Category Archives: 9.1

iXsystems Announces Release of PC-BSD 9.1 Isotope Edition

The press release for PC-BSD 9.1 is now available:

iXsystems is pleased to announce the arrival of PC-BSD 9.1 Isotope Edition, the latest release of the secure and user-friendly operating system based on FreeBSD 9.1. Several new components are introduced in PC-BSD 9.1 Isotope including a revamped Warden jail management tool, improved ZFS support, user interface enhancements, and the new server edition of PC-BSD named “TrueOS�.

The biggest change to come from this update is a complete overhaul of PC-BSD’s Warden jail management utility with support for multiple ports jails, meta-packages, Linux jails, and ZFS snapshot management. Advanced users can now enjoy unlimited FreeBSD ports sandboxes thanks to the integration of the Ports Jail utility with the Warden UI. In addition, the integration of the update manager into Warden and support for meta-packages allow users to install the complex programs available on the PC-BSD installation media, e.g., Samba and Apache, in jails. The ability to install Linux distributions, including Debian and Gentoo, in jails opens up new options for virtualization on PC-BSD. All of these functions are available from both the graphical and command line interfaces.

PC-BSD 9.1 improves ZFS support in the installer and throughout the system, adding many new features. The installer simplifies the task of disk layout, including support for ZFS mirror and up to triple-parity software RAID. ZFS users can now use the ‘beadm’ utility to back up the boot environment before an upgrade or major system change and restore it if necessary. In Warden on ZFS, entire jails (including Linux jails) may be cloned and rolled back. These advanced administrative tools help PC-BSD live up to its reputation as a powerful and versatile desktop operating system.

“PC-BSD has made stunning progress and is rapidly becoming the Unix workstation OS we have all been waiting for,” says Michael Dexter, the editor of CallForTesting.org and a long-time BSD lecturer and advocate. “From including ZFS and elegant management tools to being completely GUI-agnostic, PC-BSD embraces and extends FreeBSD in dramatic yet respectful ways and the result is a great desktop experience for not only end users but also administrators and developers.”

Several other improvements continue to ensure that PC-BSD 9.1 remains user-friendly and accessible to everyone. Set-up is easier than ever with the new, simplified installer that requires as few as four clicks for the default installation. The new installer also separates pre-installation and post-installation tasks, allowing OEMs to install the system and leaving final configuration to the end user. An “About� icon has been added to the Control Panel, making it easy to determine the PC-BSD version and which desktops and version of X Window System have been installed. The new release supports KDE 4.9.3 and improves support for wifi and Intel video.

One of PC-BSD 9.1’s most exciting and anticipated new features is the new server installation option. The regular installer now presents the option to install TrueOS, a custom server edition of PC-BSD. TrueOS provides command line versions of PC-BSD utilities (including Warden, Meta-package Manager, and PBI Manager tools) in addition to the base FreeBSD install. It’s an excellent choice for users who want to avoid the overhead of even the lightest-weight window manager but want to take advantage of the powerful tools available in PC-BSD. iXsystems offers Professional Software Support for TrueOS and PC-BSD.

“With the new TrueOS server option, system administrators and enterprise users of Linux will immediately feel more at home being able to install a system with packages such as Bash, Apache, or Samba available out of box,� says Kris Moore, founder and lead developer of the PC-BSD project. “This, coupled with command-line versions of the ‘Warden’ jail management tool, meta-package manager, update manager and others, makes running a BSD-based server easier than ever.�

For more information on PC-BSD or to download the new PC-BSD 9.1, please visit http://pcbsd.org. PC-BSD is also available for retail sale at http://www.freebsdmall.com in DVD form.

About PC-BSD
PC-BSD is a fully functional, user-friendly desktop operating system based on FreeBSD. It runs on the latest FreeBSD version 9.1 with a desktop interface of the user’s choice and graphical system installer. Its PBI system, developed for PC-BSD and also available on FreeBSD, allows users to download and install their applications in a self-extracting and self-installing format.

