The PC-BSD team proudly announced the immediate availability of the first beta version of PC-BSD 7.0. Being based on the FreeBSD 7.0, and powered by the popular KDE 4.1 desktop environment, this release comes with many software updates and bugfixes over previous alpha versions. It also offers many ways of installation, from CD and DVD media, to USB sticks and network.

"This release marks the first PC-BSD based on FreeBSD 7-STABLE and the KDE 4.1 desktop, and also provides many new ways to install, including DVD, USB and Network/Internet installation choices. Our PBI site has also been updated with a wide variety of software ready for PC-BSD 7, with more being added weekly." - said the PC-BSD team in the official release announcement.

Highlights of PC-BSD 7.0:

￭ FreeBSD 7-STABLE
￭ KDE 4.1
￭ Xorg 7.3
￭ KDE Language Packages
￭ KDE Educational Games 4.1
￭ KDE Toys 4.1
￭ KDE SDK 4.1
￭ OpenOffice 2.4.1 PBI
￭ Opera 9.51 PBI
￭ FireFox 3.0.0.1 PBI
￭ K3B 1.0.4 PBI
￭ FreeBSD Ports Tree
￭ FreeBSD System Source

Recommended System Requirements:

￭ Pentium 4 or higher
￭ 512MB of Ram
￭ 12GB of free Hard Drive space (either partition, or entire disk)
￭ Network card
￭ Sound card
￭ 3D accelerated video card (NVIDIA or Intel)

PC-BSD is a free operating system, based on FreeBSD, created with ease of use in mind. Like any modern system, it allows you to listen to your favorite music, watch movies, work with office documents, and install your favorite applications with a setup wizard, with a click of the mouse.

Download PC-BSD 7.0 Beta 1 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a beta release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only. Please report bugs to the PC-BSD Bugtracker.