Basic advice for a Linux-user

[veggen]

Hey everyone.

Intro

I've been a Linux user for a few years now (favored friendly distros like Ubuntu and Mint), and I'm looking into expanding my horizons a little into BSD territory. PC-BSD looks like the most user-friendly BSD variant by far, so I naturally decided to try it. But before I do, I need a little bit of help on deciding the first step.

Questions

1. Which DE is preferred i.e. which one gets the most developer attention? I know that's been KDE as not all PC-BSD tooling was available in others, but I don't know if this is still the case. or if all DEs are now equal.
2. Which ISO to download? I've read the basic information on each, but I still don't understand what happens if I opt for a small one, like CD. Do I still have the option to later easily install from the repos everything that's available in the DVD ISO? Also, this is the first time I see a separate ISO for live disk. Does this mean the full DVD isn't live i.e. the system can not be tested using it?

Thanks!

[kingneutron]

Hey everyone.

Intro

I've been a Linux user for a few years now (favored friendly distros like Ubuntu and Mint), and I'm looking into expanding my horizons a little into BSD territory. PC-BSD looks like the most user-friendly BSD variant by far, so I naturally decided to try it. But before I do, I need a little bit of help on deciding the first step.

Questions

1. Which DE is preferred i.e. which one gets the most developer attention? I know that's been KDE as not all PC-BSD tooling was available in others, but I don't know if this is still the case. or if all DEs are now equal.
2. Which ISO to download? I've read the basic information on each, but I still don't understand what happens if I opt for a small one, like CD. Do I still have the option to later easily install from the repos everything that's available in the DVD ISO? Also, this is the first time I see a separate ISO for live disk. Does this mean the full DVD isn't live i.e. the system can not be tested using it?

Thanks!

--I believe KDE is still getting the most developer attention at the moment. Which is a shame, because the menus should be fairly easy to sync up.

--As for downloading ISOs, personally I would recommend the Live DVD if you have the bandwidth. Regardless of which one you use, the ports and packages should all be available over the internet post-install. I haven't really investigated the Live DVD yet as to what exactly is installed on it, but you can definitely install PCBSD with it. (Not sure about using it as a Knoppix-like environment.)