I upgraded from1.2 with Nvidia drivers , the system booted without the necessary drivers , and I had to change the driver in xorg.config to nv . I'm wondering if I can upgrade now without having to edit more .cofig files . Some sort of fall back option should really be provided at boot .

[nowax]

still have a problem with hanging up system for 1-2 sec.
I've updated my kernel to 6.2rc1. For last 20 min i didn't have any hang of system so maybe they fixed this in this version. Tomorrow i'll test it more.[/quote]

[Charles]

and set a swap size of 4096 MB (2x my RAM)

8)

[dracheflieger]

"It's a fresh install...no nVidia drivers to bork"
No upgrade option ? Last time I upgraded from1.2 with Nvidia drivers , the system booted without the necessary drivers , and I had to change the driver in xorg.config to nv . I'm wondering if I can upgrade now without having to edit more .cofig files . Some sort of fall back option should really be provided at boot .

There should be an upgrade option with the final release. If you try now you're only asking for problems but if you do, I'm sure the developers would like to know what went wrong ;-)

[Jim-fwb]

You are right, Drache. Wish I'd read your post before trying to upgrade. Seemed to go smoothly, actually, it was as smooth as ... silk. But when I rebooted, I got the message: "can't find "kernal.'" Ouch.

I'm no "expert" but that has to be bad, if not fatal, at least for a non-expert. Happily, I'd backed up everything I wanted to be sure not to lose.

[Arabian]

Arabian, did you make sure you had enough space available to increase disk space for your swap?

Ok, with the fresh setup it shows the default swap is 1000 MB, the rest is taken for other partitions, so since PC-BSD detected my available ram, why it didn't make the swap based on 2xram by default, why do I need to adjust it?

[Arabian]

still have a problem with hanging up system for 1-2 sec.
I've updated my kernel to 6.2rc1. For last 20 min i didn't have any hang of system so maybe they fixed this in this version. Tomorrow i'll test it more

Did you just upgrade the kernel or the whole system?

[nowax]

Did you just upgrade the kernel or the whole system?
I've downloaded source of 6.2rc1 and compiled it.

[rodonn]

Tried out upgrading my 1.2... it seems to have worked but all my additions have gone (desktopbsdtools-1.1, kdetoys3)

I'll check out my Cups...

Networking works...

[Charles]

when I rebooted, I got the message: "can't find "kernal."

Thanks, http://bugs.pcbsd.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=275

since PC-BSD detected my available ram, why it didn't make the swap based on 2xram by default, why do I need to adjust it?

Thanks, http://bugs.pcbsd.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=276

Tried out upgrading my 1.2... it seems to have worked but all my additions have gone (desktopbsdtools-1.1, kdetoys3)

Thanks, http://bugs.pcbsd.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=277

[rodonn]

As an addendum, the installed stuff was still installed, but no longer accessible... (I'd only installed DesktopBSDtool 1.1, and upgraded KDE to 3.5.4_4)

[Charles]

Thanks, bug report updated.

[jdarnold]

Arabian, did you make sure you had enough space available to increase disk space for your swap?

Ok, with the fresh setup it shows the default swap is 1000 MB, the rest is taken for other partitions, so since PC-BSD detected my available ram, why it didn't make the swap based on 2xram by default, why do I need to adjust it?

You don't need to adjust it. The old "2 * ram" formula is just that - old. Once you reach a certain point, you need less swap not more, because you just won't be swapping that much. The only time you really need that much swap space is if you run with the setting to dump all of memory in case of a crash, and 99% of the folks don't need that. 1gb of swap is more than enough space for anyone else.

