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Operating Systems Software BSD

PC-BSD 0.5a Beta: BSD For Dummies 98

Posted by timothy from the deleetifying dept.
linuxbeta writes "PC-BSD 0.5a beta has now been released! You can download the 670Mb ISO file from our download page. This version fixes some minor bugs, and now has fully automatic network support. Screenshots available." So what's it all about? From the PC-BSD FAQ: "This OS has as its goals to be user-friendly, especially in the area of software installation and management, something that many of the *nix based distros have not yet mastered."
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PC-BSD 0.5a Beta: BSD For Dummies More

PC-BSD 0.5a Beta: BSD For Dummies

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  • I question the motive behind "User Friendly" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SirCyn ( 694031 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @11:34PM (#12344887) Journal
    I have been using BSDs for a while now. They really aren't all that bad to use in the first place. They simply have a steep learning curve if you've never used them before.

    Personally I don't think a "User Friendly" flavor of BSD is needed. What is needed is trained admins.

    BSD is not meant at all for average joe; and selling it as such is misrepresenting the collective BSD OS. BSDs are powerful, stable, secure server and workstation OSes. NetBSD also runs good on your toaster.

    • Re:I question the motive behind "User Friendly" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @11:53PM (#12345002)
      BSD is simpler in configuration than most Linux distros really, just the install is harder. What's wrong with making it easier for more people to try it out?
    • Yes fair enough the other BSDs may not be ment for the average person , but yyour missing one vital point here , this is not the other BSDs (actualy OS X is fairly well aimed at the commen man)This BSDs sole aim is to make BSD easy to use which i think is a grand ambition as it gives the people more to choose from.

      Yes indeed more trained admins are needed , but ontop of that a wider user base is also needed as such a think spectrum of users will keep the *free* *bsds unaprochable which may make adopotion of the system harder .
      • Actually, being what thems be, I don't think the BSDs are meant to be anything but operating systems. People for whom BSD (*BSD? DILLIGAF?) is intended: Computer owners, computer users, homosexuals, fat guys with beards. People for whom it (they) is (are) not intended: Luddites, Amish, gays, fat guys without beards.
      • actualy OS X is fairly well aimed at the commen man

        I think that's true, but I don't think you should look at it exclusively. I've been using computers since a Commodre 64, have used Linux and Windows extensively and recently bought a Mac. I love OS X... not because I don't know how to use a computer, but because I enjoy using a computer that is not constantly getting in my way and making my life difficult.

        OS X I think is appealing to computer veterans, and geeks like myself. Email, photos, music all ha

        • Well thats why im using it mainly . having the ability to easily swap between carbon/cocoa apps and a ksh shell is wonderfull .
          Currently i have an eMac sitting as my main work terminal for the fact i can quite eassily run apps intended for a wide variety of systems with VPC6 or bochs . plenty of native ports to darwin thanks to fink etc fills out my requierments for remote administration of the server so i barely ever need to move off my chair(probably a bad thing come to think of it).

    • Re:I question the motive behind "User Friendly" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by node 3 ( 115640 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @03:27AM (#12345940)
      Personally I don't think a "User Friendly" flavor of BSD is needed. What is needed is trained admins.

      Ain't gonna happen. There are already 3 major BSD's aimed at the trained admin.

      On the other hand, there's only 1 BSD aimed at the end user, and it's not free (OS X). This BSD fills an empty niche.

      BSD is not meant at all for average joe; and selling it as such is misrepresenting the collective BSD OS.

      BSD isn't "meant" for anyone. It's just aimed at the trained UNIX user because it's not a reasonable OS to aim at the average joe. OS X proves that you can aim a BSD at the computer neophyte, while still satisfying the upper echelon of UNIX gurus. I don't expect this new BSD to be as user-friendly as OS X, but it will be free. Let's hope great things come of it.

    • You aren't the target market (plus suggestions) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:36PM (#12354637)
      You aren't the target market.

      People complaining about server installs and power user installs shouldn't use this: they are not the target market, and they should quit complaining and simply not use it: no loss.

