Or should I say a branch of BSD. I was playing with new distros that I have not tried or that I have not tried in a long time, and LinuxChick suggested that I give Desktopbsd a look. This is the blurb that they use to describe their Distro.

DesktopBSD is an operating system based on FreeBSD and the FreeSBIE live CD. Its main goal is to provide a desktop operating system that is easy to use, but still has all the functionality and power of BSD. In the long term, DesktopBSD wants to build an operating system that meets most requirements desktop users have, like installing software, configuring power management or sharing an internet connection.

Well on to my test drive. First thing that is new is a bootable cd, a nice touch for those that want to try before they install. It saw and setup my wireless card without a touch from me and I was able to check out all the features first. There is a nice little icon “Install” and that is where I went to next, I first noticed that I had a OS on the hard drive and offered to install as a duel boot right off the bat. Nice touch for newbees. I opted for the use entire disk option and sat back and watched.

A truely painless install with no glitches nice. Now they have TGZ files, however they have started using a gui package manager called portsnap and it allows you to add and remove programs at the click of a key, another nice touch. The default install was fine in that sound worked,wireless started on boot, (I have a problem with it dropping connections at times and I have been looking into that little feature). However the one major problem that I have found and it seems to be a problem with Flash and that means no YouTube for users, and in this day and age, gawd forbid you prevent folks from seeing the newest cute kitty video.

Overall I have to say nice start and I know this is a RC3 and I hope that the flash bug and the connection bug are repaired in the final. Now for you that are saying I’ll give that a shot, I warn you in advance this is based on BSD, which is based on Unix, and therefore there are some different commands that you have use at times,nothing big mind you but I wanted to let you know firsthand.

The end result is I do suggest this distro to folks and it is good place to start with KDE desktop most people will be able to use it right out of the box, and for future learning this is a great distro to use. Trust me if I like it, it sure isn’t bad.

Technorati Tags: Personal

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Apple Inc sharply cut the price of its iPhone on Wednesday and revamped its full iPod line, including adding a model with a touch screen that can browse the Web and buy songs wirelessly.

While a $200 cut in the price of the most powerful iPhone to $399 raised some investor concerns about demand, the move and an array of new iPods, such as tiny colored nanos with video screens, left analysts forecasting Apple would stay ahead of the pack among gift-givers at the crucial year-end sales.

I’ll bet that makes all those who stood in line to pay full price, really happy!

Source: Yahoo News

~LC

Technorati Tags: Apple, iphone, ipod

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If you want the old-time GNU/Linux experience, try configuring a Web camera. Unlike most peripherals, webcams are generally not configured during installation. Moreover, where printers have the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) and its interfaces, with webcams you are generally thrown back on whatever resources you can find on the Internet and your own knowledge of kernel modules and drivers. These obstacles means that configuring webcams can be a challenge — but with determination and thoroughness, and maybe a little luck, you can get your webcam running in less than an afternoon.

Technorati tags: Linux, Hardware

Configuring your webcam to work under Linux