DesktopBSD 1.7
Desktop & Apps
Since DesktopBSD comes with KDE you’ll feel right at home if you’ve used KDE on Linux distros at some point. The overall look and feel of generic KDE is mostly preserved in DesktopBSD so you won’t encounter any wild customizations that mar the KDE experience.
DesktopBSD comes with quite a lot of software, I was very pleased when I first noticed it after the Live CD version finished loading. The installed version is just as good in terms of software.
Here’s some of what you’ll find available after you install DesktopBSD:
Games
KASteroids
KBounce
KSnakeRace
KTron
Atlantik
KMahjongg
KPoker
Graphics
GIMP
KSnapshot
digiKam
showFoto
KPDF
KolourPaint
Internet
FileZilla
Firefox
KMail
Knode (News Reader)
Konqueror
Kontact PIM
Pidgin IM
Thunderbird Mail
Krfb (Desktop Sharing)
Konversation
Multimedia
Amarok
K3B CD & DVD Burning
KAudioCreator
VLC Media Player
Noatun Media Player
Krec
Office
OpenOffice.org (Spreadsheet, Word Processor, Drawing, Presentation, Database)
KNotes
KOrganizer
KArm
KAlarm
KAddressBook
There’s quite a bit to choose from and most everything you’ll need is there and ready to go after you install DesktopBSD. I ran into some problems with the DesktopBSD package manager (more on that later) so I wasn’t able to add more software or update my system.
DesktopBSD uses KDE 3.5 as its desktop environment.
(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!