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DesktopBSD 1.0 Screenshot Tour

shots.osdir.com — DistroWatch reports - We are pleased to announce that DesktopBSD 1.0 is now available from our download mirrors and via BitTorrent. Changes include: upgrade to KDE 3.5.1; update to FreeBSD 5.5-PRERELEASE; user-friendlier package manager; printing fixes; hardware event notifications; many smaller improvements.

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  • dukeinlondon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5If it's got all the drivers, the same sort of set-up utilities and none of the distro proliferation as linux, could this become the ONE opensource desktop OS everyone has been waiting for ? hummm.....
    • CptnObvious, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8Some people say the package management is what every other should have been...I disagree. Since they use staticly linked libraries one library used in multiple programs has to be dumped in the memory for every program that uses it, unlike dynamic linked ones where it can share between programs. Also its less secure because if the package was build with an older library with security flaws you can't just update the library and have it fixed, all the programs using it need to be updated with the latest library which would probly take a lot longer. Some people can sacrific some speed and security for convenience but not me.
    • CptnObvious, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3opps sorry I was thinking of PC-BSD
    • Magadass, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5KDE really does enjoy copying windows (icons, and features), I guess its really all you can do when inovation hits the ceiling. Just take what works, Im not complaining but I hear it all the time!
  • coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Torrent Links:

    cd version (x86) ftp://ftp.desktopbsd.net/torrents/DesktopBSD-1.0-x86-CD.iso.torrent
    dvd version (x86) ftp://ftp.desktopbsd.net/torrents/DesktopBSD-1.0-x86-DVD.iso.torrent
    dvd version (AMD64) ftp://ftp.desktopbsd.net/torrents/DesktopBSD-1.0-amd64-DVD.iso.torrent

    Homepage is http://desktopbsd.net

    Downloading the DVD x86 ISO now and it's quite fast with 44 visible seeds and climbing.
    • burke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is the homepage broken for anyone else at default text sizes? Just checking.

      BTW, I'm using Firefox 1.5 under Gnome 2.12 on Linux 2.6
  • youareretarded, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"opps sorry I was thinking of PC-BSD"

    Can you clarify that for me? I'm not familiar with bsd at all. Does the above comment mean that your first post was inaccurate with regards to this particular distro and the flaws you mentioned don't apply?
    • alphamerik, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1Dude, you are retarded. Do you know what a distro is? Do you know what static or dynamically linked libraries are? Do you know how to read? Or use the right reply button?
  • Yarnage, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Is it me or do these screenshots look exactly like Kubuntu, Fedora Core, Mandrake, Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, and every other *nix distribution that uses KDE?

    I seriously do not understand why every distribution has to post screenshots of KDE or GNOME! We know what it looks like and your distro looks just like everyone else's.
    • immure, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4The point being that this isn't a *nix distribution. From the homepage

      "Another Linux distribution?

      BSD is not Linux. You probably want to read "Explaining BSD http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/explaining-bsd/" from Greg Lehey."

      The point of the screenshots is not so you can see what it looks like, but so that you can see that it works. I won't personally be installing DesktopBSD - Linux support is currently far superior, but it is a great alternative, and a great project, in fact much closer to the original UNIX than Linux will ever be.
    • Yarnage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Exactly, aneeley.

      @immure, I know BSD is NOT Linux. I'm not that dumb and have used many Linux distros as well as BSD a few times. *nix covers all bases, however; hence the star. Just like aneeley said, it covers Linux, Unix, and pretty much anything based on Unix.
    • immure, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Sorry - I wasn't really thinking straight when I said that (Hadn't had the morning coffee...), you're quite right. For some reason I just read *nix as linux nowadays...
    • backdoc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Easy to explain. People love screenshots and eyecandy (me included). And, some sites are more than happy to take advantage of that to boost the number of hits that their sites get. If the link has osdir in it, I usually just ignore it.
    • cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Yarnage, *nix doesn't mean anything BASED on Unix. It means anything whose name ends in "nix". Linux is not based on Unix. It began as a CLONE to Unix.
    • porksoda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1all these "screenshot tours" of the latest *nix releases seem like desperate tactics by some sad marketing department.. one of a thousand other distros out there. tailors to such a limited crowd, and does that crowd really need the fancy UI crap? If a user is educated enough to know about BSD's strong points and why one would use it, then they probably have a good grasp or its inner workings and can work in a damn terminal window.
      "look at us linux guys now, we have identical window themes and buttons as windows!" type of thing. but who's to say that making a distro look like a windows clone is a good thing? maybe those Next and Cancel and Minimize buttons suck and shouldn't be imitated?
  • ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4And ... ?
  • 0zymandias, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ok - looks better than what I've seen in the past - but is this anything besides KDE on FreeBSD?
  • richbradshaw, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Why do we need screenshots of KDE!
  • makenshi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4VMware image available:
    http://chaz6.com/?p=159
  • DennisLaumen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2More desktop options for BSD users are probably a good thing at the moment. Everybody loves BSD as a server but it's desktop use lacks momentum.

    Just a shame both 'big' BSD desktop 'distros' (If that's what they are called in BSD land) use KDE. It would hae been nice if there was a GNOME equivalent.
  • youareretarded, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow what a nice site (as in friendly): http://www.desktopbsd.net/
    It had a lot of info and answered my questions without making my head hurt:D

    Finally an OS/"distro" who has a good "desktop" OS goal.

