Raiden's Realm: Review: DesktopBSD 1.6

DesktopBSD, a derivative of Freebsd designed for desktop use, has come a long way since its early inception back in late 2005. Originally created as a way to bring the power of Freebsd as a desktop OS to new users, it has now blossomed into a desktop experience even the most hardened geek, or greenest novice can love. Back in April of last year we reviewed version 1.3 and gave it great marks overall, but with some need for improvement. So how does version 1.6 stack up against its predecessor? Has it improved any? Let's find out.

One of the first and most noticeable changes in version 1.6 is that it now contains a LiveCD option. While I wouldn't consider this to be a typical livecd, it certainly stacks up well against the large collection of other livecd's out there. Initially you're greeted with the standard Freebsd boot screen and bootup sequence. The first part of the livecd session starts out with a semi-graphical welcome screen that is keyboard driven. After hitting return, you're taken into a graphical setup screen. If the setup can't detect your monitor's settings automatically, you may have an additional screen you have to click through here. That's not a big thing, as you just hit enter to continue. After this is done, you're asked a few questions about where you live so that DesktopBSD can properly tailor itself to your specific language and keyboard needs.

Upon loading the desktop, you're greeted with a fairly snappy, yet light weight desktop that has everything the fully installed system will have, but in a livecd environment. So you can use it to easily test out the entire desktop before committing to a full installation. The only real difference between the livecd and the installed system is a marked speed improvement in the installed system. Hardware detection is very good this time around, as it detected all of my hardware and installed the proper drivers for it without question. Everything was detected perfectly and I found no issues with any drivers in the system whatsoever.

Now on the subject of drivers, if you're a Linux or BSD purist, you might have some issues with the new version of DesktopBSD, as it uses proprietary drivers when and where necessary. If you want to, you can always switch them to a different driver later on. But really I don't see a need to as the proprietary drivers did very well overall, so there's no need to replace them. At this point, if you're happy with what you see and want to install DesktopBSD, there's a convenient and easy to use graphical installer available right on the desktop. Just double click it and away you go!

Now that we've taken a tour around the live environment, let's look at the actual installed system and see what it's like.

There are two ways to get to the installer in version 1.6. You can either do it from the desktop of the livecd session, or right from the post boot menu where it asks if you want to load into the livecd or install DesktopBSD. The installation is very quick and painless overall. There is really only a handful of questions it asks, all of which are new user friendly, so even a relative novice could install the system. Overall during the install you're greeted with a pretty straight forward install. There are few chances for you to choose any customizations, which is good. The idea is to be simple, straight forward and quick. Just pick your preferred language, verify your hardware, choose your installation method (ie, fresh install or upgrade/recovery), where you want to install it, the boot loader (this may seem like a show stopper for new users, but it's setup to be a no brainer), partion the disk (again, this is setup to be dead easy), wait for the files to copy and then reboot. It's just that easy.

The nice part about the included upgrade/recovery option is that if you have a previous version of DesktopBSD, the installer will make upgrading very easy for you. Same thing is true if you happen to spork the system to the point where it's either unusable or unbootable. Just pop the install disk in, run the setup, recover the system, and you're on your way. Setup only takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete. It may take as much as 45 minutes on very slow machines. The only thing you'll have to do after setup is answer a few questions, setup your users, and you're done. As you can see so far, the whole theme here is ease of use. Everything is setup to be as simple and friendly to the end user as possible.

After reboot, the last thing you'll be required to do is answer a couple last questions, setup users and the root password, and you're done. That's it. From there you just login and enjoy your new OS. Now, let's move on and get a look at what the installed system is like.

The time it takes from bootup to the login screen is very good. About 15 to 20 seconds, 40 tops, depending on your system specs. My system specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+
1gb PC2700
Generic DVDrom
Generic CDrom
40gb HD
Nvidia GeForce 6200
Logitech G7 Wireless Mouse
AOC 17" CRT monitor
Onboard VT8235 AC97 sound card
Realtek nic card

Once you login, you're greeted with a bright red full screen loading window. You feel a bit like a bull in an arena when that's up there, but it goes away after a few moments. Once you're through that, you're greeted with a desktop that's easy on the eyes and quick to navigate. The typical seven icons are on the desktop just like before, including the software installation system and documentation icons. I'm pleased that the software icon is there to make it easy for new users to find it and install software, however, to make it even easier on new users, I suggestion a name change for the icon from just "software" to "install software." I know that's a bit nitpicky, but I'm looking at this with the new user in mind, and what might seem nitpicky for an old pro will be an important feature for a new user.

