I played with a version a while ago, and it was severely lacking. Yesterday, I was trying to revive a very old computer; openSUSE and Xubuntu were both too much for it, and VectorLinux worked but was far too difficult for the user's needs. FreeBSD occurred to me, but that would be even more work for them than Vector; enter PC-BSD:

http://www.pcbsd.org/

Simply put, this distro is great. Partially because it's BSD, and partially because it's got some new/refreshing ideas. What it has:

• It's not Linux. I use Linux, but prefer BSD simply because it feels less bloated.
• License: BSD, not GPL. The BSD license is far less restrictive and permits integration of many neat kernel-level features.
• Binary drivers. NVIDIA and Intel binary video drivers are included and installed by default. No Linux distro does this. I love it.
• Unique package manager. They are like a mix of MSI files on Windows, and APP files on Mac OS. You download a PBI, run it, and it installs itself in /Programs. They are self-contained, and all their dependencies are installed in a miniature UNIX File System within their /Program directory.

I feel that the PBI files and binary drivers in particular put this head and shoulders above any Linux distro. However, there are some drawbacks:

• Laptop support is poor. (Wireless drivers and power management are far and few between.)
• No automount of USB disks. (This is fixed in the next release.)
• KDE exclusive. There is no other WM even offered. (KDE is, however, optimized/tweaked for their distro, so there is an Apple-esque level of integration.)

I like it, and am very excited about the new version, which is based on FreeBSD 7, and is full-bore KDE 4.1. This is a first for any UNIX-like OS, and I'm curious to see what they achieve with KDE 4.1 when not wasting time/resources on anything else.

Thanks for the information, I am going to try PC-BSD out now I tried Desktop BSD before but it would detect my crappy old machines sound card, its a P4, I use it for experimenting.

Then again PC-BSD is not really a distro, its BSD I know BSD users hate it when u call BSD a distro

Yes it does have less bloat then linux, I remember reading on the internet some article where the author says BSD is designed whereas linux is chaotic.

Is the package management easy to setup? I have never used it sorry

I know Sabayon does have Nvidia drivers included.

Is their kde as good as SUSE's or better?

Thanks

LOL, sorry, didn't know there was version-specific terminology.



There isn't anything to set up, that's what's great. You download one of these:
http://www.pbidir.com/
Double-click, next, next, done!



I didn't know about that, I'd barely even heard about Sabayon, thanks.



No, but that's a pretty high standard to hold them to. It's still really good.

lol, no problem



Thanks that sounds easy enough



again, no problem



Yeah, I know, but good to know their kde is good, I will try it soon

That is not entirely true. All paid distributions have always offered binary drivers, from Libranet to Xandros to Linspire to Mandriva Powerpack. Also some free ones.



The package manager might be unique, but it doesn't offer much of a choice. Besides, it is not the native FreeBSD package manager (Ports).
My take: it is a nice OS, but it is still very far from being on a par with the best Linux distros, both because of number of applications and drivers. The last time I tried it you couldn't configure a pppoe connection (at least not without extensive use of the CLI) and you had to install the Windows version of Firefox, running under Wine, if you wanted to use Flash.

I've heard really good things about BSD in general (lightness & stability), but I don't see PC-BSD ready except for people ready to experiment.