DesktopBSD 1.7
What’s New In This Release
Here’s a list of some of what’s new in this release of DesktopBSD 1.7:
FreeBSD 7.2 as stable and secure base system
KDE 3.5.10 as mature and easy-to-use desktop environment
OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 as feature-rich office suite
Pre-installed Java SE 6 environment
X.Org release 7.4 with extensive graphics support
Large number of enhancements and fixes
Requirements & Installation
In order to use DesktopBSD, here’s what is recommended on the DesktopBSD site:
We recommend a computer with at least a 1.5 GHz CPU, 1024 MB of memory and 20 GB of disk space. Less is possible, but will result in lower overall performance.
Access to a broad-band internet connection is recommended for installing additional software over the internet.
For more information about supported hardware, please read the FreeBSD 7.2 hardware notes.
I booted into the LiveCD version of DesktopBSD. The Live CD DesktopBSD experience compares favorably with that of most Linux distros. You’ll be able to get a good taste of what DesktopBSD has to offer by using the Live CD.
I had no problems installing DesktopBSD in VMWare. It’s about as difficult as installing any version of Ubuntu though it seemed a bit slower.
The DesktopBSD installer is actually fairly elegant and looks pretty slick. Just follow the prompts on each screen and you shouldn’t have any problems getting DesktopBSD installed even if you’ve never used it before.
(12 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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It’s very much a shame to hear desktopBSD is ending. I had thought desktopBSD had a better approach to making a user friendly FreeBSD desktop, and especially for commercial uses, than PC-BSD did.
Hi David,
Yeah, it’s a real shame. I hope that the developer reconsiders his decision to stop updating DesktopBSD. You never know. Stranger things have happened. Maybe he just needs a break from it for a while.
DesktopBSD is more of a true FreeBSD-based system with the desktop environment conveniently configured, whereas PC-BSD is a drop in, self contained system based on FreeBSD that uses independent, stand alone packages (with PBI, the Push Button Installer).
I was a fan of DesktopBSD a few years ago, but I’d noticed how dormant the development had been so I stopped following it. I do generally try PC-BSD every release or two and generally like it.
Guess if I ever want to try DesktopBSD again, now is the time!
Thanks for once again going outside of the usual confines to locate and test some of the less well known systems. Though I have not yet tested this version, I have found previous releases to be quite easy to install and very stable, and I am hoping that is once again the case.
Good point, Dragonmouth. I cannot install FreeBSD, PC-BSD, DesktopBSD, or any other BSD version or derivative unless I have a separate disk or a virtual instance. That has actually been the reason why I don’t run the BSDs more often. The other reason is that I find the BSDs kernel scheduler tends to be well tuned for server performance but it not optimized as Linux is for desktop use – which has been the case since the 2.6 Linux kernel – which has been a few years now.
I like the BSDs, and they are actually the UNIX flavor from which I came – not FreeBSD, but BSD 4.2, which formed the basis for ULTRIX, the original SunOS (before the AT&T UNIX System V R3 inspired Sun Solaris), and a few of the other variations I used in the now distant past.
I’ve used 1.6 quite a bit and have been very impressed. It’s solid and easy to use. Sad to see there’ll be no more after 1.7.
Not quite sure about the comments on multi-boot environments with Linux, though. Perhaps I’m not understanding the nature of the posts correctly, but I have Desktop BSD 1.6 installed on the same physical disk as OpenSuSE and it works with no problems (just got the partitioning ready before the BSD install and pointed the installer to the right place).
In any case, I’ll definitely have a look at 1.7 and head over to the forums to thank the developers.
[...] http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/2009/09/10/desktopbsd-1-7/ a few seconds ago from kdemicroblog [...]
Hi Dragonmouth,
I didn’t pre-create the slices; just created one new partition using GParted (unformatted, as GParted doesn’t/didn’t support creation of UFS) at the end of my primary slave disk, of which the remainder was filled with Ext 3 partitions and a Linux swap partition. I then ran the Desktop BSD installer and pointed it at that unformatted partition; then created the slices from within the installer. It’s probably not relevant to the discussion, but I skipped the bootloader install, as I already had GRUB on the machine.
It was a long time ago that I installed Desktop BSD, so I don’t remember the exact details, but I had no problems at all with it. Your posts were actually the first I’d heard about Ext 3 etc not being recognised.
Even though I am a Linux user (Ubuntu) I have kept across the news of Desktop BSD. I am also sad to see it go. I preferred Desktop BSD to PCBSD but it didn’t seem to have the momentum.
Im a newbie in these things and I have windows XP,pcBSD 7.1.1 and Ubuntu 9.04 in the same hdd (plus a partition for files).
I installed them in that order: first XP, then pcBSD and Ubuntu and its grub in the last place.
The truth is that I can see my pcBSD partition from linux (read only, no writting), but I cant see my ext4 linux partitions from pcBSD (Ive got 2 of them, one mounts at / and the other one mounts at /home), but thats one of the reasons why I create another extended logic partition in FAT32, just to share files among my 3 OSes
I will miss desktopBSD
, Its a real shame
Hi, could be wrong but the reason you might have been having issues installing BSD on your systems could be related to this (from the pcbsd guide) :
“Be aware that BSD operating systems, and hence PC-BSD, only recognise primary partitions and consider any logical partitions as a whole primary partition. Trying to install on a logical partition will convert your extended partition into a primary partition and erase all logical partitions of your system. PC-BSD can be installed on any primary partition; it doesn’t necessarily have to be on the first one. Be careful and make sure you have a backup of your data.”
Just a thought and thanks for the reviews!