About iXsystems
iXsystems is the all-around FreeBSD company that builds FreeBSD-certified servers and storage solutions, oversees FreeNAS development, and is the corporate sponsor of the PC-BSD Project. iXsystems is an employee-owned and operated, open source-centric, customer focused organization dedicated to providing the highest-quality built-to-order enterprise rackmount server solutions, pre-configured server appliances, and scalable storage solutions to our customers around the globe.

PC-BSD 9.1 Now Available

Kris has just announced the availability of 9.1:

The PC-BSD team is pleased to announce that version 9.1 is now available! This release includes many exciting new features and enhancements, such as a vastly improved system installer, ZFS “Boot Environment” support, TrueOS (A FreeBSD based server with additional power-user utilities), and much more!

DVD, USB and Virtual Machine disk images are now available for download.

Highlights for 9.1-Release

  • FreeBSD 9.1.
  • TrueOS: A new server option with PC-BSD utilities such as the Warden available via the CLI.
  • New system installer! Greatly simplified for desktop and server installs.
  • Support for ZFS mirror / raidz(1,2,3) during installation.
  • Support for SWAP on ZFS, allowing entire disk ZFS installation.
  • Support for setting additional ZFS data-set options, such as compression, noexec, etc.
  • Warden jail management integrated into system. Allows creating jails via GUI, adding packages and other administration.
  • Support for Warden to create Linux Jails
  • New “Sound Configuration GUI”
  • New “Hardware compatibility” GUI
  • First boot setup wizard allows OEM installs to be easily performed.
  • New Bluetooth pairing tray / GUI utilities.
  • New EasyPBI utility, allows building PBIs via a GUI interface.
  • New AppCafe improvements and preferences.
  • Improvements to wireless networking utilities.
  • Fixed bug causing untranslated strings to show up empty.
  • Numerous bug-fixes to PC-BSD related utilities.
  • Support for creating PXE boot server for remote desktop and installation.
  • ZFS beadm support.
  • Improved mirror auto-detection for roaming devices, such as laptops.
  • And much more!

Get Involved

Want to help out the PC-BSD project? Found a bug you need to report? You can do so by joining us on our Forums! PC-BSD welcomes new contributors, testers, or simply feedback on how a particular piece of hardware works with BSD.

Documentation

The 9.1 version of the PC-BSD 9.1 Users Handbook is available in HTML, EPUB, and PDF formats. The PDF version will also be available as an icon on the desktop after a desktop installation.

RC3 Available for Testing

The RC3 images for the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 are now available for i386 and amd64 architectures. This is expected to be the last snapshot before 9.1-RELEASE, so report any bugs to the testing mailing list so that they can be fixed in time for RELEASE. Note that the included handbook is still a draft version– it should be finalized and released to translators within the next week or so.

This release candidate provides both users and developers a means to test out new features in the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release. This snapshot may contain buggy code and features, so users are encouraged to run it only on non-critical systems.

Notable changes since the previous release candidate:

  • PC-BSD handbook has been updated for 9.1
  • Fixed bug where some keyboard layouts were not being displayed
  • Multiple functionality and stability improvements for EasyPBI
  • Multiple functionality and stability improvements for TrueOS
  • New functionality improvements including better detection added to the mount-tray
  • Fixed bug where default mount points were not being set correctly using ZFS mirror/raidz mode
  • Fixed bug where update manager was not displaying the proper error text when failing
  • Added new ability to create ZFS datasets for jail environments
  • Added UK wireless channel 12 support
  • Fixed bug where Linux jails were not importing properly
  • Mirrors are now auto detected and set based upon location
  • Automatic ZFS 4K blocksize enabled by default
  • System manager should now show the correct dialog for “default”
    auto-detected mirrors.

Errata:

If you wish to update from 9.0 to RC3 you may do so by editing the
/usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanager/conf/sysupdate.conf file and changing the PATCHSET: variable to pcbsdtest.

