Submitted by PC-BSD has just released their roadmap en route to PC-BSD 2.0. They want to focus on making the PC-BSD specific tools integrate better with the rest of KDE, while also doing a lot fo work on the installer. The team also released a list of open volunteer positions for those willing to help.
One thing that you may find interesting if you’re not a power user and want to use Unix is the ongoing automatic monitor setup project.
When you install PC-BSD nowadays, you need to search for your monitor specifications (can be a hurdle), edit manually the X.org configuration file as root using the Konsole, restart X, and if you made a mistake, X may not start anymore.
This is going to be over. Now, during installation, the person will just have to select her monitor brand and model from a menu, and PC-BSD will set up the “Monitor” section of X.org automatically. This will include horizontal and vertical refresh rates, number of colors, and native resolution. There will be a “My monitor is not listed” option as well.
How will we keep the list of monitors up to date? There will be an online database where users will be able to add their monitor specifications, and we will add monitors manually as well. This database will be available as XML or INI format for whoever needs it, even for Linux distributors.
If you want to join us, you’re mostly welcome
You may want to take a look at gentoo since I believe I used a similar utility except it was text based but I selected my monitor and it set the values for it. Can’t remember the name of it off-hand.
Wouldn’t it be better to make prime members (vendors) to have read-write access to the db while users have read-request?
The request form would ask the users the vendor, model or any other common data which might help to identify the specifications of his display device and in case the model really isn’t there, the request would be forwarded to the this model vendor who has write support on the database.
The point would be that every vendor (who has proven to be one
) would be able to maintain his database for every system which is capable of working with the database. Such systems would be all x11-based systems, but also others like haiku, syllable and so on, hell, even windows-pcs could profit from this system.
The read-request and r-w system would make the life of all the vendors easier, too, as they only need to worry about one single (their own) repository.
I haven’t had to put in the monitor specs for my monitors in a very long time. Can’t Xorg just use DDC to query monitors to get the information?
Well, this works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t. I have tried DCC on several models of monitors, and some of them were detected, but in no case did X configure properly refresh rates. Nor did it set native resolution and color depth, which it is not supposed to do anyway.
This is current with the 1.1 release, right? When I installed 1.1 I didn’t remember having to manually edit the xorg file…so you are saying that this feature is current AS OF NOW, right?
I am very happy with PC-BSD….it seems to work very well. I have used the ports system for things that are not yet packaged in the new package format…and all seems to work great. Best of both worlds…free bsd and the more straightforward set-up.
Good work….
It’s not exactly “now”
We just started working on it and it should be functioning in September.
Sometimes Xorg doesn’t detect things 100% right. When I installed PC-BSD 1.1 on my P2-450 I had troubles getting a resolution above 640×480. Everything worked fine during the installation but afterward I had to tweak the config file to get a more useable resolution.
With FreeBSD as solid base we can work more in usability front. Instead of inventing another wheel we decided to contribute to existing networking configurator from DesktopBSD tools. Main goal is to squeeze out as many bugs we can find in KDE and build healthy community around PC-BSD. Anyone can contribute with bugreports and fresh ideas. There is no dictatorship but we need to know our goals. With more users in FreeBSD based operating system we can help FreeBSD to polish this excellent server OS to suit desktop users needs.
Edited 2006-06-16 21:52
Thanks, Charles…I’m writing from my PC-BSD box right now and I see what you are talking about….the new monitor set-up feature will be VERY nice indeed!
This is already pretty well polished in 1.1…I can’t
even imagine how nice it will be down the road….