14 DAY TRIAL // Just launched, MidnightBSD is a FreeBSD 6 fork aimed at providing an easy-to-use desktop experience. It aims to provide a GNUstep desktop with a solid BSD core. MidnightBSD contains both BSD and GPL licensed code. This first version of MidnightBSD is based on FreeBSD 6.1 pre-release.
Lucas Holt, main developer of MidnightBSD wants for 1.0 release to have a new installer (whether DragonFlyBSD's or a new one) along with a basic graphical environment; WindowMaker, Firefox, Thunderbird, and a few other applications. He says: "From there, based on user feedback, I'd like to build on the solid base of FreeBSD. To clarify, this is a fork of FreeBSD. I'm not creating a distro like DesktopBSD or PC-BSD."
MidnightBSD's project goals:
￭ Create an easy to use desktop environment with basic functionality and a full graphical administration interface. ￭ Create a unique window manager designed with ease of use in mind. We will not use full blown desktop environments like KDE or Gnome. ￭ Integrate GNUstep into the system, but maintain BSD licensing on our own code whenever possible. The kernel and most userland software must be BSD licensed. ￭ Incorporate new technologies from other BSD projects that may interest desktop users. OpenBSD's opennntp, openssh, and wireless drivers are examples. ￭ Create our own ports system based on FreeBSD's ports. The system would have a graphical interface and existing utilities would be merged into a library so identical functionality is maintained on the gui and command line. ￭ Setup a binary update system so that users do no need to compile patches or new releases to get security updates or bug fixes. ￭ Listen to user feedback to improve the system. At times, many open source projects fail to listen to users making systems more difficult to use and decreasing scope.
During initial planning stages, support for MidnightBSD is limited and it is recommended that you view the FreeBSD handbook. FreeBSD's ports including portsnap and portupgrade work with MidnightBSD at this time. A few ports such as xorg and gd do not build out of the box without some changes. You can use pkg_add -r to install the FreeBSD 6 stable packages as of July 4, 2006.
You can download MidnightBSD now from Softpedia.