After changing this variable, run the updater utility to download a new update manager. Once this update manager is installed, the online update to the RC3 version will appear.

 

New Video: PC-BSD 9.1 Isotope Edition Installer

A new video has been posted to YouTube. This video walks through the 9.1 installer, demonstrating how to select desktop components and describes the various disk options available within the installer. It then shows the availalbe post-installation configuration options.

RC2 Available for Testing

The RC2 images for the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 are now available for i386 and amd64 architectures.

NOTE: the USBfull image for RC2 is slightly larger than a 4GB stick. If you wish to try this image, use a USB stick/drive larger than 4GB.

This release candidate provides both users and developers a means to test out new features in the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release. This snapshot may contain buggy code and features, so users are encouraged to run it only on non-critical systems.

Changes since RC1:

  • Fixed multiple bugs where mice freeze or behave incorrectly.
  • Fixed language selection to be displayed as native language.
  • Compatibility improvements for PS2 mice.
  • Fixed time-out issues with External DVD Drive / USB Drives.
  • Updated system proxy paths and functionality.
  • Updated sound detection functionality.
  • Added mp3 / ogg encoders to CD rippers.
  • Added detection for NVIDIA Optimus systems.
  • Added options for cups-base, to fix an issue with many printers printing blank pages when using ghostscript for pdftops conversion.
  • Improved System Manager to only update ports tree if it already is checked out.
  • Improvements to the Warden’s functionality and stability.  Improved jail importing functionality.
  • Added “Update All” button for AppCafe.
  • Graphical enhancements for EasyPBI.

Highlights for the upcoming 9.1-Release:

  • FreeBSD 9.1
  • KDE 4.8.4
  • New system installer! Greatly simplified for desktop and server installs.
  • New TrueOS installation option. Includes command-line utilities like pbi-manager, warden, metapkgmanager and more.
  • Support for ZFS mirror / raidz(1,2,3) during installation.
  • Support for SWAP on ZFS, allowing entire disk ZFS installation.
  • Support for setting additional ZFS data-set options, such as compression, noexec, etc.
  • Warden jail management integrated into system. Allows creating jails via GUI, adding packages and other administration.
  • Support for Warden to create Linux Jails.
  • New “Sound Configuration GUI”.
  • New “Hardware compatibility” GUI.
  • First boot setup wizard allows OEM installs to be easily performed.
  • New Bluetooth pairing tray / GUI utilities.
  • New AppCafe improvements and preferences.
  • Improvements to wifi utility.
  • Fixed bug causing untranslated strings to show up empty.
  • Numerous bug-fixes to PC-BSD related utilities.
  • Support for creating PXE boot server for remote desktop and installation.
  • ZFS beadm support.
  • And much more!

Errata:

If you wish to update from 9.0 to RC2 you may do so by editing the /usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanager/conf/sysupdate.conf file and changing the PATCHSET: variable to pcbsdtest.

After changing this variable, run the updater utility to download a new update manager. Once this update manager is installed, the online update to the RC2 version will appear.

If you find any bugs in RC2, report them to the testing mailing list so that they can be fixed before 9.1 release.

Two Reviews of PC-BSD 9.1

There have been two reviews of the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release in the past few days.

The first is an interview with Allan Jude during the Linux Action Show. Allan provides an overview of PC-BSD 9.1, including highlights of the new capabilities of Warden. The video of the show is here and Allan’s segment starts around minute 38:50.

Michael Dexter has posted his review From Crap to Critical on his Call for Testing blog.

PC-BSD and ownCloud

Kris has an article on pages 14-17 of the September issue of BSDMag on how to setup a private cloud using ownCloud and Warden. The magazine is available for free download.

If you are already testing the upcoming 9.1, instructions for using ownCloud on Warden or TrueOS have been added to this section of the Handbook.

This issue of BSDMag also has an article on What’s New in PC-BSD 9.1, on pages 10-13.

