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During the past week, FreeBSD has hit its 9.0 release and PC-BSD followed soon after with its FreeBSD-based 9.0 release.
FreeBSD takes the tried and tested method of having a text-based installer. Although this release contained a new installer called bsdinstall, it is very similar to the older sysinstall process.
This will be the only time I will say that I prefer the FreeBSD install to the PC-BSD installer, but ASCII art Beastie is a winner over PC-BSD's boot screen that follows.Screenshots: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
Captions: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
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PC-BSD boot loader
The lack of ASCII art makes the PC-BSD installation media boot loader much less interesting. But this is remedied once the installation is complete.
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FreeBSD installer welcome
Welcome to the FreeBSD text installer. I hope blue is a thing for you, because you are about to see a lot of it.
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PC-BSD installer welcome
By contrast, the PC-BSD installer shows a beautiful X-based process. This is still BSD, but not as you remember it.
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PC-BSD or FreeBSD?
Here's an added bonus from PC-BSD. Since it is FreeBSD based, there is no trouble to installing FreeBSD server from the same installation media.
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This is how FreeBSD displays which distribution components to install.
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By contrast, PC-BSD presents it in a better manner (oddly reminiscent of old Linux installers) and provides much more software to install. Installing an X server and desktop environment must be completed post-installation with FreeBSD.
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It's blue, again.
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PC-BSD allows a selection of ZFS filesystem.
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FreeBSD allows a selection of which services to start from within the installer.
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PC-BSD moves user creation into the installer, and it's not bad except for the fact that the installer demands a Full Name of the user.
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Text installer or not, watching a progress bar slowly tick over is boring in anyone's language.
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Despite the pretty colours, watching a graphical progress bar is equally boring.
During the past week, FreeBSD has hit its 9.0 release and PC-BSD followed soon after with its FreeBSD-based 9.0 release.
FreeBSD takes the tried and tested method of having a text-based installer. Although this release contained a new installer called bsdinstall, it is very similar to the older sysinstall process.
This will be the only time I will say that I prefer the FreeBSD install to the PC-BSD installer, but ASCII art Beastie is a winner over PC-BSD's boot screen that follows.
Screenshots: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
Captions: Chris Duckett/TechRepublic
By Chris Duckett
Some would say that it is a long way from software engineering to journalism, others would correctly argue that it is a mere 10 metres according to the floor plan. During his first five years with CBS Interactive, Chris started his journalistic adven...