    I'll definitely have to try this one out.
  • Xbin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I do believe you can use gnome instead of kde. I run freebsd with kde or fluxbox. i cant remember if the install of freebsd lets you install gnome.I think it does.
  • acespades, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Can this be installed in a extended partition? I know FreeBSD can only be installed in a primary one..
  • jimmyblake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Until recently my conception was that BSD, in all its guises had very limited driver support and quite an unfriendly installer GUI. I've used quite a few commercial UNIX distributions (AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, MacOS X) and I have tried many of the Linux distributions (Fedora Core, Madriva, Ubunto, SUSe, Knoppix, Gentoo, YellowDog) but I thought I'd give BSD another go and went with FreeBSD 6 - I've been blown away, it now looks at least as sexy as the Linux distribiutions I've mentioned, it supported every single device within my notebook and, although it is text-based, the installer is easy-to-use.

    Gentoo has a, relatively, hard to use install process but is the only Linux distribution to try and give Linux to flexibility and functionality of the BSD Ports software system - I'd recommend anyone to at least try BSD. I was able to install BSD and start to compile the over 200 utilities that I use for penetration testing within an hour.
    • Yarnage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Can I use WPA by default with my laptop? This is the one thing that turns me away from Linux. I can never get the WPA_Supplicant to work correctly.
    • deadlock, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I've found that although Gentoo's portage system is derived from *BSD's ports, it is actually *much* more flexible - the USE flags are fantastic. Gentoo is also quite straightforward once you get past the initial install. Updating and installing apps etc. is very very easy, if time-consuming.

      Not a BSD vs. Gentoo flame, just thought I'd mention it on foot of jimmyblake's comment...
  • raid17, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I know this is BSD/KDE - and it is great and all. But how about showing off what's different rather than what's the same?
  • mfearby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Seriously, people, what on earth are a bunch of screen shots going to prove these days? *EVERY* distro can run KDE and GNOME and they can all use pictures for desktop backgrounds. This proves absolutely nothing! When was the last time a screenshot of KDE or GNOME showed any significant improvements? Konqueror is still the king of bloat and Nautilus is the queen of providing diddly-squat for expert users.

    Come on, how about some *real* improvements? Stop it with the constant galleries of OLD SCREEN CAPTURES!!!!!
  • whiteguysamurai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0All i want to know is 2 things,

    1)Will the install scare the ***** out of an old unix n00b like me, like it did last time?

    2)Will i get my DWL -AG530 to work right off the bat for the coffee house next door, without having to open 1 text window?

    If not, i don't see this working for me.
    • alphamerik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2With a mindset like that:

      1) Yes
      2) No

      And that will always be the case.
  • almightystoph, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Are we supposed to care about this?
  • etx313, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I installed an older version of DesktopBSD and I loved it, it's great. The install is super easy, just make a partition, install, setup a boot loader, and give it a root password.

    The driver support was great too, my onboard nic worked off the bat and so did the ati drivers in xwindows. I dunno about your DWL -AG530 but check the site or try installing it on a spare hdd and check it out.

    My favorite thing about freebsd (the base os) is it's noticeably faster than linux, by quite a bit.
  • shade73, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2LOL, I like their honesty! One of their features:
    - User-friendlier package manager

    (apparently it hasn't made it to user friendly, but it's friendlier than last time!)
  • JNitz36, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I am trying this desktop bsd out on an old laptop. I have a lot of configuration to do because right now its dog slow. I am sure it is just my configuration, and it being installed on an old piece of junk. It took me some time, but i had vectorlinux running on this same laptop and it was great. I didn't notice any slowness and it could handle my regular multitasking of websurfing/IM/putty/irc without problems. I am hoping desktopbsd will achieve that level of performance after some tinkering.
    Oh, and I love how everyone is now claiming that screenshots are worthless. I wish the article was on some ubuntu distro to see how the comments would change to praise the distro...
  • dink, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Okay, here is my biggest question concerning DesktopBSD
    Does the gforge package work as advertised yet?
    This is a legit question. If gforge could setup its self
    and all its dependencies, Life would be much better.
    Also, in addition to that, is gforge still using cvs- or have they moved to svn.
    For those that do development and don't know what gforge is,
    I highly suggest you check it out. here is the link: http://gforge.org/
  • paku, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0*yawn* yet another KDE screenshot
  • wewa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Looks like Dragonfly BSD is further along, and more thought out.
    Dragonfly CD is bootable so you can try without modification, albeit much slower than a full install.

    FreeBSD is the king of file and TCP performance, IMO.

    Because of this I only host clients web sites on FreeBSD hosts, over Linux and Windows.

    http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2004/07/08/dragonfly_bsd_interview.html
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFly_BSD
  • xswag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Looking forward to trying it out.
  • atomicwedgie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Ya know what... I think a lot of you are handing out unwarranted attacks on things that do matter to some of us. Obviously it wouldn't be here if people didn't digg it. I for one like to see the new developments in the computer world regardless of whether or not it resembles something else.

    Besides, how many of you that feel free dishing out bashes to this post have actually put together a distro?
  • TopBanana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Using it now, and it seems pretty polished so far. In order to get full resolution inside VMWare, you need to mount the freebsd.iso file on the host OS, then install the tools using the pl script.
  • linshots, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Linux/BSD developers take care in the LOOK of their releases. Don't look at the screenshots if all you want is a list of features.
  •  

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