[Apatewna]

Okay I am posting from 1.3Beta2 and here is a list of my initial findings:

a) GREAT WORK!!!

b) Repeat (a) until you feel tired

c) There is NO Greek System Language in the menu
Since I am Greek I am going to whine a little bit more about this.
I will install el-kde-i18n from ports to overcome this.
It does say something about "Install additional languages from CD #2".
What does that mean??

d) My RAID-1 array is listed (ar0-thanx antik) and installation is fine.
I have three partitions
1) winxp
2) winxp swap
3) PCBSD
Look at my /etc/fstab
# Device Mountpoint FStype Options Dump Pass#
/dev/ar0s3b.bde none swap sw 0 0
/dev/ar0s3a / ufs rw 1 1
/dev/ad0s1 /mnt/ad0s1 auto rw,noauto 0 0
/dev/ad0s2 /mnt/ad0s2 auto rw,noauto 0 0
/dev/ad0s3a /mnt/ad0s3a auto rw,noauto 0 0
/dev/ad1s1 /mnt/ad1s1 auto rw,noauto 0 0
/dev/ad1s2 /mnt/ad1s2 auto rw,noauto 0 0
/dev/ad1s3a /mnt/ad1s3a auto rw,noauto 0 0
/dev/cd0 /mnt/cdrom0 auto ro,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/fd0 auto rw,noauto 0 0
I really dont need adxxx entries so I am going to delete them and replace them with a more sane /dev/ar0s1 /mnt/winxp ntfs ro,noauto,-CUTF-8 0 0
...which will mount my NTFS partition and with the correct charset.

e) Firewall settings seem a bit weird to me at first glance.
[quote] Ports 137:138 UDP and 139 TCP - Samba (netbios over TCP for MS win9x/Me
Ports 445 - Samba (netbios over TCP for MS win2k/Xp/2k3) [quote]
This is very interesting and I had to google it to believe it. Nice find antik :)

f) The lancard setup is a bit weird. My 3com905b TX was detected as usual and I was prompted for an IP/subnet. I had quite some fun entering IP/subnet then clicking/pressing-Accept- for a couple of times on all fields randomly.
My IP was stored succesfully but I had no visual confirmation of this.

While installing at work I only clicked as many times as I should to enter the IP/subnet and I ended up getting IP from my lan DHCP.

g) My 17" monitor is famous for hiding its info to scanners. It would be nice if undetected monitors received a 800x600@60Hz default resolution just to get going. I fixed it with Ctrl-Alt-F1/edit xorg.conf (at last xorg.conf) Ctrl-Alt-F9/Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.

h) I thought we agreed on shutting the initial sounds off by default when entering KDE. Did I miss something? :)

[Charles]

Thanks Apatewna, nice to have your feedback too! I reopened this bug on UTF-8 for fstab: http://bugs.pcbsd.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=233&pos=3

What do you mean by "There is NO Greek System Language in the menu", do you mean the "Start" menu isn't translated?

It does say something about "Install additional languages from CD #2". What does that mean??

It means that if you choose "Greek", in the end of installation, it'll ask for CD #2 to install Greek translation.

My IP was stored succesfully but I had no visual confirmation of this.

Is this in the system installer or in the "Network settings" tool?

It would be nice if undetected monitors received a 800x600@60Hz default resolution

Here's how it works. X tried high definitions such as 1600x1200, if it doesn't work, it downgrades it a little bit to 1280x1024, if it doesn't work, it tries 1024x768, if it doesn't work, it tries 800x600, and if it is still too much for your monitor, it tries 640x480.

I thought we agreed on shutting the initial sounds off by default when entering KDE. Did I miss something?

Yes we did, more to come...

[pcbsdusr]

Could not find Primary Volume Descriptor

I get this error on boot from the cd.. *cry*

*push* is that bug fixable to me?

*Big Push* Can someone help this guy?

Thanks!

[jdarnold]

Where was the original report for this? It sounds to me like a problem with burning the CD. Did author try burning it at a slower speed (8x or 10x)? Also, is this a dual CD machine? Sometimes it can get confused if you boot from a CD and it looks in the other drive after booting.

[TerryP]

It was posted by Author on Page 1 of this thread. I don't know if there was any other info.

[rodonn]

TBH, it looks like a local precision problem rather than an ISO problem....

[Apatewna]

What do you mean by "There is NO Greek System Language in the menu", do you mean the "Start" menu isn't translated?

