PC-BSD, a derivative of FreeBSD designed for desktop use, is a rather unusual animal in a field of few rivals.  In the bsd world that is.  But just because PC-BSD is one player in a small field doesn’t mean it’s that way because it’s better.  So what makes PC-BSD stand out from all the others in this tough, narrow field.  Or even among the hundreds of Linux distributions it has to compete against outside its own little playing field?  Well let’s look at it and see what it has to offer.

Being a very strong fan of FreeBSD, I always wanted to use it as a workstation, and thus learned how to build a workstation from the ground up using just a basic FreeBSD install.  I’ve installed KDE and Xorg, tweaking it to run smooth, and taking it in directions the original developers never intended, all by hand.  It ultimately proved to be one of the better distributions for use as a workstation out there.  Designed originally for use in servers, FreeBSD has proven it can also be a good desktop OS as well.  But just how good?  Actually, quite good.  But most people don’t want to take the extra time and effort to build their own workstation from scratch like I did and find out for themselves.  Hence, this is where PC-BSD comes into play.

Just like its sister desktop distribution, DesktopBSD, PC-BSD stands out with its ease of use, ease of install, and good stability.  PC-BSD 1.4 comes on two disks, one for the OS, and one for additional applications.  What this does is it allows you to choose if you want just the basic desktop install, or if you want to add any additional applications.  A simple way to allow you to have the desktop your way.

The install for PC-BSD is fairly simple.  Just stick the disk in, answer a couple quick, and simple questions, and you’re on your way.  Since PC-BSD uses grub to do its boot management (and installs it by default), I decided to try setting up a duel boot scenario with Windows XP and PC-BSD.  Not only did it work, but the setup was utterly painless.  Just install XP first, then follow it up with PC-BSD, and you’re golden.  It was actually quite a bit easier than doing it by hand.

The first install CD boots into a simple graphical install interface that allows you to pick your language, keyboard layout and time.  You can also choose to participate in an anonymous online usage survey via bsdstats.org (ie, you’re helping the BSD guys track how many users are using any of several different BSD distributions.)  You can also synchronize your clock to any of several time servers on the net.

After choosing how you want to do your install, setting up the root password (a password of at least 4 characters is required) and adding at least one user, choosing the drive and partition you want to install to, and what extra components you want to add (firefox, etc), you’re ready to go.  Installation takes about 30 minutes to complete and will require you to change disks in the middle to add the needed applications.  That’s it.  It’s just that simple.  And if you’re ever lost, the quick tips at the bottom of the page will give you whatever information you need to continue.  Also, another thing to note.  When setting up user accounts, you can either have PC-BSD require a user/pass for everyone, or you can have it log on one particular user automatically at boot.  Since this tends to be a bit of a security risk, I always recommend having it ask you for your login info at boot.  There’s also options for any power users who want to tinker with what the install does.

I did several test installs, including one with the dual booting option using grub, and PC-BSD never had a glitch, hitch, or hiccup.  Those didn’t come till later.  Once PC-BSD had booted for the first time I was greeted with a screen asking me how I wanted to setup Xorg for the first time.  Now don’t panic.  It’s a graphical configuration tool that works really well.  I tinkered with several different settings, including the newer and older Nvidia driver, and even the default Xorg NV driver.  After some testing, which this configuration tool allows you to do, I went with the newer Nvidia driver.  However, it didn’t perform for me and gave me fits.  Eventually during my testing I went back to the NV driver and not only did it fix my screen resolution issues (it wouldn’t go to the right refresh rate and got stuck at 1024x768 and at times would send my monitor out of sync), but it also solved the crashes and lockups I was having.

In general the system was very stable and ran very well.  Aside from issues with the proprietary Nvidia driver (This is why proprietary stuff is bad on Linux or BSD.  It’s never well designed and tends to be flaky.), it ran without a hitch.  But that’s not to say that the system was without complaint.  

