There have been two reviews of the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release in the past few days.

The first is an interview with Allan Jude during the Linux Action Show. Allan provides an overview of PC-BSD 9.1, including highlights of the new capabilities of Warden. The video of the show is here and Allan’s segment starts around minute 38:50.

Michael Dexter has posted his review From Crap to Critical on his Call for Testing blog.

Kris has an article on pages 14-17 of the September issue of BSDMag on how to setup a private cloud using ownCloud and Warden. The magazine is available for free download.

If you are already testing the upcoming 9.1, instructions for using ownCloud on Warden or TrueOS have been added to this section of the Handbook.

This issue of BSDMag also has an article on What’s New in PC-BSD 9.1, on pages 10-13.

Kris has announced the availability of RC1:

The RC1 images for the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 are now available for i386 and amd64 architectures.

This release candidate provides both users and developers a means to test out new features in the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release. This snapshot may contain buggy code and features, so users are encouraged to run it only on non-critical systems.

Changes since the previous beta:

• Based on FreeBSD 9.1-RC1.
• Added new functionality to the warden client. You can now schedule daily / hourly creation of jail snapshots. You may also set the number of days worth of jails you wish to keep.  Old jail snapshots will be removed automatically.
• Improve the shutdown scripts to make sure we unmount, even if the jail was manually stopped.
• Added Active Directory / LDAP backend and GUI utility.
• Fixed a number of bugs relating to jail creation / management.
• Auto-enable the flash plugin when creating new users.
• Added some initial packages to TrueOS, such as sudo / bash and others.
• Bugfixes to AppCafe.
• Fixed Window Maker startup issues.
• Added the Enlightenment (E17) desktop as an unsupported desktop meta-package.
• Added lots of new packages for TrueOS / Warden.

Errata:

If you wish to update from 9.0 to RC1 you may do so by editing the /usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanager/conf/sysupdate.conf file and changing the PATCHSET: variable to pcbsdtest.

After changing this variable, you may run the updater utility, to download a new update manager. Once this update manager is installed, the online update to the RC1 version will appear.

If you find any bugs in this snapshot, please report them to the testing mailing list.

This version contains a first draft of the upcoming 9.1 Handbook. This draft is not complete, the sections are not hyperlinked, and sections that are still be written/tested are highlighted in yellow. The next RC will contain a more recent draft.

BETA1 images for the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 are now available for the i386 and amd64 architectures!

This beta provides both users and developers a means to test out new features in the upcoming PC-BSD 9.1 release. This snapshot may contain buggy code and features, so users are encouraged to run it only on non-critical systems.

Changes since the previous snapshot:

• FreeBSD 9.1-BETA1
• KDE 4.8.4
• Support for Warden to create Linux Jails (Debian & Gentoo support included)
• Fixed a bug with mouse cursor fonts changing over some tray apps
• Correct some bugs with mouse not being detected after display wizard
• Add new “TrueOS” server option, alongside FreeBSD Vanilla.
• Display detected video resolution / driver on confirmation screen
• Add new IPv4 / IPv6 validation to address fields
• Fix bugs exporting / importing jails via Warden
• Add new Hardware Compatibility Check GUI, which is available during install and via Control Panel
• Add new Sound Configuration GUI, which lets user select and test different sound devices
• Add NVIDIA legacy drivers for cards older than 8-10 years (32bit only)
• Added option to “mount/clone” jail snapshots via the Warden

Highlights for the upcoming 9.1-Release:

• FreeBSD 9.1
• KDE 4.8.4
• New system installer! Greatly simplified for desktop and server installs.
• New “PC-BSD Server” installation option. Includes command-line utilities like pbi-manager, warden, metapkgmanager and more.
• Support for ZFS mirror / raidz(1,2,3) during installation.
• Support for SWAP on ZFS, allowing entire disk ZFS installation.
• Support for setting additional ZFS data-set options, such as compression, noexec, etc.
• Warden jail management integrated into system. Allows creating jails via GUI, adding packages and other administration.
• Support for Warden to create Linux Jails
• New “Sound Configuration GUI”
• New “Hardware compatibility” GUI
• First boot setup wizard allows OEM installs to be easily performed.
• New Bluetooth paring tray / GUI utilities.
• New AppCafe improvements and preferences
• Improvements to wifi utility
• Fixed bug causing untranslated strings to show up empty.
• Numerous bug-fixes to PC-BSD related utilities
• Support for creating PXE boot server for remote desktop and installation.
• ZFS beadm support
• And much more!

Errata:

Users running previous snapshots may upgrade now via the online updater. You will first need to apply the “Update Manager” 20120718 update, then the beta1 update will appear.

If you wish to update from 9.0 to this snapshot you may do so by editing the /usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanager/conf/sysupdate.conf file and changing the PATCHSET: variable to pcbsdtest.

After changing this variable, you may run the updater utility, to download a new update manager. Once this update manager is installed, the online update to the beta will appear.

While PC-BSD is pretty good at detecting the sound card and the default audio device, occasionally a user needs to use sysctl to change the default audio device.

Beginning with 9.1, two GUIs have been added to Control Panel to assist in configuring sound from any logged in desktop. The first is a Hardware Compatibility GUI which provides a quick indication if that system’s video card, sound card, and wireless device are compatible with PC-BSD. This GUI is also displayed as the installer starts, meaning that you can tell ahead of time if these devices will be supported. An example can be seen here.

The Sound Configuration icon can be used to view the detected audio inputs and to change the default. Instructions for using it are here.

If you would like to try these before BETA1, use the instructions in New Features for the Impatient. You will also need to download:

• http:// ​trac​.pcbsd​.org/​b​r​o​w​s​e​r​/​p​c​b​s​d​/​c​u​r​r​e​n​t​/​o​v​e​r​l ​a​y​s​/​d​e​s​k​t​o​p​-​o​v​e​r​l​a​y​/​u​s​r​/​l​o​c​a​l​/​e​t​c​/​s​u ​d​o​e​r​s​?​r​e​v​=​1​7​651 (download link is at bottom of page) and copy it to /usr/local/etc/sudoers.
• http:// ​trac​.pcbsd​.org/​b​r​o​w​s​e​r​/​p​c​b​s​d​/​c​u​r​r​e​n​t​/​o​v​e​r​l ​a​y​s​/​d​e​s​k​t​o​p​-​o​v​e​r​l​a​y​/​u​s​r​/​l​o​c​a​l​/​s​h​a​r​e​/ ​s​o​u​n​d​s​/​t​e​s​t​s​o​u​n​d​.​o​g​g​?​r​e​v​=​1​7​652 and copy it to /usr/local/share/sounds/

Kris has just announced the PC-BSD 9.1 code freeze. This means that all of the menu strings are frozen, allowing translators to finish their localizations in time for 9.1-RELEASE.

You can view the status of localizations here.

If you would like to assist with a translation, instructions for getting started are here.