Checking Out FuryBSD 12.1, KDE Edition

FuryBSD is a relatively young project that is offering live systems using either KDE Plasma or the Xfce environment for the x86_64 architecture based on FreeBSD that can be installed from the desktop once booted up. This sounds quite appealing after having had good experiences with GhostBSD which is also based on FreeBSD and I was looking forward to check out a clean system using KDE.

Nomadic Working with NomadBSD 1.0.1 - BSD on a stick

Recently I found a bit of time to poke around in the world of Linux and BSD distributions and possibly even get back in to the reviewing business now and then. NomadBSD seemed like an interesting project to try for somebody partial to the Slackware and BSD way of doing things, but still searching for a BSD that is actually working as a day to day OS while being reasonably responsive, i.e. not bloated and running well on old hardware. That means trim and fast, without the desktop environment and a browser gobbling up all the resources.

VirtualBSD was a fine piece but since its demise there hasn't been anything similar to dip your toes into FreeBSD to my knowledge, let alone the other flavors. I reviewed it here seven years ago. How many? Yes, time flies. To say it right away in order not to waste anybody's time, NomadBSD works, and it works beautifully. Well, with a small caveat in terms of connectivity, but we'll come to that.

As alluded to, "NomadBSD is a 64bit live system for USB flash drives, based on FreeBSD®. Together with automatic hardware detection and setup, it is configured to be used as a desktop system that works out of the box, but can also be used for data recovery" according to their website. It fits on a 4GiB USB flash drive and can be booted via BIOS and UEFI. Which is just as well as an old 4GiB Corsair Flash Voyager pen drive is all I had. Additional information on their Github account.

Jibbed - NetBSD Based Live CD (Updated 19/01/13)

There aren't exactly many live CD's based on one of the BSD's around, and unfortunately over the years several more have gone the way of the Dodo. One such project was TrueBSD which is now described as dormant, not having seen a release in 4 1/2 years, and no final for even longer. It seemed promising but C'est la vie. The developers and a few hardcore users still keep an IRC channel active and refuse to admit that it's dead, but don't hold your breath.

Did You Know You Can Try BSD With VirtualBSD?

A while ago back in January I came across this announcement on OSNews.com and made a mental note that this was something I had to try. VirtualBSD 8.1 was released on or around 4/01/2011 and it basically gives you a pre-defined FreeBSD 8.1 installation with Xfce 4.6 and a range of applications in a virtual machine. It is a desktop ready FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE in the form of a VMware appliance but can also in a few steps be made to run with VirtualBox. Read the instructions for that here.