I have written another article for Linux.com, this time about PC-BSD.

Until recently FreeBSD lacked an easy-to-use desktop version. In 2005 the PC-BSD project was started to provide just that. This month PC-BSD version 7 was released. I downloaded and installed it to see how it squares up to user-friendly Linux distributions like Ubuntu.

I had high expectations of PC-BSD, as much is said of FreeBSD’s stability and security, and having used FreeNAS, which is based on FreeBSD, I knew that FreeBSD has lots to offer. The idea of a desktop-orientated version of FreeBSD with easy-to-install software packages sounded useful. But on the whole PC-BSD failed to impress me. On the plus side, the Push Button Installation works as advertised and the ability to play MP3 and DivX files out of the box is something that many Linux distributions lack. But having struggled to install it, along with the KDE widget glitch and experiencing a system freeze, I feel that PC-BSD still needs some work.

Read more here: PC-BSD 7 is a mixed bag