PCBSD is one of the first distributions that has taken a different path when it released its user friendly distribution by choosing to base itself on FreeBSD instead of Linux.

BSD is well known amongst server users and advanced users, but PCBSD decided to make it an option for its user-friendly distribution. PC-BSD 7 is based on the recently released FreeBSD 7 stable and for its desktop environment, KDE 4.1.1 was chosen. PCBSD, unlike most major linux distributions is only available in 32 bit mode giving 64 bit users something to want.

Installation of PCBSD is quite simple and straight forward with its sleek installer guide, it makes it simple to dual boot and also understand how to set it up. After a few clicks and creating an administrator password, you are practically set to use PCBSD. Installation times will vary depending on your computer specs, but overall it was quite speedy.

The desktop itself is quite sleek with a nice desktop image with a few links on how to use PCBSD as well as one to download and install programs. What makes PCBSD friendly is that they have developped a package (software) manager that basically works in the following way: You go to their special website to install software and once you select the program you want it downloads the PBI file and installs the software for you after the admin password is put. These PBI files are special packages that makes installing simple without the headaches that traditional installation of programs require in Linux.

PCBSD by default comes with quite a few programs already installed and ready to use, but additional programs can be easily installed by downloading the packages you want. There are lots of utilities installed by default to help configure your PCBSD installation as well as some games if you feel like wasting some time. PCBSD does come with some pre-installed drivers for most wifi chipsets, but as with more wireless network cards and Linux/BSD it might be necessary to use NDISwrapper to get wireless to work.

For those who need support for any issues with PCBSD, their homepage has a support forum where users can join and post questions for anything from installation to troubleshooting hardware.

Conclusion

PCBSD is a nice distribution for new users to the "alternative" operating systems as it is pointed towards new users, but advance users would not be disappointed. It is nice to see that PCBSD is progressing nicely, but there is still that issue of no 64 bit support as they have done it once in the past but strictly release their distribution for 32bit support only.

Their package management system (PBI) was a nice feature when PCBSD first came out and we see that more Linux distributions go towards a similar method. Linspire had its Click-N-Run technology and OpenSuse also has a similar software package management where you can go to their site and download software to install with a few clicks. Each package gets thoroughly tested from members of PCBSD to ensure there is no issues with installing the program but there is a drawback that it does take a while to get programs to be updated. As of this writing VLC, a multimedia player, is at version 0.8.6 while VLC is currently at 0.92 version. As this is mostly community based, it might take a while to see updated software programs.

As for the software that came pre-installed after installation is completed, there was a bit lacking to my tastes. There was no office suite installed and it would have been nice to see one already installed whether it is KOffice as KMail and Konqueror are the default mail and internet clients installed or OpenOffice.

More Information

Homepage: PCBSD

Download: PCBSD 7

Screenshots: Click Here