I mean that the initial System Language list, as shown in the first steps of the installer, does not contain the entry "Greek".

It means that if you choose "Greek", in the end of installation, it'll ask for CD #2 to install Greek translation. That's the problem. No entry for "Greek" on the list.

Is this in the system installer or in the "Network settings" tool? This is in the system installer. Some other friend posted this problem as well.

It would be nice if undetected monitors received a 800x600@60Hz default resolution

Here's how it works. X tried high definitions such as 1600x1200, if it doesn't work, it downgrades it a little bit to 1280x1024, if it doesn't work, it tries 1024x768, if it doesn't work, it tries 800x600, and if it is still too much for your monitor, it tries 640x480. As far as I know, X tries directly the highest setting in the config file for the given color depth. So having 24bit color depth it tried for 1600x1280 on my poor 17" CRT :D

[Charles]

Ok, thanks, I filed 2 bug reports:

http://bugs.pcbsd.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=284
http://bugs.pcbsd.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=285

[TerryP]

Ok I downloaded the disk off the ISC mirror in the US and burned the same but with data verification and tossed my estonian coaster out. I chose to use a custom disk label. My ad0s3 consists of approx 78GB. I sub divided it into a 55GB root partition, 4GB of encrypted SWAT and 19GB for /Programs. I entered 20480 in the installer (which says it uses MB) but df -m shows ad0s3e as 19833 Mega Bytes. Also it seems I have 3971MB of SWAP although I entered 4096.

I whent with the workstations advanced install. I set my network settings with my systems hostname, gateway, 3 name servers and use DHCP. It did not offer me my NIC in the box, I have a Intel PRO 100 (man 4 fxp) Ethernet NIC. I enabled BSDStats, ntpd, and pf during install. SSH and Samba for WinNT checked off of course ^_^

WAs great that I could choose if I wanted to autologin or not. I may have missed it but I did not see that option in Beta1. Set my shell to bash and added my primary user changing my password on reboot using the passwd util. I checked out /etc/resolv.conf and it only listed my first two name servers not all three. Ether way I find konqueror much faster surfing then I did on Beta1 leaving every thing to DHCP to setup.

Trying to download a PBI still as always asks to save to disk, open with kwrite, or cancle. It'd be nice if it would just prompt for where to save it to by default. I assume that would deal with adjusting Konqi to act on the mime type?

My system booted quickly into 1600x1200 using the "nv" driver hoozah. I think the window decore sticks out a bit but I think the system looks pretty nice, icon set is lovely and no printf typo on boot. It detected my Pentium D Desktop and gave me the SMP Kernel and Numlock on good. For some odd reason I have to use "mount_msdosfs /dev/device /mnt/mountpoint" to mount my FAT32 partitions and USB stick - normally mount /mnt/mountpoint has always worked out of the box for FAT32. This means mounting FAT32 file systems on all media seems to be BROKEN using Konqueror un less it's just me.

Font settings are great for once I don't need to change them and fixed widths are in Monospace size 12 with Anti-Alasing (nice). I just have to blow fonts up on untill I hit http://www.pcbsd.org :-P Had to reboot for the emu10kx driver to work so I could blast my oggs, installed All Codecs any way.

For some reason in /etc/rc.conf it has

#Enable samba server
samba_enable="YES"

by defualt. When trying to configure a printer in Control Center I get the reoccuring error.

Unable to retrieve the printer list. Error message received from manager:
Connection to CUPS server failed. Check that the CUPS server is correctly installed and running. Error: the IPP request failed for an unknown reason.


I see that the services tab in the PC-BSD System util has been moved into it's own applet. It would be nice if one had the option to ADD and configure a service not just create it and why the **** is Samba enabled in rc.conf but not in PC-BSD Services ?!??

Things look good but things need work like not breaking the auto-mount on insert USB stick or CD thing :-)


FOOD TIME

[rodonn]

Picky point... can we give the ISO for CD2 a more meaningful label than 'New'?