      Complaining about the desktop choice is another self-defeating proposition: he had to pick *something*, and it had to be one thing to start with, not "pick one of 1000". It also has the benefit of giving a platform target ABI to developers who want to do desktop applications: one of the biggest reasons UNIX systems don't end up with a lot of applications is lack of a uniform target ABI. Even if the API was the same across multiple look-and-feel values, it's not enough to attract developers: requiring a recompilation means doubling their support and testing burdens, as well as their SKU count (if they don't ship all versions on the same CD/DVD).

      One of the best things MacOS X did, from this perspective, is *not* open up the GUI code, so that people have a hard time making a zillion incompatible versions and shipping them around, fragmenting the market. I hope he does not cave in to pressure to "pull a RedHat" with a "KDE or Gnome" option.

      For the average user, it's a step in the right direction, and one that all of the BSD's, save MacOS X, have been too snobby to take on their own (or too caught up in the myth of the server being the only market space that's a valid target for a BSD based OS).

      There are a couple of things that could be changed to make it better, but it's miles above the fear-inspiring raw text prompt and ASCII graphics of the normal FreeBSD installer.

      Instead of a hierarchical relationship between things you have to fill out, as in sysinstall, where it's an exercise for the student to traverse the installation/configuration tree, it's a simple linear progression.

      Instead of dropping you to a raw login prompt, it drops you to a KDE login.

      All in all, it removes much of the "fear barrier" that keeps people from even considering installing a BSD operating system on their machine in the first place.

      I dislike the use of the GPL, but given that it's written against a GPL'ed toolkit, it's excusable in the face of what it provides.

      Here's what else I think it needs to really polish it off:

      o Graphical partition editor

      It currently assumes you have a free partition lying around, and it doesn't really permit editing it. I know this is a very hard nut to crack, and that Partition Magic has an entire product dedicated to the task (AFAIK, it's the only product that can safely resize NTFS partitions); I'm not sure how doable this is, but it's near the top of the list.

      NB: The only reasonably way I have ever come up with to deal with this, short of contracting the work out the the P.M. people, is a Window NT install program that allocated a chunk of disk space *inside* the NTFS, and then a booter program that is an icon on the NT desktop, and let FreeBSD use the existing allocated NTFS file as a fielsystem, after hacking the block driver to make it appear virtually contiguous. I expect that this will be the last thing on my list implemented, if ever.

      o Creation of an "admin" account, rather than root

      This would just be the initial user's account, with rights to "sudo"; they could name it anything they wanted to name it. The root account would be disabled by default; you could always enable it via "sudo passwd" later, if you wanted to be able to login as root instead of the user.

      o Automatic walk-through for the configuration

      If you have an initial account other than the root account, you can walk the user immediately through the account-specific configuration. This would be a smoother transition, rather than stopping, requiring a login, and then continuing.

      o Automatic login as the admin user

      I realize that this may seem much less anal than a typical UNIX appraoch to things, but it's possible to do this relatively safely, simpy by enabling a screen saver
    • I have tried installing FreeBSD and have gotten the basic non-gui working but have never been able to load and run the gui. I tried the PC-BSD. I liked it. There is still a learning curve. It is not a simple point and click O/S. I think BSD needs to expand its base and PC-BSD is a vehical that may help get more newbe's like me started. Started is the word. I still have a lot to learn, more how to use it and get all the apps and hardware working. and the command line. thats my two cents worth anyway.
    • I've been a linux user for a few years now, and have recently "discovered" FreeBSD through FreeSBIE LiveCD project http://www.freesbie.org/ [freesbie.org]. Up to that time, I had made a couple of install attempts of FreeBSD 5.3 Release with limited success, and had put further exploration on the back burner.

      Having finally had a chance to experience (and have a successful harddrive install through the FreeSBIE install scripts) a FreeBSD desktop environment (XFCE4 in the case of FreeSBIE, with Fluxbox being the other choic

  • Ooooo... Graphical installer! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kernelistic ( 160323 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @11:35PM (#12344895)
    It would appear that this is the first BSD with a fully-graphical installer. Kudos! When will we see this installer backported and available as an option during the CD-build process? :)
  • What's the point? To me and many others *BSD is about 1) a different license and 2) a different philosophy of development - that is, centralised development of an entire operating system, not just a kernel. Of course, this has never really been true as X11 has always been a seperate project to all *BSD machines, so the "whole OS" concept really doesn't fly - but at least the licenses were similar. Then you go plop KDE into the mix.
    • I've gotta disagree with you there. To me, *BSD (FreeBSD is my flavor of choice) is about a stabler, stronger platform to keep my systems chugging along. This is definitely assisted by the fact that the same folks do the development of the entire OS, not just the kernel, like you said.

