Annoucing VirtualBSD 8.1

karunko · Dec 28, 2010

First off, apologies for the intrusion but we have news good and bad. And yes, I know I'm preaching to the choir here... ;-)

Good news first: it's been a long time coming but VirtualBSD 8.1 is out! Bad news: if you didn't like it back then, you're probably not going to like it now.

Don't get us wrong, in addition to the obvious upgrade and the most recent updates we've been trying to improve it as much as we could, but the main problem still stands: updating or adding software is still not as straightforward as we'd like and, by its very nature, VirtualBSD is still confined in a virtual machine.

That said, we think this version is better in just about every respect, so come take a look at http://www.virtualbsd.info or jump straight to http://www.virtualbsd.info/download.html to get the torrent -- but be patient, we're just getting started.

Thank you for time,

Reece Tarbert

PS: We'd really appreciate every bit of bandwidth that you could spare, so please keep seeding!

vermaden · Dec 28, 2010

Looks like 'wannabe mac' desktop.

graudeejs · Dec 28, 2010

I think Minimize,Maximize and Close buttons at upper left corner is very bad Idea.
Most users (especially if they come from Windows) are used to have these buttons at upper right corner.

I was cursing ubuntu (and I do that still), when they switched corners.

da1 · Dec 28, 2010

I hope it doesn't crash like the Mac

)

vermaden · Dec 28, 2010

killasmurf86 said:
Most users (especially if they come from Windows) are used to have these buttons at upper right corner.

So You are discriminating people who came from mac world then?

da1 said:
I hope it doesn't crash like the Mac )

I have used Macbook Pro for about a year and I got uptimes at about 120+ days (I did not needed to turn it off) all applications running with Opera (often 80+ tabs) and several VirtualBox machines, seems I was lucky ... ;p

karunko · Dec 28, 2010

vermaden said:
Looks like 'wannabe mac' desktop.

Yes, that's the basic idea -- in the event it wasn't obvious enough.

You know, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" and all that... :e

RT.

karunko · Dec 28, 2010

killasmurf86 said:
I think Minimize,Maximize and Close buttons at upper left corner is very bad Idea.
Most users (especially if they come from Windows) are used to have these buttons at upper right corner.

We wanted to have a 'wannabe mac' desktop, so the choice was more or less made for us.

Whether this is a good/neutral/bad choice is a different issue altogether but, in my opinion, when it comes to personal preferences there's no right or wrong -- especially since we're discussing user interfaces! :e

Reece

vermaden · Dec 28, 2010

karunko said:
Yes, that's the basic idea -- in the event it wasn't obvious enough.

You know, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" and all that... :e

So Your intention of making that look somehow like Mac OS X is to indorse Mac? What for? There are plenty of better GTK styles then these imitating Cocoa.

da1 · Dec 28, 2010

vermaden said:
So Your intention of making that look somehow like Mac OS X is to indorse Mac? What for? There are plenty of better GTK styles then these imitating Cocoa.

Maybe, but the Mac is known

and many ppl are buying them simply because ... it's a Mac. And maybe you were lucky but I was not that lucky trying to use the Nikon Transfer (cr)app. Firefox was crashing like hell and so on ....

LE: for some reason, I cannot download the torrent.

rbelk · Dec 28, 2010

Is this a 64 or 32 bit VM?

da1 · Dec 29, 2010

32 bit.

phoenix · Dec 29, 2010

A bit of a description of what this is, the intended uses, etc would be nice. Judging by the name, I'm guessing it's a pre-built VM using FreeBSD 8.1 with a bunch of software pre-installed and pre-configured. Other than that ... complete blank.

da1 · Dec 29, 2010

karunko said:
We wanted to have a 'wannabe mac' desktop

Wouldn't the following work better then:
1) Use some bootsplash.
1) Use only the xfce4 icon instead of the icon+description in the taskbar.
2) Change the default theme to something more slick (more mac style).

One last question: Where do you hope to go with this project ? What's it's purpose ? If you only want to have a mac interface, why not simply create it and add and maintain it in the ports collection ?

Don't get me the wrong way, I'm not trying to judge you or anything but personally I don;t like the idea of having 2 million FreeBSD "flavors". I prefer 1 OS and having the liberty of choosing what I want from it. We already have numerous dead FreeBSd "flavors" (desktopBSD for one) and it just looks like a whole bunch of ideas gone down the drain simply because there is no centralized idea/plan. What I would like to see from this project is a virtual environment to resemble the MAC (like lxde for instance - similar to windows and easy to use). PC-BSD is all about GUI and ease of use and so on; I would really like to have the possibility of installing xfce with a MAC design to it for instance.

My 2c.

graudeejs · Dec 29, 2010

Like this one?
http://www.fvwmforums.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=2028

da1 · Dec 29, 2010

Yeah, smurf, like that one. Looks awfully good; would be nice to have it for xfce.

I'm not a X user so no wonder I didn't know about it

karunko · Dec 29, 2010

phoenix said:
A bit of a description of what this is, the intended uses, etc would be nice. Judging by the name, I'm guessing it's a pre-built VM using FreeBSD 8.1 with a bunch of software pre-installed and pre-configured. Other than that ... complete blank.

You're spot on. And I stand corrected and apologize. Since we went through this before (early 2009 with FreeBSD 7.1, in fact) I assumed VirtualBSD was more or less a know entity -- at least around here -- and yes, I was wrong.

Here's the part I omitted, straight from the top of our home page:

VirtualBSD is a desktop ready FreeBSD 8.1 RELEASE, in the form of a VMware appliance, based on the Xfce 4.6 Desktop Environment. Many of the most common and useful applications are ready to run, and the desktop has been styled to resemble a certain OS from Cupertino.

Regards,

Reece Tarbert

karunko · Dec 29, 2010

da1 said:
One last question: Where do you hope to go with this project?

It's not really a project as such, but rather an expriment that proved moderately successful with the previous (and only) release in early 2009.

da1 said:
What's it's purpose?

Again from the home page:

VirtualBSD is clearly aimed at people with VMware Player (or better) who:

1) Have never tried FreeBSD so far;

2) Wanted to, but didn't have the right hardware;

3) Used FreeBSD in the past, but have since moved to a different OS and are struck by nostalgia from time to time;

In this respect, it could be argued that "preaching to the choir" is not the best was to go about it, but what I really was hoping for was some support from the community with the seeding of the torrent.

da1 said:
I don't like the idea of having 2 million FreeBSD "flavors".

No problem here. VirtualBSD 8.1 is 100% FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE and nothing that could not be done by anyone else with a modicum of knowledge and some time -- possibly better, judging by the suggestions/criticism I'm receving.

Regards,

Reece Tarbert

graudeejs · Dec 29, 2010

Frankly I like the idea of ready to use FreeBSD on VM.

phoenix · Dec 29, 2010

Ah, nice. VM Appliances are nice for testing things, trying things, etc, without affecting the host OS. I use them now and again when I want to play with a specific app without going through the hassle of installing/configuring it myself. Once I determine the app is useful, then I'll try it on a bare VM and do all the installing/configuring. And then move to bare metal later on.

Nothing wrong with that.

Especially when it uses plain FreeBSD underneath.