There is an article over at OSWeekly about PC-BSD. Read the article "PC-BSD: The Most Beginner Friendly OS" here. From the article: PC-BSD homepage Enjoy, Kenji
Calling linux hardware compatability "complete" is a bit of a joke. It is far from complete, but it's extensive. Linux is mostly more compatable, but not always. FreeBSD and linux share some drivers and not others. Because freeBSD prefers stability over features and/or hardware compatablility it can lag behind linux on newer hardware. FreeBSD supports some hardware that linux does not, my RAID controller, for one. I also run a firewire external HDD that runs perfectly on freeBSD, at full speed. If you run a 'standard' PC made in the last 8 years, freeBSD will most likely run on it. here is the hardware list for freeBSD 6.1 I think it's fairly comprehensive.
I know what you were saying, I just had to laugh a little. On hardware issues... Unfortunately PC-BSD does not have a liveCD to test your hardware on but frenzy, which is also based on freeBSD 6.1, does. Frenzy is most definately not a n00b friendly system, because it is for network security and diagnostics. Just boot it up and read you dmesg.
I've been thinking about getting my toes wet with BSD, but I think i'll run it in VMware first. I am not ready to give up Linux just yet
Well, he's right. Linux runs on the following: Alpha (64 bits) ARM (32 bits) Cris (32 bits) h8300 i386 (32 bits) IA64 (64 bits) (Itanium) M68K (32 bits) M68K (32 bits) without Memory Management Unit MIPS (32 bits) MIPS-64 (64 bits) PA-RISC (32 bits) (puffin group) PowerPC (32 bits) PowerPC-64 (64 bits) IBM S/390 (32 bits) (Linux for s390 web) IBM S/390X (64 bits) SH (embedded systems) (32 bits) SH64 (64 bits) SPARC (32 bits versions) SPARC64 (64 bits versions) UM (User Mode Linux) UserModeLinux kernel V850 x86-64 (64 bits, ia32 compatible) DEC VAX FreeBSD supports: Intel x86 DEC Alpha AMD64 Intel EM64T IA-64 Sparc64 As for x86 support specifically, Linux has much better support than FreeBSD. I don't see how what he said was wrong in any way. If you meant "Linux does not have as much exotic driver support on the x86 platform as Windows XP", than you are right. However, note that Windows only runs on x86, x86-64, and in some older cases on Alpha (but hardware support there was horrible). But this is apples to oranges, I thought we were speaking about Unices?
To clarify, FreeBSD also supports: MIPS XBOX PPC pc98 ARM (PPC is 32 bit only) I make no claim that freeBSD has better hardware support than Linux. Never said that. Maybe I'm ignorant here, but what user friendly linux distro supports ALL those platforms?? I would guess none. So, if the user custom compiled his or her own kernel..yes they could have support for all those platforms. Besides, I wasn't even talking about platforms, but peripheral hardware. Let me say that there is not an OS on the planet or any other planet that has COMPLETE hardware support. It is an impossibility. Debian and netBSD are closer than most. Back to the point of this thread.... PC-BSD (and desktopBSD) offers a user friendly and easy to install freeBSD desktop system. If you want to check it out then do it. FreeBSD is stable, secure and fast (not saying that linux isn't any of these things). It runs on my hardware but you mileage will vary.
[ot]You needn't be defensive, as I am certainly no enemy of BSD. In fact, I work with FreeBSD every single day at work and I can vouch for its effectiveness and stability as a platform. I do happen to prefer Linux for most things, but BSD is awesome, and I don't want a flame war about it. Any *nix is a better and more trustworthy OS than Windows, and this is a fact I will attest to wholeheartedly. On the topic of supported platforms and x86 hardware however, Addis was still correct, no matter how you slice it. FreeBSD is far behind Linux in terms of hardware support, no question about it. NetBSD supports a whole bunch of architectures, though its x86 support is no farther than FreeBSD and it lacks some of Free's nicer features. On the other hand, FreeBSD has had the excellent IPFW and PF (ported from OpenBSD) for a while now, BSD Jails of course, and Ports is simply awesome. Having said all that, it'd take a lot to make me want to switch any of my systems from Linux to BSD, even my Linux firewall. The Linux kernel since 2.6.x has some truly advanced and amazing features (most optional, of course), including low-latency kernel locking, voluntary kernel preemption, and the CFQ I/O scheduler. These things coupled with NTPL make Linux feel like there's no load at all, even if the CPU's spiked at 100% on a single-CPU rig. This is excellent for a multimedia desktop, and even better for a server. Not to mention that the BSD filesytem, UFS, sucks compared to any modern journalled filesystem found on your household Linux distro. Sorry, but it does; BSD soft-writes work better on paper than in real life. Plus SMP-scaling in BSD is quite immature and has a way to go yet (my server is a dual-CPU rig, I'd definately notice a performance hit). There's even a stickied thread which covers this: Linux General FAQ ...see the section at the bottom, "Which is Better, Linux or BSD?" P.S. - Xbox isn't really an architecture, it's an i686 Celeron. MIPS PPC and ARM support are all brand-new.[/ot]
Linux vs. BSD can go on for days and is pointless. I had no intention of mentioning linux at all in this tread, I just wanted to post that review of PC-BSD. It's all about choice but a lot of newbies and would-be linux converts don't know anything about BSD. It is another option. If you try linux and don't like it, try something else. Desktop friendly BSD's are just another option. I am not anti-linux in any way. That is how I started with *nix, but I have since moved on. I am not looking for converts. Freedom to choose is a good thing. I would like to bring more BSD related stuff to this forum but now I will think twice. I don't feel like it's a personal attack, it's just that it seems BSD is not a popular topic here. Thanks for all your input. Kenji
The PBI installation system seems pretty interesting. There seems to be a reasonable amount of software in PBI format (like those essential audio codecs), but what about software that isn't available? Would everything else have to be compiled from source? From the looks of the website, PC-BSD seems pretty easy to get to grips with. It's got some nice eye-candy too BTW i think you should bring more BSD stuff to this website, or anything else you think is relevant. Personally I like to try out new things and the best ways of find out new things is through forums like this. We do seem to have quite a few hot debates around here, but you shouldn't make anything of them. I've lost count over the amount of times Anti-Trend and I have battled over whether SuSE or Ubuntu are any good
I've actually started using Kubuntu, the graphics driver doesn't work but it'll have to do. Its not bad once its all fully set up.