PC-BSD 9.1-RC1 Now Available

Kris has announced the availability of RC1:

The RC1 images for the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 are now available for i386 and amd64 architectures.

This release candidate provides both users and developers a means to test out new features in the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release. This snapshot may contain buggy code and features, so users are encouraged to run it only on non-critical systems.

Changes since the previous beta:

  • Based on FreeBSD 9.1-RC1.
  • Added new functionality to the warden client. You can now schedule daily / hourly creation of jail snapshots. You may also set the number of days worth of jails you wish to keep.  Old jail snapshots will be removed automatically.
  • Improve the shutdown scripts to make sure we unmount, even if the jail was manually stopped.
  • Added Active Directory / LDAP backend and GUI utility.
  • Fixed a number of bugs relating to jail creation / management.
  • Auto-enable the flash plugin when creating new users.
  • Added some initial packages to TrueOS, such as sudo / bash and others.
  • Bugfixes to AppCafe.
  • Fixed Window Maker startup issues.
  • Added the Enlightenment (E17) desktop as an unsupported desktop meta-package.
  • Added lots of new packages for TrueOS / Warden.

Errata:

If you wish to update from 9.0 to RC1 you may do so by editing the /usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanager/conf/sysupdate.conf file and changing the PATCHSET: variable to pcbsdtest.

After changing this variable, you may run the updater utility, to download a new update manager. Once this update manager is installed, the online update to the RC1 version will appear.

If you find any bugs in this snapshot, please report them to the testing mailing list.

This version contains a first draft of the upcoming 9.1 Handbook. This draft is not complete, the sections are not hyperlinked, and sections that are still be written/tested are highlighted in yellow. The next RC will contain a more recent draft.

9.1-BETA1 Now Available

BETA1 images for the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 are now available for the i386 and amd64 architectures!

This beta provides both users and developers a means to test out new features in the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release. This snapshot may contain buggy code and features, so users are encouraged to run it only on non-critical systems.

Changes since the previous snapshot:

  • FreeBSD 9.1-BETA1
  • KDE 4.8.4
  • Support for Warden to create Linux Jails (Debian & Gentoo support included)
  • Fixed a bug with mouse cursor fonts changing over some tray apps
  • Correct some bugs with mouse not being detected after display wizard
  • Add new “TrueOS” server option, alongside FreeBSD Vanilla.
  • Display detected video resolution / driver on confirmation screen
  • Add new IPv4 / IPv6 validation to address fields
  • Fix bugs exporting / importing jails via Warden
  • Add new Hardware Compatibility Check GUI, which is available during install and via Control Panel
  • Add new Sound Configuration GUI, which lets user select and test different sound devices
  • Add NVIDIA legacy drivers for cards older than 8-10 years (32bit only)
  • Added option to “mount/clone” jail snapshots via the Warden

Highlights for the upcoming 9.1-Release:

  • FreeBSD 9.1
  • KDE 4.8.4
  • New system installer! Greatly simplified for desktop and server installs.
  • New “PC-BSD Server” installation option. Includes command-line utilities like pbi-manager, warden, metapkgmanager and more.
  • Support for ZFS mirror / raidz(1,2,3) during installation.
  • Support for SWAP on ZFS, allowing entire disk ZFS installation.
  • Support for setting additional ZFS data-set options, such as compression, noexec, etc.
  • Warden jail management integrated into system. Allows creating jails via GUI, adding packages and other administration.
  • Support for Warden to create Linux Jails
  • New “Sound Configuration GUI”
  • New “Hardware compatibility” GUI
  • First boot setup wizard allows OEM installs to be easily performed.
  • New Bluetooth paring tray / GUI utilities.
  • New AppCafe improvements and preferences
  • Improvements to wifi utility
  • Fixed bug causing untranslated strings to show up empty.
  • Numerous bug-fixes to PC-BSD related utilities
  • Support for creating PXE boot server for remote desktop and installation.
  • ZFS beadm support
  • And much more!