The KDE menu, the desktop and the panel overall are just as clean and good looking as they were before. And if I must say, I think that they're actually quite a bit better than before. Mostly likely due to a slightly improved icon and color scheme. And I'm not just glorifying the look because I'm a KDE or a Freebsd fan. If anything, I'm more critical of them because I am a fan than I would be if I wasn't. But the developers of DesktopBSD made some good choices here.

Now, moving on to installing software, I found that the software system takes a little bit of time during the first use for it to get on its feet. Since it uses the ports system for Freebsd to do all its work, there's some updating and patching that needs to happen , plus the updating of the ports tree before it can begin its work for the first time. While this will be a bit of a test in patience while it's updating, once it's done, you shouldn't see any long delays like this in the future unless you leave the software system untouched for an excessively long period of time.

Once all the first time updates are done, you're greeted by the new and improved "DesktopBSD Package Manager", a reskinned and revamped version of portsnap. Overall I like it better than the older software installation system they had. Adding ports was a lot smoother and certainly not as painful as the old system. This one seems to get around some of the quirks in the Freebsd ports system quite effectively. That's not to say you still don't need to do a complete system update before proceeding with the installation of any new software, but it does overall make doing those software installs easier and quicker. Do note that when you do this update, the ports system will need to spend several minutes on an initial update. This is normal, so don't panic. It'll only happen once. I did a test install of two programs (tuxracer and supertux) to test out the install system. Overall, progress was pretty quick and the software installed without a hitch.

Getting back to KDE, DesktopBSD ships with KDE 3.5.8, the latest version of the KDE 3.5.x branch. As expected, and just like before, the KDE control center is spotless, untouched, and nearly pristine. I like that. I'm glad that the developers once again left it untouched for the most part. Again, obviously there's a few DesktopBSD specific tweaks to it, but those are understandable. Otherwise, it's the same control panel you'd expect to get in a generic install of KDE. The system itself comes with a wide selection of included applications, more than what was available in its 1.3 version. There's a large number of very popular applications, such as Firefox, Thunderbird, Amarok, VLC, OpenOffice 2.3 (sorry, no Koffice), and a vast selection of KDE applications to help you do whatever you need.

Configuring and adding hardware also is surprisingly easy. Wireless works without a hitch, and pluggable media, such as pen drives and hard drives work right out of the box. Network file sharing is also plug and play, thanks to Konqueror. Printing is sill a bit of a challenge, but that's mostly the fault of cups than of DesktopBSD. Setting it up though is easy. Getting it to work however takes some patience and a lot of reading. But that's been my experience in pretty much any distro, unless the printer comes with special plug and play drivers or a customized setup designed specifically for Linux or BSD.

Multimedia support is good, but could be better. DVD's are unplayable, but everything else works fine. The selection of system maintenance tools is also worth mentioning this time around, as they're quite respectable, including the likes of Firelight, a tool for tracking hard drive usage. Also, as I mentioned before, the icon scheme is a very well chosen one. Overall, I love the whole system the way it is. Now that's not to say it's without problems, but most will seem like nitpicking. For one, there's once again too many startup apps. They don't really impact performance, but most are applications I won't use or have no use for. Also, the desktop pager should be on the left next to the quick launch icons, not on the far right. But as I said, these are nitpicky things that are more preference than anything.

So how do I rate DesktopBSD 1.6? I'd say it's a lot better than previous versions. It strikes just the right balance between being friendly to the new user, and yet powerful and geek enough to satisfy the more seasoned user. The developers did a good job this time around and I think they should pat themselves on the back. There's still room for improvement, but isn't that true with any distro? But it's not improvements to make it good, or even great. It's already great. The next step up will be to make it exceptional. A hard rung to climb, but not if you're determined to be the best there is out there, and DesktopBSD is easily on its way towards that goal!