One complaint I do have is that the menu icons were too big.  It made the Kmenu suck up far too much screen real estate, even going so far as to cause the menu to double over.  Not a good thing.  I believe that the icons in the Kmenu need to be adjusted so that they automatically size up or down based on your choice in resolution so that they’re never too large and in the way.  Or at least provide a way to allow the user to choose a smaller size if they want to.

Now, on the subject of the Kmenu, I feel it was well laid out, and kept fairly true to what a true Kmenu looks like, including having the developer tools available if you wanted them.  Most of your favorite Kapps are there as well as any of the extras you added during installation.  But if what you added wasn’t enough, then PC-BSD includes a simple installer system based on PBI’s.  That’s short for “PC-BSD Installer”.   If you’ve ever installed an application in Windows, you’d easily remember the way that the windows installers worked.  Well, it works the same here on PC-BSD.  Just double click a PBI, answer two or three questions, and you’re done.  That’s it.

I found the PBI’s to actually be easier to use, and light years better than any Windows Installer based application, or even the famed “Mint Install” that comes with Linux Mint.  (for those who remember that I couldn’t find the Mint Installer during my previous review of Linux Mint, I did finally find it and I still say PBI’s are better)  To get the PBI installers for any of a variety of applications, you just need to go to the desktop and double click on the “Download PBI’s” icon.  From there you can begin browsing a very diversified directory of ready to use PBI’s for a variety of programs, games, drivers and other things you may need.

Of course, if you can’t find something via the online PBI system, you can always install some applications off the software disk, install from ports, or install packages via PKG_ADD.  So the options you have for installing applications is quite varied and it provides you with a lot of choices on what you can and may want to install.  So the full power of FreeBSD is fully available to you at any time.  It just depends on how far you want to dive down the rabbit hole.  

One criticism I do have of the desktop link to the online PBI repository is that while I give the developers credit for putting the link to the PBI’s on the desktop, labeling it “Download PBI’s” is a bit misleading.  If someone doesn’t know what a PBI is, they won’t know to click on that link in order to get the PBI’s they need to install the software they want.  On the flipside however, there’s also a second link on the desktop to the PC-BSD website, from which you can easily and quickly jump off into the PC-BSD forums for a little extra help.  There’s even an included quick guide to help get you up to speed on using the OS.  So there is quick and easy access to help if you ever need it.

Application load times were very good and overall I found performance to be very good.  It’s not quite letter perfect in how it does everything, but it makes a good effort at what it does.  Even Open Office loaded well.  Of course, if you don’t want Open Office, Koffice can be installed instead.

Multimedia support was acceptable.  When loading an audio cd into the computer, I was correctly prompted on what to do with it.  When telling it to play the cd, Amarok came up and gave me options for playing it.  DVD’s were picked up the same way and gave me the same options of rip, copy, open in new window, and play as before.  Only this time, the play option pointed over to Kaffeine, a multimedia player that I don’t feel is completely ready for primetime.  But none the less, that can easily be changed to your favorite dvd player software if you like.  Kaffeine worked, but it took a long time for it to get going, and had issues between screens and chapters, so changing to a different dvd player software may be advisable.

Wireless worked fairly well overall, although I had a few issues that required me to hard reboot in order to get going again.  Aside from those few glitches, which I’m still not sure what caused them, wireless worked fine.  USB devices also seemed to work well too.  I was really pleased with how quickly and easily I could plug in and automatically mount an external drive, and immediately begin using it.

Overall though, I like the look and feel of PC-BSD.  It’s comfortable, easy to settle into, and you can begin working with it right away with little, if any huss or fuss.  PC-BSD, despite the couple of flaws I found with it, easily makes it onto my new user distribution short list.  With a little more polish, and maybe some better support by driver OEM’s (*cough*  That includes you Nvidia), I think that PC-BSD could even supplant PcLinuxOS as my number one favorite distribution.  It’s certainly cemented itself a spot in my recommended distributions top three.

If you'd like to download and try PC-BSD, just click here to go to their download page.