[rodonn]

BTW the PC-BSD Red Devil Head K-menu putton has reverted to the little blue K for no reason I can see... I just rebooted and it came up like that...

Thoughts?

[TerryP]

I've had that happen when ever I change my Icon set, iirc I once fixed it by replacing the file.

[Charles]

BTW the PC-BSD Red Devil Head K-menu putton has reverted to the little blue K for no reason I can see... I just rebooted and it came up like that...

Thoughts?

Did you change your icon set?

[rodonn]

Nope... BTW the PC-BSD theme isn't the one that comes out of the box... I can't find the default theme anywhere...

I liked the other scheme and had no intention to change, having fiddled, I quite like the Look an feel of KDE Klassic...

Nope... BTW the PC-BSD theme isn't the one that comes out of the box... I can't find the default theme anywhere...

I liked the other scheme and had no intention to change, having fiddled, I quite like the Look an feel of KDE Klassic...

I am sure that you can download that theme at kde-look. I kind of like the new look but have also found that there are some pretty sweet icon buildset's floating around, like OS-K (http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=47278), which can be built with the kmenu icon of your choice and since you will be doing it in your home directory, you can choose any icon and add it to the 128x128 folder, within the buildset, like I did and choose that one.

It is a very cool idea and the download is very small compared to the full one, because it builds the set for you and packages it into a bzip2 tar file and as a plus, it removes any temp folders and such that it made. :D

EDIT: This is a snap shot of my new install of 1.3 beta2 with OS-K Dark.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6435/pcbsd13fknsweethw6.th.jpg (http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pcbsd13fknsweethw6.jpg)

If you want the classic icon set, you can install kdeartwork3 and it will install all of that stuff for you. Ports baby!! :D

[rodonn]

Classic was there and is now on my system.

Classic was there and is now on my system.

Oh, you meant that the new default disappeared? :?

[rodonn]

No, I just didn't have to install it, just choose it from the GUI.

[gnutux]

I was just reading PCBSD 1.3 BETA 2 release notes and changelog, and I was quite shocked to see that the X.org server is not 7.1 (which is the latest version) and KDE is not 3.5.5.

gnutux

[Charles]

Nothing to be shocked, they're currently being ported to FreeBSD:

xorg-server-6.9.0_5
kde-3.5.4

[TerryP]

If you replace the current icon sets 48x48/apps/kmenu.png file with the /usr/local/share/icons/nuvola/48x48/apps/kmenu.png file it should change it back & let you keep the new icon set.

I usually do that but I like some of the K-Menu icons more.

[rodonn]

@terry... which conf is that in?

[TerryP]

No config just a file overwrite.

All the icon sets are in a directory in /usr/local/share/icons and under each icon-directory they have a bunch of sizes and under those are several catagories (apps, mimetypes, filesystems e.t.c) and in those are the icon files.

If I want to change the slick icon set to use the BSD kmenu icon I just


mv /usr/local/share/icons/slick/48x48/apps/kmenu.png /root/slick_iconset_48x48-apps-kmenu.png
cp /usr/local/share/icons/nuvola/48x48/apps/kmenu.png /usr/local/share/icons/slick/48x48/apps/


I need to look up a few tutorials and make a custom icon set out of the ones I have & the Gimp.

[EvilBill]

I've had 1.3 (2) installed for about 5 hrs. now, very nice. The new icons & stuff are O.K. I don't worry about minor things like that when we are still in beta.

Good job guys, FreeBSD is way better than Linux. 8)

[rodonn]

Things Beta 2 didn't do for me

1) reliably work with my USB (the ability to access the drive broke and never came back)

2) Reboot. The system halted but didn't restart the Laptop.

Both were reliable under Icy Steel...


Otherwise...

It's performance is as good, if not slightly better than 1.2. The new Icon scheme is slicker and more professional. All the pbis I installed worked! Overall a pretty good experience for a late Beta.

I'm now really excited to see the final product, as I wind back to Icy Steel...

