Introducing VirtualBSD

[karunko]

Okay, I'm probably preaching to the converted here, but I wanted to let you know that I created a VMware appliance with a desktop oriented FreeBSD 7.1 RELEASE.

The main difference to, say, PC-BSD or DesktopBSD is that this one is based on XFCE 4 and, thanks to wbar, it looks a bit like Mac OS X -- love it or hate it, it plays and looks good! :e

As I said, this is a desktop oriented offering, so a few of the "usual suspects" are the latest versions of Firefox 3, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org 3, VLC, Pidgin, Skype, Xchat, Gimp, Transmission, etc.

In case you'd like to give it a try (and have at least VMware Player available) you can donwload the torrent from here: http://www.mininova.org/tor/2209696

Be patient though, there aren't that many seeders at the moment! ;)



Karunko

[dclau]

Not a huge fan of VMware appliances myself, but others are. You definitely need something: seeders (only 2 ATM), so i will seed this for a couple of weeks.

[karunko]

Okay, I'm probably preaching to the converted here, but I wanted to let you know that I created a VMware appliance with a desktop oriented FreeBSD 7.1 RELEASE.

Since there seems to be at least a bit of interest around it, VirtualBSD has its own official web site now: http://www.virtualbsd.info.



Reece

[dclau]

Nice project page. Still seeding :)

[karunko]

Nice project page. Still seeding :)

Thanks a lot, but since the usual open trackers have been acting up a bit lately, we have decided to run our own.

Please, visit the download page at your earliest convenience and use the up to date torrent for seeding.



Cheers,

Reece

[alie]

WOW. i like the desktop.. anyone know how to build that dekstop ? what kind of WM is it ?

[alie]

its XFCE4. just got the news from distrowatch(http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090223#news)

[karunko]

Yes, it's Xfce 4. To get a desktop like that you drop the bottom panel, add "wbar" from the ports and set it up to start as soon as the desktop has been loaded.

Unless you want to edit its configuration file manually you will also need "wbarconf" which, for some reason, it's not in the ports (but see http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php/wbarconf). It's a python script relying on py25-gtk (and couple of its dependencies) -- run it once and it will complain about whatever is still missing in your box.



Hope this helps,

Reece

[lme@]

VirtualBSD made it to a major German IT News site:
http://www.golem.de/0903/65832.html

Congrats :)

[Djn]

Even better/worse, it has been noted by slashdot (http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/10/1250230).

[karunko]

Even better/worse, it has been noted by slashdot (http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/10/1250230).

And our site even survided the Slashdot Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SlashDot_Effect)! :e

Thanks everyone for your support and the (mostly) kind words.

And last but not least, a big Thank You to the FreeBSD Team and all the people writing the software we've come to know and love!



Reece

[meeb]

seeding...

[cpcnw]

Do you think this will ever make it as a .iso for installing to hard disc?

[karunko]

We don't know yet, but in my opinion that would flatly contradict the "virtual" in VirtualBSD -- not to mention it would mean facing the usual problems like detecting/supporting hardware, PLUS being in in direct competition with PC-BSD and DesktopBSD.

Still, if you consider that this started as a little experiment with no web site and just a torrent file that you could grab from sites like Mininova, and then gained enough traction to make it to Slashdot and OSnews (and many more as a consequence) it could be said that it's too early to give a definite answer! ;)



Reece

[RicTic]

Just a couple of issues:

1. Seems that when I start the virtualBSD it kicks off with Twm, and not the advertised Cupertino-like WM
2. sending an email to feedback@virtualbsd.info bounced, at least as far as gmail was concerned

Regards

[karunko]

1) Logging in as virtualbsd, root, or? Virtualbsd gets a customized Xfce desktop, while root gets twm for both technical and philosophical reasons -- unless you change that.

2) Mail, on the other hand, seems to be working fine. Just sent a test message and it went through without problems.

Please, post either here or to feedback@virtualbsd.info if you need any assistance!


Reece

[viniosity]

I'm running this through VirtualBox 2.1 and am having trouble getting a normal xorg video size. I'd be happy with just a normal 1024x768 for now but the current desktop is so huge that I can only see a fraction of it on my 1280x800 lcd. Any tips?

[karunko]

I don't know if you did any modifications yet but, in case you haven't, take a look at /etc/X11: there should be a file called ReadmeVirtualBox.txt and a plain xorg.conf called xorg.conf.BeforeVMwareToolsInstall.

But these are the complete step by step instructions (as root, password root4u):

1) Stop the VMware tools:

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/vmware-tools.sh stop

2) Remove them:

/usr/local/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

This should also rename xorg.conf.BeforeVMwareToolsInstall to xorg.conf: verify that the video driver is set to "vesa", mouse is set to "mouse" and there are no video Modes listed at the bottom of the file. You can try to either remove them or set them to something you like, but we aware that the vesa driver only supports a few (if you remove them the driver will try to do the best it can).

3) Audio (once audio has been enabled in VirtualBox and ICH AC97 selected):

check the notes in /boot/loader.conf

4) Network should work as is (if you selected Intel/PRO 1000 in VirtualBox);

5) Reboot

That should be all, good luck! ;)


Reece

PS: Unfortunately FreeBSD is still not a fully supported guest OS in VirtualBOX and there are no guest additions for it.

[SeanC]

I'm running this through VirtualBox 2.1 and am having trouble getting a normal xorg video size. I'd be happy with just a normal 1024x768 for now but the current desktop is so huge that I can only see a fraction of it on my 1280x800 lcd. Any tips?

In virtualbox, you can run Xorg -configure to generate xorg.conf.new file. It will not correctly detect the display (screen will go black and you can't kill X), but you can modify the generated xorg.conf.new file to say:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection


Then cp xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf and see how it looks when you switch to fullscreen mode.

[oarion7]

In virtualbox, you can run Xorg -configure to generate xorg.conf.new file. It will not correctly detect the display (screen will go black and you can't kill X), but you can modify the generated xorg.conf.new file to say:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection


Then cp xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf and see how it looks when you switch to fullscreen mode.

I'm running FreeBSD 7.1 inside Virtual Box 3.0 and this appears to have worked so far for me (with minor glitches). Everything runs fine except when I load a few apps inside the x environment (using xfce4) there's a distortion of colored lines and image of the window on the left is repeated on the right of the window. A head start at the very least, I might try playing with the screen depth. Thanks!

[SeanC]

distortion of colored lines and image of the window on the left is repeated on the right of the window.

It might just be out of sync. This xorg.conf works fine with 7.2 and VB 2.2:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/OTF"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "dri"
Load "dri2"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
HorizSync 31-80
VertRefresh 30-100
EndSection

Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "DefaultRefresh" # [<bool>]
#Option "ModeSetClearScreen" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "vesa"
VendorName "InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH"
BoardName "VirtualBox Graphics Adapter"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection


Note the red.