      Philosophically speaking, the fact that *BSD uses a truly free license is just a bit of icing on the cake. :)
      • avoiding your flamebait, what you've just said merely reiterates my confusion. The benefit of using FreeBSD is that these "same folks" do the development of the entire OS, not just the kernel, but if you are going to sit down and use KDE day in and day out, you're really not using anything but the kernel out of that collection of software which you call the "entire OS".
        • It wasn't flamebait, I was actually AGREEING with you, with the difference being that the PRINCIPLES that *BSD is about to you:

          To me and many others *BSD is about 1) a different license and 2) a different philosophy of development - that is, centralised development of an entire operating system, not just a kernel.

          Is not the reason that I swear by BSD, but rather the CAUSE of the reason: In other words, the different philosophy of development made one hell of a rock solid system.

          Of course, this has n

    • Re:KDE on FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)

      by ulib ( 816651 )
      What's the point? To me and many others *BSD is about 1) a different license and 2) a different philosophy of development - that is, centralised development of an entire operating system, not just a kernel.

      I definitely agree, but let's remember that KDE on FreeBSD is hardly news.
      http://freebsd.kde.org/ [kde.org]

      --
      Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.

    • Re:KDE on FreeBSD (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You've fallen into the Microsoft trap. The brainwashing is complete. You now assume an OS has to have a GUI. You're probably starting to wonder why X11 doesn't have a built in web browser.

      Believe it or not, you don't need the eye candy to get work done. Many computer tasks don't even need a human in the loop.
      • Please.
        This is not a server os. PC-BSD is targeted at the normal desktop user, not at the users who need to automate nightly builds of their newest cutting-edge AIs :)

        And I think most of us are quite happy with Firefox.
    • I'll have to also disagree,

      part of *BSD's great strength is the ability to be very usable without a GUI :p. Personally, I don't want X11 creating all kinds of overhead for my already ailing craptastic P2 server ;)

      Whereas, I'd be a madman for running FreeBSD as an everyday desktop without it :p. ... Assuming running FreeBSD as a desktop doesn't already make me quite the madman.

  • Torrent? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by idiotfromia ( 657688 ) <chad@chad b r a n d o s . c om> on Monday April 25, 2005 @11:56PM (#12345014) Homepage

    Well, where's the torrent? It seems like that should be part of any article involving new *nix releases.

    I haven't tried BSD before, and this sounds like a good first timer's distro.

    • Well, where's the torrent? It seems like that should be part of any article involving new *nix releases.

      What's the point of torrent if you can download files faster without torrent?
    • I would suggest FreesBIE [fressbie.org] instead because it's a livecd with excellent hardware detection and seems to include more packages than PCBSD. The OS can be installed to your hard drive if you wish and then it can be CVSup'ed to FreeBSD 5.3.

      Here's [osnews.com] my review of it from way back when if you need more info on it.

      Enjoy!

  • *BSD for dummies? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @12:07AM (#12345077)
    This sounds interesting, a dummy that runs *BSD. I guess it is rather appropriate, given that a dummy is still and lifeless. I'm surprised it took someone this long to think of it.

    Next up: Windows for Japanese commuter trains, MacOS for Spongebob Squarepants, and PalmOS for the San Fernando Valley.

  • Hmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by coyote4til7 ( 189857 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @12:07AM (#12345078) Homepage

    The philosophy is interesting. It's also the first instance of something that sounds cheesey but I'd love to tack on to XP when I tortured with that: The Eye Candy Meter [osdir.com]

    But, the question is what's it for? The key thing seems to be a great sense of integration, etc. But, as far as I can tell, most of the things that someone who wants a *nix with a gui are not there. I may have missed some included alternatives, but you'll do without:

    • abiword/openoffice/gnumeric/koffice
    • firefox/mozilla (it does seem to have Konqueror)
    • mplayer
    • apache/php/postgresql/mysql
    • quanta
    • gimp
    • emacs

    Ouch! I suspect you won't be using this to do office, web or database work for now. Complete package list/release notes here [pcbsd.org]

  • What's the point of showing off PC-BSD by using screenshots of KDE? They could have been taken right off of KDE's page. I can understand screenshots of the graphical installer, as this is PC-BSD specific, but if I'm not mistaking, KDE looks like KDE on virtually any platform.

