PC-BSD 10 opinions

[RacerBG]

Recently I started to look at PC-BSD 10 because I'm interested to know more about the BSD ecosystem. So far so good.

Yesterday I was deeply inside their site when I was suddenly shocked:
From version 10 PC-BSD is 64 bit only!
The standart requirments for PC-BSD are very high (compared to EVERY Linux distro)! Why? This OS uses the same DE's as Linux, also its supposed that it is light as Linux. Where I'm wrong?
The minimal install size for desktop is 50 GB!!! Of course they say that the OS will not take so much space but you must have it. My Godness! One Linux distro like Mint will never take more than 10-12 GB even after many program installations.

The things are getting worse...

The packages for PC-BSD are limited.
The hardware support seems to be lacking compared to Linux (in my case I MAY have problems with my video card).
The installer lacks from a partition program.

I was motivated to try it but after seeing things like this... I hope that someone can prove that I'm wrong. Anyway I will continue my usage of Mint.

You are open to give your opinions as well if anyone tried it or just have something to say.

[PatH57]

no real reason it's just a choice
The terms 32-bit and 64-bit refer to the way a computer's processor (also called a CPU), handles information. The 64-bit version of an operating system handles large amounts of random access memory (RAM) more effectively than a 32-bit system.

[/dev/urandom]

The packages for PC-BSD are limited.

True, but it also uses the FreeBSD ports system which has a higher total of applications than even the Debian repositories (given that "applications" consist of "binaries and libraries"). If you want a lightweight "beginner's BSD", why don't you start with a VirtualBox and a plain FreeBSD first? PC-BSD installs a lot of things in its default installation which you might not even need.

PC-BSD was my first BSD too, but it's a bit boring that everything is set up automatically.
(In *BSD forums, PC-BSD is often called the "Ubuntu for FreeBSD" which is not so wrong.)

The hardware support seems to be lacking compared to Linux (in my case I MAY have problems with my video card).

FreeBSD 10 imported a lot of Linux drivers.

The installer lacks from a partition program.

No.

[var]

It requires a lot of space because PC-BSD includes in the images I think 4 Desktop Environments so you can choose which ones you want. I think they should just offer separate downloads, whoever thought of this idea... *shakes head*.

It is 64bit because this is 2014. Most new computers (good ones worth buying) are all 64bit. I cannot wait for the day when 32bit is gone, nobody rocks a 16bit PC nowadays do they?

BSD has imported a lot of Linux drivers, but the support is still lacking and Linux is way ahead in Hardware support. I would love to run BSD as my main OS, but half of my own hardware is dead on it. And the CPU fan goes nuts.

[/dev/urandom]

It requires a lot of space because PC-BSD includes in the images I think 4 Desktop Environments so you can choose which ones you want.

Yes, plus: Awesome, Cinnamon, FVWM, GNOME3, I3, IceWM, Openbox, Ratpoison, Spectrwm, WindowLab, or Window Maker. But it only installs the one you chose.

[var]

It requires a lot of space because PC-BSD includes in the images I think 4 Desktop Environments so you can choose which ones you want.

Yes, plus: Awesome, Cinnamon, FVWM, GNOME3, I3, IceWM, Openbox, Ratpoison, Spectrwm, WindowLab, or Window Maker. But it only installs the one you chose.

It would be easier if you did not have to download an almost 4GB ISO. Why they cannot just make lots of 600MB ISO files is beyond me. In my book, any ISO over 2GB is bloated.

[/dev/urandom]

You can install FreeBSD (available as [url=ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/10.0/]bootonly images[/url]) and add PC-BSD packages from it.

[DrHu]

I quite liked it when I ran it previously, as it has binary install/updates for the system + applications available
--however I found most of the application action to be available under a Linux OS; however BSD* systems can also run Linux based applications -- the reverse is not true, for the most part (might be due to the popularity of specific applications or some other unknown reason)

• I also find BSD* systems to be quite finnickedy about hardware, not installing on any errors for example..

But BSD* ports system is also quite good..

[RacerBG]

It is 64bit because this is 2014. Most new computers (good ones worth buying) are all 64bit. I cannot wait for the day when 32bit is gone, nobody rocks a 16bit PC nowadays do they?

I know but still there are some older pieces of hardware including my own PC even my laptop from 2009. It IS capable to run any 64 bit system but it IS primary built for 32 bit systems. Anyway I'm supporting you for that because this is the future.

[/dev/urandom]

I found most of the application action to be available under a Linux OS

There are currently more than 24,000 applications ready to download and install in the FreeBSD ports collection.

[colyn]

The packages for PC-BSD are limited.

This is the killer for me. No DigiKam or Kipi plugins...

[wanderer7]

The standart requirments for PC-BSD are very high

This is the reason why I didn't like it either. Recommended requirements are: 64 bit CPU, 4 GB RAM, Nvidia or ATI grahics cards (!), 50 GB free space on hard drive.
I almost thought I was reading system requirements of some modern computer game.

You can try other BSD-es which are more lightweight. They (BSD-es in general) usually have a good documentation and from these docs one can learn a lot about Unix-like OS-es.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken, there is a Debian port with FreeBSD kernel. If it still exists, maybe you could install it in VirtualBox.
I want to try a different kernel too. Just for the sake of curiosity. I'm going to try Debian GNU/Hurd.

[/dev/urandom]

Debian GNU/KFreeBSD still exists (so do Arch BSD and Gentoo something-BSD), but why would you want that?

[wanderer7]

Debian GNU/KFreeBSD still exists (so do Arch BSD and Gentoo something-BSD), but why would you want that?

There is no real reason to do that. I just wanted to say that jumping straight in the sea of pure BSD-es isn't necessary if someone wants to try only the Free-BSD kernel (if one thinks it's more secure, for example).

[/dev/urandom]

From a (desktop) user's POV, the FreeBSD kernel alone doesn't add much. Technically there are a lot of improvements indeed, from ZFS to a quite different scheduling system. I'm not quite sure if the FreeBSD kernel alone makes the (GNU) userland (which usually is the bottleneck) more secure though. One of the main security aspects of the *BSDs is that everything comes from the same guys instead of being glued together by distributors.

[RacerBG]

After reading and searching I found out GhostBSD. Looks like the plans of GhostBSD are like those from PC-BSD except that GhostBSD is suited even for older PC's. It's still young and looking at the donations - they are very small but I believe that this OS will survive. After version 4.0 is out I'm going to try it out.

[/dev/urandom]

But their releases (= codebase upgrades) are less frequent. It took them a while between 3.x and 4.0.

[wanderer7]

/dev/urandom is right, not many developers are working on GhostBSD right now. It is more or less user-friendly though, so for new users it could still be a good choice.
However, if you want to use BSD-es without any practical reason - just to learn more about them, then I think it's better to install FreeBSD and later add to it everything you might need (including desktop environment ).
Needless to say, it's not easy and requires knowledge, but this is how one can actually learn BSD.

[/dev/urandom]

Only this BSD though. If you know FreeBSD, you don't know OpenBSD. If you know both, you'll fail to use NetBSD.
I noticed that DragonFly BSD has a similar "usage" as FreeBSD though, so there are exceptions.

It's similar to Linux: Learn Debian and you'll fail to use openSUSE.

[killer de bug]

It's similar to Linux: Learn Debian and you'll fail to use openSUSE.

Fail is a big word.
It's pretty easy to switch between distro. The package manager is one of the few tools you need to learn again.