About hours ago, I felt unstoppably bored and checked if there is a new distro just got released. N-O-N-E! But I saw PC-BSD.
Usually I wouldn't try that because I won't use it as daily basis and I
try new GNU/Linux distro because I can write a post for 100 Distros Project.
But BSD is not a GNU/Linux distro, if I try, that will not be a new
post. However, I thought I still can write a blog post for my other
blogs. So, I took 30 minutes to download 32 Bit PC-BSD 7.0.1 DVD and 50
minutes to install it.



The hardware is the same as listed here.
I can not install with default boot options, I have to use the safe
mode. After installed, the first boot runs normally, I saw it generated
keys and it brought up a Display Setup Wizard. I chose 1680x1050 with nv driver, then my monitor told me "Out of range", and rightmost and bottommost areas got cut off.



I tried to reboot with default boot options got stuck again, I need to use safe mode, but still Out of range. I can't run the Display Setup Wizard from boot menu, will get stuck, too. I switched to console, logged, su'ed, and vim xorg.conf. I commented out the HorizSync and VertRefresh. Switched back to X, pressed Ctrl+Alt+BackSpace to restart X. That gave me 800x600.



Now, I ran the Display Setup Wizard from KDE menu, which is located at System group. This time, I chose driver nvidia-96.43.07 with same resolution. It works now.



Next step is to get online. System Network Configuration has a PPPoE configuration section, I input my account and got online. I launched the System Updater, there is only four system updates and one PBI.



So
far, the only major problems are text is ugly -- I enabled
anti-aliasing, but does not seem to work. Firefox shows well. -- and
system response latency is quite severe when launch a program. I don't
know if that is because of KDE or BSD. Beside these two (and safe
mode), I like it, PC-BSD has Flash 9 working out of box. Audio works.



I think PC-BSD is easy to use. But 7.0.1 may not be a stable release.
This is my first install of BSD system (if Mac OS X doesn't count up).
Lastly, here is a screenshot:







Maybe OpenSolaris for next?



This is blog post is written on PC-BSD 7.0.1