  • Under GPL (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    While it could be useful if successful and reintegrated into FreeBSD, but all of their code is under the GPL. I doubt any of the BSD projects would touch any of their work.

    • Re:Under GPL (Score:3, Informative)

      by archen ( 447353 )
      The BSDs do use GPL code, gcc being one of many examples. For the most part, it's the installer we're probably talking about here, thus not part of the base system, so it's probably not so much of an issue if one of the BSDs decided to adopt it.

      Not sure if I would want this sort of installation or not, but I think that the BSD projects could benefit from easier installations. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do it now, but it could be made a bit easier. Right now I'd say the future of BSD installat
      • If the component is necessary and under the GPL, then it will be included in the base. This is why you'll find gcc in the base distributions. Getting non essential GPL code into the base is much more difficult.

        The BSDs will use GPL code, but they won't write it. In some cases they'll even reinvent the wheel to get around it. This is because part of the BSD philosophy is "when the software leaves your hands, it leaves your control." This may be a foreign concept to some GPL advocates, but to a BSD author,
  • under a somewhat ugly (GPL'ed) QT wizard. The text is the same, the steps are the same... not much to see here.

    Let's see that package manager they're going to come up with and maybe then we can get impressed.

    • Agreed. The ONLY reason I'm still using Linux as opposed to FreeBSD (only ditched Windows last August) is that I've had a hullava time upgrading FreeBSD WITHOUT destroying something that I don't know how to fix. Even the Debian apt-get (under Ubuntu) and synaptic are about the only reason holding be to Linux. However, I have every intention to continue to tinker with FreeBSD (like I've done with Linux for longer) and learn where I went wrong.

      A simplified upgrade wizard, optionally, would be a great bene
      • Upgrading the FreeBSD base system is relatively easy (which is to say that if you follow the instructions in the handbook it works, rather than that the procedure itself is trivial). Upgrading ports is slightly harder, but the portupgrade port makes it very easy. Take a look at Dru's articles about portupgrade on onlamp for more information.
        • Thanks. I've already been there and done that - a few times. I'm always having to make a custom kernel to support SMP and this wierd Alteon (IBM Netfinity) gigabit NIC. Portupgrading was always easy, I was always seeming to get tripped up with mergemaster and build world (after tripping up the kernel confing a time or two).

          More time tinkering later and I'm sure I'll figure out where I went wrong.

          BTW, has the Pango problems with 5.3 been fixed in 5.4RC?

          Best install guide for newbies I've yet come acros
          • The kernel configs can usually be kept between different minor version numbers - just make sure you keep the it in /root (or somewhere else safe) and sym-link it to the /sys tree, and remember to specify your kernel config in the buildkernel option. If the only change you need is the NIC (I can't remember if SMP is on in the GENERIC kernel in 5.x), and you don't need it to boot then you might consider building it as a module.

            I'm afraid I can't help you with 5.4RC - my server still uses 4.11, and my ThinkP

      • I haven't really had much problem upgrading FreeBSD. This machine runs 5.3... soon to be 5.4... and it began life at 5.0.

        My 2 gripes with upgrading are:

        1) mergemaster. This program and the procedure is a a pain as the amount of human-interaction is huge. If you want ALL of the old file or ALL of the new file, you're fine... but if you want SOME, the interface is really clumsy and it's not easy to use. And it takes a fair amount of knowledge to know which files you want what of. There's got to be an easier

  • Why is this a separate project? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bleeblah ( 602029 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:51AM (#12348043) Homepage

    Why is this being launched as "PC-BSD"? This is just the standard FreeBSD installer redone (word for word) with a GUI interface. And by standard this I mean straight out of the box, without any tweaks. KDE doesn't even have font smoothing turned on!

    Let's not pretend that "PC-BSD" is something new or exciting. It doesn't fill a new niche (Free / Open / Net) or take the OS in a new direction (Dragonfly). As it stands, other than the GUI installer this is strictly "Look mom, I made me a distro!" However, if done as part of the FreeBSD effort this could be valuable.