No, freeBSD has the ports system which is a bit different than most linux package systems. Ports have binary packages available, but lag behind the source ports (as would be expected). A source port is very simple to install and does not require configuring first. Also packages and ports are really in the same system so updating and so on is unified across the system; no need to update ports and packages separately. Example: Code: pkg_add -r firefox installs firefox as a binary package Code: cd /usr/ports/www/firefox && make install installs firefox from source. No other configuration required, it just takes a few minutes. Since PC-BSD is based on freeBSD (and the ports system) this would work with it except that it would not automatically add to your KDE menu etc... Actually PBI is really only optional, but you would need to install stuff more 'manually'. Updating and deinstalling is very simple as well. To make it even easier you can install the desktopBSD package manager on PC-BSD and have a GUI package manager for all port functions. Sweet Hope that explains it well enough.
I couldn't agree more, and as I said I really like BSD and feel at home on the platform (although I confess, I am not used to using a GUI on BSD, though that goes for my Linux servers as well). I miss many of the Linux features BSD doesn't have when I'm on it, but the same goes for portage when I'm using Linux. Apt-get, yum and urpmi are all fantastic tools, but ports is one elegant piece of software. Absolutely. And to be fair, how Linux and BSD compare to one-another varies drastically from distro to distro. It is also a matter of what you are looking for in a UNIX-like OS, and what you plan to do with it. It seems you might have the wrong idea, so let me clarify something. In my earlier posts I agreed with the statement Addis made about hardware support in BSD, but I didn't intend that as a jab at you or at BSD. Actually, I just wanted to be clear on the point he was making so that nobody will be mislead. I wouldn't say that BSD is not welcome or that it has no place here. On the contrary, I'd like to see more diversity in terms of OSes people are fluent in around here, as there's a strong MS culture here with a smaller Linux subculture and almost no other OSes ever get mentioned, including OS X, BSD, and Solaris/OpenSolaris. After all, Solaris "containers" are fantastic for web hosts, but are sadly under-utilized in our day & age. And OpenBSD's PF is probably the best firewall layer I've ever seen. But I digress, I think BSD 'till now has not made a strong showing in our forums because it is even more of a "fringe" OS than Linux or OS X, not because of any anti-BSD bias or anything of the sort. If somebody can get more usage out of some form of BSD on their desktop (or server, or toaster, or...) than another OS, they should definately go for it. It's free, it's secure by design, it performs well, and it's very stable. Any free *nix is an excellent, excellent way to use your PC's resources, IMHO. You too Yes indeed, and the more sporty the debates, the more information comes out on each side, and everybody participating (actively or passively) will get something out of the whole ordeal. The more spirited the debate, the more information seems to come out! I think we just have to walk the "debate" side of the line and avoid straying into an outright argument. I don't want to get anybody's back up in anything more than a friendly way, we have enough strife in each of our lives without such things, I'm sure.
Well I am quite impressed with PC-BSD. I've always had the impression that BSD was quite difficult to learn, but in fact I felt quite at home. The graphical installer is very good and the installation process is well documented down the left hand side. That came in very useful when I got to the partitioning section because BSD uses different terminology to Linux. I can't really comment on the speed or hardware detection because I am running PC-BSD in VMware. However it did detect all of the virtual devices that VMware supplies. Once I installed VMware's tools in BSD I was up and running in 1280x1024 in no time . BTW, what are the recommended system requirements for PC-BSD? I've got the RAM set at 256MB but is that enough? I don't want to steal too much RAM from the host OS (Kubuntu) but I could probably increase to 384MB if needed. I've only scratched the surface so far, but I am sure as I dive deeper I'll be asking lots of questions such as "what on earth is ports" and "can I browse my Kubuntu shared folder with NFS"? It was through one of our old Windows Vs Linux debates that got me using Linux in the first place! And i've never looked back since
This is a concept that stumps some people. Every OS has things that it does well, and other things not so well. No OS is perfect for everybody and some plain suck. I love that there are so many choices, but my harddrive probably doesn't agree after being subjected to countless installations and abuse. Hardware is cheap, freedom isn't. I love a good debate. I agree that more participation in these sort of things bring out the best information.
256MB should be enough. My system runs KDE and only uses about 150-180MB. Only if I am compiling or doing other memory intensive activities does it require much more. Last night I was running 2 KDE sessions and compiling ports in 2 terminals and was using less than 512MB.
