Linuxman's Ratings Guide
Required User Level: Beginner
Installation: Fully graphical with easy to understand menus and good default choices.
Support: Excellent - forums, IRC, online documentation (FreeBSB) and demo's that are very detailed
No. of CD's or DVD's: 1
Media: DVD-R


Easy to use desktop operating system based on FreeBSD

PC-BSD's goal is to be an easy to install and use desktop OS, which is built on the FreeBSD operating system. To accomplish this, it currently has a graphical installation, which will enable even UNIX novices to easily install and getup and running. The system comes loaded with the "K" Desktop Environment (KDE), which lets users immediately sit down to a familiar interface. Also developed exclusively for PC-BSD is the PBI system, which lets users download and install their applications in a self-extracting & installing format, similar to InstallShield® on Windows®.

Based upon FreeBSD 9.0-Release, this is also the first PC-BSD which offers users a variety of desktop environments to chose from, such as KDE, GNOME, XFCE, LXDE and more! Also available are pre-built VirtualBox / VMware images with integrated guest tools for rapid virtual system deployment, and native support for installing directly to OSX BootCamp partitions.

• Based upon FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE
• Support for installing a variety of Window Managers, such as KDE, GNOME, XFCE, LXDE and more!
• Improved PBI system, allows library sharing, binary diff updating, custom repositories, digital signing and more!
• Support for "freebsd-update" via the System Update GUI.
• New Control Panel, providing consistent configuration options across various Window Managers.
• Improved networking utilities, including wifi quick-connect.
• Enhanced "Life-Preserver" utility for doing off-site rsync backups of user data.
• New VirtualBox / VMware disk images, with integrated guest tools.
• Support for UFS+Journaling out of box
• New graphical boot options page
• Support for installation to BootCamp partitions on OSX systems.
• And much more!

PCBSD recommends the following minimum (recommended) system requirements: Pentium II (Pentium 4 or higher (686) CPU), 512mb (1GB) Ram, 4GB of free Hard Drive space, either partition, or entire disk, Network card, Sound card and a Video card (3D accelerated video card need if you want to utilise 3D acceleration).

PC-BSD can run on any 64bit processors (providing the motherboard is recognised).

Though 512Mb RAM is the absolute minumun, you should use at least 1GB of RAM if possible. To play modern video games, you should use a fast CPU, and if you want to create a collection of tunes and movies on your computer, you should use a larger hard disk drive too.