Nothing to be shocked, they're currently being ported to FreeBSD:

xorg-server-6.9.0_5
kde-3.5.4

Are they working on 7 or 7.1?

Things Beta 2 didn't do for me

1) reliably work with my USB (the ability to access the drive broke and never came back)

2) Reboot. The system halted but didn't restart the Laptop.
[quote="That other guy, zeusx64 replied and":8ca03]I don't know about the USB thing but I have a slightly older Dell Inspiron 5000 and sometimes, especially with WinDOZE2000Pro, it does not reboot properly, so that may just be mis communication with the BIOS or something strange like that. But of course, I could just be spouting nonsense as usual. :twisted:

Both were reliable under Icy Steel...


Otherwise...

It's performance is as good, if not slightly better than 1.2. The new Icon scheme is slicker and more professional. All the pbis I installed worked! Overall a pretty good experience for a late Beta.

I'm now really excited to see the final product, as I wind back to Icy Steel...[/quote:8ca03]

[rodonn]

As of last Thursday it appeared to be 7

[dracheflieger]

Nothing to be shocked, they're currently being ported to FreeBSD:

xorg-server-6.9.0_5
kde-3.5.4

Are they working on 7 or 7.1?

FreeBSD groups are currently porting 7.1 and changing X11BASE to LOCALBASE but there's still a long list of ports to change over. It certainly wont happen by the end of the year.

[rodonn]

I stand corrected :D

[dracheflieger]

I stand corrected :D

That was my ass speaking...it's early here along with my mind...it could be 7 :lol:

[rodonn]

I was working from a dicey memory of a scan read of Xorg/X11 stuff 5 days ago... so my comment was pretty rectal too :lol:

[Charles]

I am also still having the nve issue. It is listed in the network devices and stays there no matter how many times I deactivate it. I have tried everything to make it not load but it still does at boot time. So, I still get the lag effect while it is polling for DHCP servers.

Where are you deactivating "nve"? You will need to edit /etc/rc.conf manually to remove "nve" to disable any DHCP lookups.

I am also still having the nve issue. It is listed in the network devices and stays there no matter how many times I deactivate it. I have tried everything to make it not load but it still does at boot time. So, I still get the lag effect while it is polling for DHCP servers.

Where are you deactivating "nve"? You will need to edit /etc/rc.conf manually to remove "nve" to disable any DHCP lookups.

Yes I was deactivating, or at the least, attempting to but it would not respond to deactivation. It just kept cycling.
I will certainly try editing my rc.conf file to remove it. Thanks for the info. :D

[Arabian]

I am also still having the nve issue. It is listed in the network devices and stays there no matter how many times I deactivate it. I have tried everything to make it not load but it still does at boot time. So, I still get the lag effect while it is polling for DHCP servers.

Where are you deactivating "nve"? You will need to edit /etc/rc.conf manually to remove "nve" to disable any DHCP lookups.

It would be good if we deactivate it via Network Control, and that edit the rc.conf ;)

Don't forget many users never seen a shell in their life :P

[rodonn]

You see it a lot in PC-BSD... but there are people pushing to move from it for common desktop functions...

Configuring networks (WEP and WPA) would be handy.

Same with printer config (although localhost:631 works ok. mostly)

There seems to be a little TOO much printer configuring... CUPS, KDE, Openoffice... all need tweaking to get a meaningful print...

[Charles]

Yes I was deactivating, or at the least, attempting to but it would not respond to deactivation. It just kept cycling.

Did you try in the "Network Settings" tool? Is it there that you were having problems?

[TerryP]

There is no desktop, only shell ! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL#Trivia)

You don't need to see a shell to edit files like rc.conf or loader.conf all you need to do is run a text editor as root. Technically the KDE Run Dialog and File Manager (Konqueror) in Super User mode entries on the K-Menu are more then good enough to do it the usual (GUI) way.


Hmm I wonder how many expressions I can cook up off that link in pure sense of humor :-)

[rodonn]

@Terry

IT depends how irritatingly disingenuous you want to be. You know DAMN well what the tool reqs are, but it's matter of macho bull we have to use a console session to do half of what we do and a quarter of the editing of conf files.