Errata:

Users running previous snapshots may upgrade now via the online updater. You will first need to apply the “Update Manager” 20120718 update, then the beta1 update will appear.

If you wish to update from 9.0 to this snapshot you may do so by editing the /usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanager/conf/sysupdate.conf file and changing the PATCHSET: variable to pcbsdtest.

After changing this variable, you may run the updater utility, to download a new update manager. Once this update manager is installed, the online update to the beta will appear.

9.1 Feature: Sound Configuration and Hardware Compatibility GUIs

While PC-BSD is pretty good at detecting the sound card and the default audio device, occasionally a user needs to use sysctl to change the default audio device.

Beginning with 9.1, two GUIs have been added to Control Panel to assist in configuring sound from any logged in desktop. The first is a Hardware Compatibility GUI which provides a quick indication if that system’s video card, sound card, and wireless device are compatible with PC-BSD. This GUI is also displayed as the installer starts, meaning that you can tell ahead of time if these devices will be supported. An example can be seen here.

The Sound Configuration icon can be used to view the detected audio inputs and to change the default. Instructions for using it are here.

If you would like to try these before BETA1, use the instructions in New Features for the Impatient. You will also need to download:

9.1 Feature: Linux Jails

PC-BSD’s jail management GUI, Warden®, has been completely redesigned for 9.1. It now supports the management of three types of jails:

Traditional Jail: FreeBSD jail used to install and run network services such as a web server or a database which is accessible to other systems on a network or over the Internet.

Ports Jail: allows you to safely install software using FreeBSD packages or ports (without touching the packages that came with the OS) while providing access to that software from your PC-BSD system.

Linux Jail: allows you to install a Linux operating system within a jail.

Yup, that’s right, you can install Linux (at this time, Debian Squeeze) into a FreeBSD jail. And, since a jail uses the filesystem of the host, if the PC-BSD system is formatted with ZFS, a Linux jail can take advantage of ZFS features such as snapshots. Details can be found in the Warden® section of the upcoming 9.1 Users Guide.

If you’d like to try out this feature before BETA1 is available, use the instructions in New Features for the Impatient. If /usr/local/share/warden/linux-installs/debian-6-squeeze does not exist on your system, you can download it from here (download link at bottom of page). You will also need to install the debootstrap utility using pkg_add -r debootstrap.

9.1 Feature: Multiple Boot Environments

If you’re using ZFS (or looking for a reason to do so), one of the new features in 9.1 is support for multiple boot environments. Imagine the following scenarios:

  • you upgrade your operating system, hate it, and wish you could go back to the old version
  • you upgrade some software which breaks something else
  • you want to perform some tests without permanently affecting the files on your current operating system

Multiple boot environments make those scenarios do-able in two easy to use commands. Before making changes to your system, simply use the beadm create command to create a copy of the current filesystem. Do your stuff. To go back to what the system used to look like, use the beadm activate command to instruct the system to boot into the copy of the previous boot environment and reboot. It really is as easy as that!

Documentation for multiple boot environments can be found in this page of the upcoming 9.1 PC-BSD Users Handbook. This feature became available with the 9-STABLE 20120622 snapshot and will also be in the upcoming BETA1.

New Features for the Impatient

FreeBSD/PC-BSD 9.1 are due out by the end of the summer and we are getting close to issuing the first BETA for 9.1. In anticipation of code freeze, Kris is busy getting in the last of the features. Over the next few weeks, we’ll highlight some of the cooler features coming in 9.1.

For those of you who would like to try out the features before BETA1 is released, instructions for building an updated control panel are provided below for both PC-BSD and FreeBSD systems. These have been tested on 9.0.

For PC-BSD, in System Manager -> System Packages make sure that Development -> Development-Qt and Development-VCS are installed. You’ll also need to install system source in System Manager -> Tasks.