    I'm sure the FreeBSD team would welcome these folks' effort at building a GUI installer (not that the text one is difficult to use...it is very straightforward), and instructions on contributing to FreeBSD are available at www.freebsd.org.

    • Correction - They don't have KDM configured to use smooth fonts. KDE is purty as expected.

    • PC-BSD does fill a niche; a BSD equivalent to something like Mandrake or Ubuntu. I love FreeBSD, but I can't imagine Joe Average being able to do all of the things necessary in order to actually use his shiny new FreeBSD desktop; he'll have to recompile his kernel to support his sound card and other devices, upgrade his ports, learn how to install X, and some other non-newbie friendly stuff.

      Enter PC-BSD. PC-BSD is pretty much a hybrid of FreeBSD and KDE. It has a graphical installer, a graphical interfa


      • After all that, I still don't see why it shouldn't be part of FreeBSD. It wouldn't be hard to make an additional menu item, which could be the default one that says 'Pretty, Shiny GUI Install'.

        One thing I LOVE about the BSD's is their ability to WORK TOGETHER instead of fragmenting like so many clusterbombs because one person doing one script happens to disagree with one other person.

        We don't need PC-BSD. What we need is for them to get their stuff together, and work with Free/Net/Open/Dragonfly BSD. C'mo
      • "he'll have to recompile his kernel to support his sound card"

        Actually, that hasn't been the case for quite some time. The sound driver (along with others) is a kernel-loadable module.

      • Why do we want Joe Average to be able to install FreeBSD? This argument started and ended with Linux some time ago - when Joe started to use Linux, some of the oldschool people raised their voices, but they were silenced real quick. OK, so let there be "user friendly" Linux distros (whatever that expression means, other than "not as good"). But FreeBSD? What's the world coming to?

  • personally... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I use Mandriva LInux 2005 (it got faster than past Mandrakes). I know BSD is a better system than Linux. It's development is more centralized, better tested, more secure. However, I installed FreeBSD and I got the X server running. I had to do EVERYTHING that Mandrake does for me. I had to load my sound card by editing loader.conf. I had to load my windows partitions by editing the fstab file. I had to tinker around with the Xorg.conf file to get my NVIDIA driver to run. And then, to top it off, my
    • All of those things you mention are intentional. BSD's don't actively try to go out and get users...they just create it and the users come. A certain kind of person in attracted to BSD.

    • Re:personally... (Score:2, Informative)

      by WushuJim ( 595318 )

      "and I couldn't figure out the damned Ports system"

      The ports system is what makes FreeBSD so easy to use. Install whatever you want with "pkg_add -r portname". How hard is that to figure out? The port is installed along with all its dependiencies.

      • The ports system is what makes FreeBSD so easy to use. Install whatever you want with "pkg_add -r portname". How hard is that to figure out? The port is installed along with all its dependiencies.

        ...Not quite. That is a really convenient way to download pre-compiled binaries that are available from the FTP package repository. Ports is still fairly easy-- locate the package you want in /usr/ports and then cd into that directory. Typing make install distclean will compile and install all the packages, as we

  • Firstly, not one BSD distro I've ever put to a machine has worked with the ethernet and dhcp right off the bat. Much fiddling and farking was required and accompanied by much cursing of my fellow geeks for still resisting ease of use as if making too much sense, such as it should work the first time as advertised, was an affront against nature.

    Secondly, whereas BSD makes itself as hard to use as possible seemingly on purpose (BSDM lifestyle and all), Linux does it through inane obfuscation and willful ig
    • Firstly, not one BSD distro I've ever put to a machine has worked with the ethernet and dhcp right off the bat.

      Unless you're using a proprietary wifi card, getting your network setup under FreeBSD is nearly effortless. I don't know what you're doing wrong, but doing it wrong you certainly are.

      There are certainly areas where FreeBSD is unsuited to the casual newbie exploring his alternatives, but setting up a network is not one of them. Unless of course you have a proprietary Windows-only uncontaminated-b

    • Firstly, not one BSD distro I've ever put to a machine has worked with the ethernet and dhcp right off the bat. Much fiddling and farking was required and accompanied by much cursing of my fellow geeks for still resisting ease of use as if making too much sense, such as it should work the first time as advertised, was an affront against nature.

