Good News...and bad ..DesktopBSD..

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by Longboard, Sep 7, 2009.

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  1. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    The Good:
    :)
    DesktopBSD v1.7 released:
    http://desktopbsd.net/index.php?id=43&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=41&cHash=b6ad95fd57

    The bad, from the same page:
    :(
    Despite claims as to the greatness of BSD systems, I for one ( despite the hundreds of doc pages :blink: ) have always struggled to make headway with BSD on the desktop to fit my simple needs.
    I have tried with PCBSD releases, Open BSD and DesktopBSD releases with close to but not fully (for me) functional systems.

    SO new DesktopBSD to try and !! PCBSD 8 alpha surfacing;
    http://lists.pcbsd.org/pipermail/testing/2009-September/002814.html
    Gird the kb and try again ;)

    If any one has pointers as to a good BSD desktop set-up: I'm interested. :)
     
  2. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    I have had problems with freebsd as well. I cant even get the netinstall to work using virtualbox or a physical machine. all the network information is correct. i posted at the new freebsd forums and they said looks like flaky hardware. btw the hardware i used was a pentium 3 and standard realtek network card. the network card works fine with windows and linux so its not flaky hardware. I thought the people at freebsd would be more helpful.

    At one point I got freebsd to install from multiple cd's or a dvd and installed kde and gnome using the ports collection during sysinstall. it was kde 3.5 and it kept crashing. I only found out how to update freebsd last week by finding a blog with someone writing an easy to understand guide to updating freebsd.

    linux may not be a walk in the park but its quite alot easier than freebsd.

    I love the idea of freebsd but due to my lack of understanding of it i cant get it to work. I was reading someone's blog and they explained why they use freebsd.

    Its a shame Finstall devolopment is stalled.
    anything would be an improvement on sysinstall imo.

    there isnt many desktop bsd distros. they main ones are desktopbsd and pc-bsd. I dont like the pc-bsd .psi files. i dont see a need for it.
    firefox is in the ports collection so why do I need a .pbi file? same for most programs. the other thing is that i cannot find a freebsd desktop distro that has Gnome. a few months ago I was watching a video about pc-bsd and found out the updating system for versions is crap. it downloads the standard files from freebsd and any programs you install get overwritten and any changes by the user are gone...

    its a real shame such a great operating system is such a pain to even install.

    I want a freebsd equivalent of ubuntu or heck even debian (i mean with freebsd ports collection with a package manager gui like synaptec and apt-get for commandline sort of thing) the advantage of freebsd is a stable system like debian stable but with the lastest programs.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2009
  3. Longboard

    Longboard Registered Member

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    @Iodore re Gnome and BSD: if you are still interested ?? you might not have seen these:
    from Distrowatch comments:
    http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090907&mode=67

    Aint that the truth :cautious:
     
  4. Alphalutra1

    Alphalutra1 Registered Member

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    The FreeBSD handbook is amazingly well written and gives you not only a step by step formula, but often times an explanation. In addition, man pages for FreeBSD are well written, kept up to date, and offer many examples. The official documentation from my experience is all you need. Online tutorials where you blindly enter in commands firstly could lead to you wreaking havoc on your computer, but also are often out-of-date and plain old wrong.
    Which distribution of linux? Quite honestly, as long as you take the effort to read all the documentation, it is a stable and predictable guided walk, not a meandering through the forest looking for a good tutorial or trying to reconcile different file system layouts, distribution tools, etc.
    Again, try the documentation. Sit down, read it, and try to work with it. you'll see that you can get it to work. If not, post of the freebsd mailing lists, they are an incredibly helpful bunch as long as you show that you've put effort into researching your problem and still can't figure it out.
    It gets the job done, especially on older computers. It still has all the options and all the menus, just no mouse. Once you get over that mental hurdle, its not too shabby. If it ain't broke, don't fix it
    There really aren't any. They are all just FreeBSD systems that come preconfigured. I can get to them through my plain old FreeBSD box if I wanted. THough I agree with the pbi files, they are just trying to cater to new users I feel, and it changes the base FreeBSD system too much for my liking.

    Well, FreeBSD is FreeBSD. Install the base program, and build on it. In the ports are the tools from DesktopBSD that allow a GUI interface to the ports system which I feel you would like. Once you get that installed, install Gnome and whatever else graphically to your hearts content.

    Remember, it's not linux and it is different in many respects. The documentation is great, and that's one of its biggest points for me over linux. Try it, and try reading the manuals and handbook, you'll find it awesome how much you can get done and begin to understand.

    Cheers,

    Alphalutra1
     
  5. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    Hey Alphalutra1,
    thanks for the information.
    I will do some more reading of the freebsd handbook.

    what is the port called that is from desktopbsd and has a gui for ports?

    it does seem to need quite alot of configuration but does look like a very nice operating system.

    i will try it in a virtualmachine and my old machine first time round. once i get more familier with it i may try to do a dualboot on my main machine.
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2009
  6. Alphalutra1

    Alphalutra1 Registered Member

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    Desktopbsd-tools

    The FreshPorts website is where I got this information. It is very helpful in providing a list of all the ports, changelogs for them, dependencies, etc.

    Cheers,

    Alphalutra1
     
  7. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    an update. ive installed freebsd on my second hard on my main computer. ive installed the bootloader to the mbr of the second harddrive. to switch operating systems i just change hard drive order in the bios.
    ive got it fully up to date and updated ports.
    ive got kde and gnome to work using kdm.

    before i do anymore suffering is there any major benefit for running freebsd as a desktop system compared to linux?
    freebsd takes alot more setup.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2009
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