For FreeBSD, make sure that you have /usr/src/sys and the following packages are installed:

cmake
cmake-gui
gmake
qt4-assistant
qt4-assistant-adp
qt4-designer
qt4-doc
qt4-libQtAssistantClient
qt4-linguist
qt4-moc
qt4-qmake
qt4-qtsolutions-singleapplication
qt4-rcc
qt4-uic
subversion

Once the dependent software is installed, become the superuser, cd to a directory suitable for downloading the PC-BSD src, and run these commands:

svn co svn://svn.pcbsd.org/pcbsd/current/src-qt4
cd src-qt4/libpcbsd/
qmake-qt4 *.pro
make
make install
cd ..
qmake-qt4 *.pro
make
make install

Some icons also rely on updated scripts which can be built using these commands from the original download directory:

svn co svn://svn.pcbsd.org/pcbsd/current/src-sh
cd src-sh
make
make install

On a PC-BSD system, Control Panel will be updated and available from the GUI. On a FreeBSD system, you can start Control Panel by typing pc-controlpanel from an X session. You can also start individual control panel icons using the commands listed in /usr/local/bin/pc-*.

9-STABLE 20120622 Now Available for Testing

Kris has announced the availability of the next testing snapshot:

The next 20120622 snapshot in the PC-BSD 9-STABLE branch has just been released for i386 and amd64 architectures.

This snapshot provides both users and developers a means to test out new features in the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release. This snapshot may contain buggy code and features, so users are encouraged to run it only on non-critical systems.

Changes since the previous Snapshot:

  • FreeBSD 9-STABLE from 06-15-2012.
  • KDE 4.8.3.
  • Fixed a bug creating a /root ZFS dataset on the Server install.
  • Fixed a crash in install GUI if using custom pkg set, and going back steps.
  • Exclude /etc/pam.d and /usr/local/etc/pam.d from being overwritten during upgrades.
  • Fixed an upgrade bug, causing some files to not get overwritten properly.
  • Change detection for wifi when showing tray application.
  • Set default volume to 100:100 on first boot.
  • Fix displaying static IP addresses in GUI.
  • Improve network restart functionality, should now properly add default route, and fix issue with losing connectivity after restarting with a static IP.
  • Visually improve the AppCafe homescreen layout.
  • Add default configurations for i3 / windowlab WM’s.
  • Add new service manager GUI to warden, allows enabling, and starting / stopping services inside a jail.
  • Add ability to cleanup thinclient installation.
  • Improve the install image to not use MFS root, instead operates 100% identical to early stages of FreeBSD installer.
  • Shrink memory requirements of installation, can now install with UFS on systems with ~256MB of RAM.
  • Add initial support to Warden CLI for creating Linux jails

Highlights for the upcoming 9.1:

  • New system installer! Greatly simplified for desktop and server installs.
  • New “PC-BSD Server” installation option. Includes command-line utilities like pbi-manager, warden, metapkgmanager and more.
  • Support for ZFS mirror / raidz(1,2,3) during installation.
  • Support for SWAP on ZFS, allowing entire disk ZFS installation.
  • Support for setting additional ZFS data-set options, such as compression, noexec, etc.
  • Warden jail management integrated into system. Allows creating jails via GUI, adding packages and other administration.
  • First boot setup wizard allows OEM installs to be easily performed.
  • New Bluetooth paring tray / GUI utilities.
  • New AppCafe improvements and preferences.
  • Improvements to wifi utility.
  • Fixed bug causing untranslated strings to show up empty.
  • Numerous bug-fixes to PC-BSD related utilities.
  • Support for creating PXE boot server for remote desktop and installation.
  • ZFS beadm support
  • And much more!

Errata:

Users running previous snapshots may update now via the online updater. You will first need to apply the “Update Manager” 20120622 update, then the snapshot update will appear.

If you wish to update from 9.0 to this snapshot you may do so by editing the /usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanager/conf/sysupdate.conf file and changing the PATCHSET: variable to “pcbsdtest”.

After changing this variable, you may run the updater utility, to download a new update manager. Once this update manager is installed, the online update to the snapshot will appear.

