14 DAY TRIAL // PC-BSD 10.0.2, a BSD distribution with the goal to be an easy to install and use desktop operating system based on FreeBSD, has been released and is now available for download.
According to the developers, the distribution is based on FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE, but it looks like there still is room for improvements. This latest update brings some new packages and a number of changes for all the desktop environments.
When people think about a BSD distribution, they don't always imagine a good-looking operating system, but PC-BSD 10.0.2 will definitely change your mind.
“This update includes a number of important bug fixes as well as newer packages and desktops, such as KDE 4.12.5, Cinnamon 2.2.13, Gnome 3.12.2, and more. This release also includes an alpha release of the new Lumina desktop which is being developed on PC-BSD,” reads the official announcement.
According to the changelog, the new KDE 4.12.5 has been implemented. It might not be the newest one that you can find, but it's a stable version and it has been tried and tested for a long time. The developers updated Cinnamon to version 2.2.13 and GNOME to version 3.12.2. Both of these updates are actually pretty new and should make users very happy.
Also, the Lumina desktop has been implemented (still in development), the AppCafe and PBI subsystems have been improved and integrated fully with FreeBSD’s PKGNG, AppCafe support for application screenshots has been added, the 5-Star rating system and comments has been integrated with the official Wiki, various UI elements and keyboard shortcuts have been unified, the package cleanup functionality has been implemented into the AppCafe / PBI system, the Control Panel UI has been improved with additional view options and asynchronous item reading, and support has been added for adding snapshot “Comments.”
The developers have explained that the UI notifications between applications and the tray notification systems are now working much better, PulseAudio has been implemented as the default audio backend for all packages that can support it, full-disk encryption options are now available with GELI, support has been added for automatic boot-environment creation, boot-environment support for full-disk encrypted installations is now ready for users, and a few options have been integrated to set L2Arc / ZIL devices during installation.
If you are running a previous version of FreeBSD, all you have to do it to go to Control Panel > Package Manager > Updates and perform the necessary upgrades from there.
A complete list of changes and new features can be found in the official announcement. You can download PC-BSD 10.0.2 right now from Softpedia.