      Hmmm...
      FreeBSD:
      rc.conf - ifconfig_if0="DHCP"
      NetBSD:
      ifconfig.if0 - !dhclient $int

      Not much fiddling and farking required, and it shouldn't be accompanied by muc


      • I think you're comparing oranges to apples.

        Kinda like saying "You know those semi trucks? Why the hell do they have 18 gears?! You DO realize that that is why the consumer will never want to drive one, right? I mean, who can operate a triple shifter system?!"

        Windows is where it is because it works well for the desktop. UNIX is where it is because its an incredibly stable, reliable server. The only people who use windows for their servers are Microsoft, or Windows-users-turned-admin.

        That said, I agree. Ev
    • I'm surprised that this has been your experience, troll. I've found that dhcp and ethernet typically work without any manual configuration. The only time I've had to do any manual changes was when I added a second network card. It didn't automatically add it for me, and I had to load the module myself.

      There are a lot of benefits to FreeBSD and other BSDs, but ease of setting up isn't one of them. But the only hardware I really have had trouble with was sound cards and ACPI. Video cards were about the

  • YABSD (Score:2)

    by mnmn ( 145599 )
    I have a little network card that isnt supported in other BSDs. So I'll fork the entire BSD OS, and put my card's driver into it.

    Maybe Linus should fork the kernel, to have a special kernel just to run his new bitkeeper replacement.

    A brand new OS sounds great, both for a kid developer, and for a major country like China. But really what they do is copy over most of the (free) code and rebrand it, adding their few improvements. Ideally people would release their packages as projects under sourceforge or so

  • I disagree with making things "easy" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by devphaeton ( 695736 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @01:37PM (#12362124)
    First off, a disclaimer:

    All the Linux/OSX/Windows users will pull the "stodgy bsd user/you just want to seem l337" card. FWIW i've used fbsd for 1 year, linux for 7, windows for 3 and OSX for 2, and my opinion has been the same forever.

    Just as someone noted early on, we need to make smarter users, not dumber computers. "Dumbing down" an OS, program or anything doesn't really make it more simple. It's just a facade over the real complexity underneath.

    What's more, the user outgrows this crutch quickly, and then all the "simplification" stuff gets in their way from there on out.

    Secondly, we don't need to introduce non-geeky people to geek-oriented OSes. They won't really get anything out of it, no differently than geeky people won't get anything out of a "user-friendly" os such as MacOS9 or Windows95.
    Yeah, i know that there is OSX, which is claiming to "bridge the gap", but 99% of Mac users are actually using Aqua and all it's iStuff, not puttering around the underlying *BSD bits. Some folks here will pipe up and say they spend loads of time in the guts, sure, but this is the BSD section on /. The rest of the Mac world is different.

    Thirdly, if something great comes of this, well... great. More power to them. But watch for the OSX zealots* to cry foul and say "It's just another PC-Folks ripping of the Mac-Folks thing" and "Copycat OSX/BSD for the PC!" and stuff.

    Fourthly, though i will say that BSD is a much better foundation that Linux (for a lot of reasons) to base an OS on, I don't expect it to reach wide popularity, no differently than some of the more "user friendly" Linux distros (Lycoris, Lindows, et al).

    * by "zealots", i mean the loud, vocal segment of Mac users that Just Don't Get It(tm), not ALL Mac users.
  • So, if I get this straight, this is just FreeBSD with a graphical installer that also installs some GUI apps when it's done to save you time? Good, good. Let's turn *BSD into Linux; let's create a million pretty much identical BSDs.

    I'm not trying to insult its developers or goals or anything. It's just that, as pointed out in earlier comments, each BSD should have its own, distinct, goals (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD). PC-BSD doesn't fit in.
    • Well, technically it does. Its goal is to be more like many Linux distros in terms of ease of install for newbies. That's its goal, and no other BSD bothers with that (and if you talk to the devs, they will all agree that it's useless effort diverted away from the real tasks for the real users that actually /need/ a BSD).

      If they are just re-packaing FreeBSD's latest (-STABLE) -RELEASE with their own toolkit/installer and the latest packages, then they're doing a lot with a little effort and duplication, w

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