[TerryP]

I don't exactly understand what you mean Rodonn.

Most of what I have done in a shell has been by choice not forced upon me. Pardoning failed boot/rescue/recovery & kernel state kinda stuff. So where I sit just about any thing can be done CLI/TUI or GUI/Window based that I've ever tried.

I've grown up with Windows much more then DOS or BSD and to tell the truth I'd rather have a config file then a registry to smash or a fat 'Can't Do that Jack' brick wall standing in my way most times.


It might not be good that CLI based thinking plays a big part in the minds of this forums patrons though. Considering PC-BSD is focused on ease of use, that requires a decent GUI even if shells can be easier for a few things.

[rodonn]

but would you say that you even distantly resemble an 'average' user?

[TerryP]

I wouldn't say I even distantly resemble an average person some times let along being an average user :-P

When it coems to working on the computer, you could say I'm a Vi like thinker who favors freedom to choice his interface at will. I think PC-BSD should have no need of a command prompt but when it comes to editing config files or reghacking the system. I think config files are better for 'average' users then a registry because it's more natual.

Because people tend to express what they think ether through words or actions. Not by hacking around in a huge ass database that you need a road map just to find a key in it plus a M.S. in WinScience to know what any of it means.

Personally I hope desktops will move to becoming an ultra thin client of sorts on a massive nexus of cheap computing where all the system administration is the professional teams job who get big pay checks from the city and mateince people to install the hardware. So in practice tom dick and harry don't need to know what config files or registories, or GUIs, or CLIs, or operating systems are nore care by the year 2020 un less they want too.

Personally I hope desktops will move to becoming an ultra thin client of sorts on a massive nexus of cheap computing where all the system administration is the professional teams job who get big pay checks from the city and mateince people to install the hardware. So in practice tom dick and harry don't need to know what config files or registories, or GUIs, or CLIs, or operating systems are nore care by the year 2020 un less they want too.

I have to completely disagree with you there. I have been involved in this discussion before and it is absolutely a no win situation. Thin clients are cool for an organization trying to save some budget money but for the personal user or even small home office or small business, that is a sick idea.

It is almost as bad as the Patriot act. I am not trying to be rude but things of this nature and on that large of a scale, leave room for people to snoop through your activities and monitor your life and that is just bad news.
So I must disagree. Sorry again if that sounded rude. :?

Edit: Also, I would like to point out that being in touch with your computer and knowing what to do and how is not only a plus of open source but one of the biggest points. :D

[Arabian]

In OpenSuse, and other linux distros, you can use some tools like yast to do such things via gui, so newbie linux can deal with it.

I would love to see these tools in *BSD desktops too.

When I can't deactivate network device via the network configure gui, why the option is there in the first place?:)

I even can't disable it in the current session, I'm not talking about the next reboot will activate it.

Isn't BSD Desktops flavors about making it "easier" to manage?

[Charles]

Yes, Arabian, PC-BSD's goal is to be an easy system for the end-user. We've built GUIs over the last released to make things easier, but the "Network Settings" problem is a third-party bug. We will have our own network GUI is a forthcoming release ;)

[rodonn]

@Terry

I agree on Config files being better than registry, since you can only screw one program at a time... :evil:

As to the rest... concur.

For the record, I don't match the profile of an 'average' user, but I simulate one quite well, simply because there is a dearth of 'average users' who can speak enough sordid techy stuff to communicate if need be.

and if Windows is the Fisher Price of Desktops, Vi is like being dropped naked, armed only with a broken fruit knife, on the planet in the first Alien film

:evil:

[jdarnold]

I think having specialized GUI editors for text-based config files are the best compromise. And I agree - the Registry is the work of the devil. It adds nothing besides complication.

The GUI editors should work very hard at being flexible enough to allow someone to directly edit a config file by integrating the changes and not losing them later.

I loved the VI analogy, Rodonn! While I can use it, a very modal (and invisible) editor like VI is a tough row to hoe.