Note: The AMD64 snapshot appears as 20120621 on the mirrors, but it is the same as the 20120622 i386 version.

Download

The DVD & USB images are available via the PC-BSD mirrors. You may select the mirror and files from this URL.

Contest: Name the PC-BSD Server Edition

One of the cool new features coming in PC-BSD 9.1 is the ability to install a FreeBSD server (including ZFS, multiple boot environments using ZFS snapshots, and encryption) that includes the command line versions of all of the PC-BSD utilities. You can try a preview version in the latest snapshot or read up on its features in the draft of this section of the 9.1 Guide.

While we could simply call it the “PC-BSD Server Edition�, we’re pretty sure someone can come up with a more creative name than that. For that reason, we’re launching a naming contest. Can you think of a descriptive yet cool sounding name? If so, see the contest details here. The contest opens tomorrow at 11:00 PST and closes at 23:59 PST on June 26th.

20120605 Snapshot Now Available

Kris has announced the next snapshot in the testing series:

The next 20120605 snapshot in the PC-BSD 9-STABLE branch has just been released for i386 and amd64 architectures.

This snapshot provides both users and developers a means to test out new features in the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release. This snapshot may contain buggy code and features, so users are encouraged to run it only on non-critical systems.

Changes since the previous Snapshot:

  • FreeBSD 9-STABLE from 05-30-2012
  • KDE 4.8
  • Fix a bug causing installer to lockup near end of installation
  • Fix setup for 8021X configuration via GUI
  • Update font configuration to enable AA by default
  • Fix bugs doing updates to packages inside of the warden
  • Allow new ZFS dataset options during installation
  • Bugfixes and enhancements to the update tray notifier
  • Check jails for updates via the tray application automatically
  • Switch us to using http:// instead of ftp:// for updating, which allows proxy users to connect
  • Fixed bug enabling the static IP section via ethernet GUI
  • Add support for unattended installs via thinclient PXE
  • Add better Proxy configuration via GUI, will now set HTTP_PROXY universally across the system

Highlights for the upcoming 9.1:

  • New system installer! Greatly simplified for desktop and server installs.
  • New “PC-BSD Serverâ€? installation option. Includes command-line utilities like pbi-manager, warden, metapkgmanager and more.
  • Support for ZFS mirror / raidz(1,2,3) during installation.
  • Support for SWAP on ZFS, allowing entire disk ZFS installation.
  • Support for setting additional ZFS data-set options, such as compression, noexec, etc.
  • Warden jail management integrated into system. Allows creating jails via GUI, adding packages and other administration.
  • First boot setup wizard allows OEM installs to be easily performed.
  • New Bluetooth paring tray / GUI utilities.
  • New AppCafe improvements and preferences.
  • Improvements to wifi utility.
  • Fixed bug causing untranslated strings to show up empty.
  • Numerous bug-fixes to PC-BSD related utilities.
  • Support for creating PXE boot server for remote desktop and installation.
  • ZFS beadm support.
  • And much more!

Errata:

Users running previous snapshots may update now via the online
updater. You will first need to apply the “Update Manager� 20120606 update, then the snapshot update will appear.

If you wish to update from 9.0 to this snapshot you may do so by
editing /usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanage/conf/sysupdate.conf
file and changing the PATCHSET: variable to pcbsdtest.

After changing this variable, you may run the updater utility, to
download a new update manager. Once this update manager is installed, the online update to the snapshot will appear.

There is a bug installing the PC-BSD Server on ZFS right now. If you wish to do so, you will need to remove the ZFS /root dataset beforehand. This will be fixed in the next snapshot.

The VirtualBox OSE additions are not included in this snapshot due to a bug in 9-STABLE. They will be included in the next release.

If it fails to download any additional packages / desktops post-installation, run the following command as root:

pbreg set /PC-BSD/Version 9-STABLE-20120605

Download

The DVD & USB images are available via the PC-BSD mirrors. You may select the mirror and files from this URL.