Review: My good ol’ friend FreeBSD (actually PC-BSD 7.1)
For those of you who are regular visitors, you may already know that before I started playing with GNU/Linux (2001/2) I was using FreeBSD. And while I continue to use GNU/Linux, I still hold an emotional tie to BSD-based operating systems. It was not until recently that I had decided to give the latest version of PC-BSD a try. This is version 7.1: Galileo Edition. A side note: PC-BSD is a desktop oriented version of FreeBSD intended to be extremely user friendly, primarily because of their implementation of their PBI package management system along with other features.
Installation
So I downloaded and began the installation of PC-BSD. The installation process was fairly quick and very simple. I am not complaining when I say this but I was a bit surprised to find the generic FreeBSD (actually PC-BSD) text only boot screen asking for the user to initiate the Default installer or any of the other options (which includes starting the installer with the experimental ZFS support). When I select the Default or when the boot screen times out to the Default, all components are loaded into memory and X loads into the graphical portion of the installation process. It is the same thing for the boot loader after the OS has been installed.
The graphical portion of this process went through the generic menus of “agreeing to the terms of the BSD licensing agreement”, along with obtaining preliminary root/user account information/configuration (such as default shell to even enabling auto-login). It also went through the process of selecting a disk device for UFS (default: with soft updates) file system and OS installation. NOTE: There is an option (for the advanced user) to customize the disk layout; and you can also use the original UFS file system without the soft updates or a third option of UFS with journaling enabled.
Just before the installer begins to copy all files to disk, you are prompted with an option of additional applications to install which range from Amarok, Filezilla, Firefox, Opera, OpenOffice, Pidgin, the source code, VLC and more. After all is confirmed, you just sit back and wait for the installation to complete and the system is rebooted.
Usability
The default graphical environment for this distribution is KDE 4.x. While I have always been more of a GNOME user (personal opinion: it is also easy to develop apps for GNOME with GTK+ and pyGTK), KDE 4 does look nice. While it takes some time to get used to it, I can respect the KDE community’s vision and implementation. They are challenging the norm and pushing the boundaries into a newer way of treating the desktop.
For a new user, everything has been categorized properly. From basic system configuration to other basic functionality. The one thing that I did want to try out with PC-BSD was the Push Button Installer (PBI). Instead of the pkg/rpm/deb/etc. packaging methods of installing applications, the PBI offers a graphical interface similar to the ones found on Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS X series of Operating Systems. This is great for users coming from that environment! You can view all available PBI application in the pbiDIR.
This installer works great and what I enjoy the most about it is if a PBI package requires the usage of WINE (installed by default), you do not need to bother to do anything else. The PBI takes care of everything for you and you can execute it like a normal Windows executable.
The best part of utilizing the PBI method is that there is a sense of consistency on where application programs get installed; and that is in the /Programs path. As much as this pains me to say, I wish to see more consistency with the /opt path in Linux.
Conclusion
While I only skimmed the surface with this article as I primarily wanted to emphasize the PBI application installation system, there is still so much more to do with PC-BSD. From the Wardens to Jails, and everything else that most GNU/Linux and UNIX users may be familiar with, PC-BSD is worth a try. It is extremely user friendly. And from the point of installation with auto-updates running in the background and having the right applications installed, I can see someone coming from a Windows environment and having little problems settling in. The development teams involved have done an excellent job in packaging this OS together.
Similar to your experiences, I have been a UNIX (Solaris and FreeBSD) and GNU/Linux user for many years. While there is certainly more flexibility in the Linux realm, I feel more comfortable with UNIX and FreeBSD - PCBSD now for past three years.
My only concerns are not with the project developers or FreeBSD organization, but with entities like Adobe, Microsoft and others who purposely try and make life miserable for BSD (and Linux) users. Even recently, I cannot access CNN.COM videos - receiving error message that “my platform” is not supported. Yet I freely access CBS, NBC/MSNBC, Fox, PBS et al with no problems what-so-ever.
Until and unless more “open standards” for technologies are mandated by government, business, academia and citizenry, the great capabilities and features of FreeBSD/PCBSD cannot be fully appreciated.
W. Anderson
wanderson@nac.net
Comment by W. Anderson — 20. May 2009 @ 20:27
I’m not entirely sure what you mean about consistency with the /opt path. Generally, at least under debian based systems, all software from the repositories is installed into its basic divisions of /usr/bin, /usr/share, and in some cases /usr/games. The only exceptions to this are third party non-repo software packages that are installed to the /opt directory and that usually don’t work quite as well as the repo packages.
Also, why would you need to use winrar on a unix or linux based system? file-roller and ark are far more capable at compression and decompression and the rar and unrar packages are generally available through repos.
Comment by Allen — 20. May 2009 @ 23:16
Allen,
>from the repositories is installed into its basic divisions
>of /usr/bin, /usr/share, and in some cases /usr/games.
As is the case with any other distribution. I am talking more of the 3rd party applications. In my experience this has not always been the case.
>Also, why would you need to use winrar on a unix or linux based system?
This is something that you would have to ask the PC-BSD developers. I believe that they are attempting to establish a strong familiarity to the user of Microsoft Windows so that their transition from one OS to another can be an easy one. I installed it to see how the PBI went (especially integrated with WINE). You will find a few applications in the pbiDIR that don’t really make much sense in a UNIX environment. For example, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint viewers, etc.
Comment by admin — 21. May 2009 @ 05:49