Tuesday, January 06, 2009

PC-BSD 7.0.2

I'm not easily embarassed, but I should have looked around the FreeBSD Site a little more before my last post. I was so thrilled to see changes in FreeBSD 7.0 that would help me to finally get my MySQL server set up "right," that I completely overlooked PC-BSD. I assumed that it was yet another branch in the BSD code tree, and that since it was new, it couldn't amount to much yet. Wrong!

One of the biggest challenges in building a *NIX network is to get all the component programs and their dependencies sorted out to build a useable desktop environment. This is one area where Linux distros have outpaced the BSDs. PC-BSD, it turns out is not a new BSD branch, but simply a distribution of the current STABLE FreeBSD release.

The distro includes a selection of software packages and its own PBI (Push-Button Installer) utility. Together, these constitute a desktop operating system that is easy to install and use, while preserving FreeBSD's full range of configuration options "under the hood." I'm juggling boxes now to get something Pentium Threeish to test this on!

For more information see The PC-BSD Quick Start Guide.

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