[Apatewna]

GUI tools that "supervise" config files, SUCK for serious use.

Examples:
a) I have extensively tested the recent version of Webmin using the Squid Proxy module. Intended use, creation of an http proxy server for 100 workstations and also bandwidth management. Also dishing a web interface would be nice for the customer as eye candy.
Result:
I have never seen squid proxy behave so badly. Webmin literally crapped the config file and even screwed the bandwidth management which all in all is a single line with 6 separate numerical figures. Having built a proxy server from scratch before I recognized the problems and totally skipped webmin.

b) qmail and fetchmail. Client has several workstations that download email through the company's own mail domain. Since the mails arrive by the hundreds each week, some of them having large files attached, the mailboxes choke very often.
Having the previous example in mind I attempted the initial installation only to realise that through webmin I didn't have the level of control I needed. Also I found out that Webmin used it's own perl script to cron-fetch the mails, an unwanted overhead.

An administrator's nightmare is this feeling exactly, not knowing what he is given to administer, so for the second time I skipped webmin

Now I have a working setup with fetchmail in test mode, choking in 700 small email messages in 10mins with CPU at 20% in vmware.

The huge difference is that now I know every freaking bit of this server and there is no way that something breaks and I won't know how to fix it. This is professional stuff that my client deserves.

The only webGUI I have heard working extremely well is SWAT GUI for Samba. It is the next to test in my humble home laboratory.

I can also rant all I want about IT because that's just the way it is. We, knowledegable people can't possibly know every little bit of the complex computer stuff and our clients are not served something that can make them smile.
Most clients tend to see IT staff as "another tech to pay and fix stuff". I'll probably evolve to a Unix guru as years pass by, but I have a goal of putting an end to half-baked/crappy solutions as far as I can, using FreeBSD as my primary ally. Sooner or later my clients will see the light and when they do, I'll be the one showing it to them.

[Fooljam]

Webmin is really interresting but there are too many bugs.
The guy wants to make a host fully manageable from a web interface, the idea is really nice but I have seen some bad bugs as well.
Last one I had was Sendmail settings, when I saved the configuration webmin added an unknown character to the script when I restarted it started ok but the deamon was not working, so really confusing to troubleshoot that.

Since I am not using it anymore

[Charles]

Yeah, cPanel is better because there's a whole team behind to fix these bugs. A control panel is probably a huge amount of work with all applications it supports (sendmail, exim, postgresql, mysql, etc...)

[TerryP]

@ Rodonn

I have never laughed so hard at a Vi joke about how hard it is ^_^

With what I've been doing in Vim latly, one can make a script use kdialog/kedit when KDE is running, use some thing else if X is running, or use a console based solution if ones running from a tty.

I've been very tempted to try webmin on my FreeBSD system but hesitent because I prefer the fexibility of a secure shell. I think thought the concept is great as long as the program does great. Most things in KDE to configure can be done via CLI if you want to "hack around" for it but being intended for configuration via GUI they seem to get more mangled by CLI then GUI :-)

One thing I'd love to see is the services thing from the PC-BSD betas become full spectrum. So it's modular enough that some one can add, manage, and control a service without needing support built in. Now that would be an interesting project...

[Arabian]

Hello,

After playing more with the ports, and the PC-BSD.

I would ask you to update libs, and gstramer, since there are security issues with some libs, and just got fixed.

So please check http://www.freshports.org/vuxml.php?all
and update the ports, as needed

gstreamer 0.8 is deprecated now, so in the FreeBSD ports they ask to upgrade to 0.10

Also update the KDE ports to the latest ones in the FreeBSD ports now.

[Arabian]

Yes, Arabian, PC-BSD's goal is to be an easy system for the end-user. We've built GUIs over the last released to make things easier, but the "Network Settings" problem is a third-party bug. We will have our own network GUI is a forthcoming release ;)

What network control does PC-BSD uses?

[Charles]

We're using DesktopBSD's Network Manager.

[rodonn]

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