The May issue of BSDMag (available for free download here) has two articles about PC-BSD.

Kris Moore has an article “A Fresh Look for the Warden for PC-BSD 9.1″ on pp. 6-9. Warden is a GUI tool for managing FreeBSD jails and has been rewritten for 9.1. New features include the ability to add multiple jails, the ability to create FreeBSD jails or ports jails (which use nullfs to allow you to safely install and run apps on your PC-BSD system), and the ability to export and import jails.

Jesse Smith has an article “Introducing EasyPBI–Making PBI Modules With a Few Mouse Clicks” on pp. 18-19. EasyPBI allows one to convert an existing FreeBSD port into a PC-BSD PBI with an easy-to-use GUI.

There are a large number of new games available for PC-BSD 9.0, spanning game types such as action, arcade, card, educational, strategy, online RPG, puzzle, first person shooter, and party games. As mentioned with the desktop utilities, the PBI’s for these games should work in all the desktop environments available with PC-BSD, not just the one(s) mentioned in the game description.

Some of the new games are (in alphabetical order):

AfternoonStalker, AlienArena, Amoebax, Atomix, Barrage, Bomns, Briquolo, BrainParty, BubBros, Burgerspace, Chromium-BSU, Cosmosmash, Crimson, Cuyo, DJgame2, Dopewars, EasySok, Enigma, FreeDink, Gbrainy, GCompris, Gno3DTet, GnomeBreakout, GnomeChess, GnomeKiss, GnomeMemoryBlocks, GnomerMind, GNUDoku, GTetrinet, GtkTetcolor, gTuring, Gweled, Hedgewars, Hexalate, Instead, Kanatest, KDEGames4, Klavaro, KFreeRings, kMancala, KPicFramer, Kpictorial, KPuzzle, KSudoku, KTritoc, KWappen, LBreakout2, Legends, LianLianKan, LMarbles, LordsAWar, LucidLife, MonkeyBubble, MonsterMasher, MudMagic, nPush, OpenCity, OpenYahtzee, Peg-E, Pink-Pony, Pioneers, Pipewalker, Plee-The-Bear, PokerTH, PPRacer, py-Mnemosyne, py-Pychess, QNetWalk, Six, SuperTux, SolarWolf, TaxiPilot, TEG, Tetzle, TheManaWorld, Toppler, Trackballs, TuxType, WarMUX, Xpuyopuyo, XQF, Zaz

Thanks to Jesse Smith for many of these PBI modules.

With PCBSD 9.0 rapidly approaching completion, I wanted to take some time over the next week or so to inform the community about many of the new 9.x PBI’s that will be available through the AppCafe.

Today I am going to list the new PBI’s within the “Desktop Utilities” category (ports/deskutils in FreeBSD language). One of the main aspects that I wish to point out is that while many of these programs are designed to work within specific desktop environments (GNOME, KDE, etc…), the PBI format ensures that these programs should work with any of the PCBSD 9.0 desktop environments, regardless of the program description! For example: Katapult is a KDE application that, when installed as a PBI, works successfully on a system with IceWM rather than KDE installed. I hope this will allow users to utilize the applications that they are familiar with, while running the desktop environment of their choice!

Some of the new PBI’s for the desktop utilities category are listed below (in alphabetical order):

Alacarte, BlogTK, BookReader, Cairo-Dock, Drivel, FBReader, GanyRemote, GBirthday, Genius, Gnote, GnoTime, Gourmet, Griffith, GRuler, GTG, gToDo, Gucharmap, GXNeur, Katapult, KBLTicker, KLuJe, KnowIt, Krefty, KTagebuch, Labyrinth, Launchy, NoteCase, Orage, Parcellite, Pinot, Planner, QTM, Recoll, RedNotebook, Rubrica, TaskCoach, Virt-Manager, Wammu, XPad

Thanks to Jesse Smith for creating many of the modules for these PBI’s.

The following PBI is now available in Software Manager:

Midori: Midori is a lightweight web browser.

Thanks to Ken Moore for creating this PBI module and to Linuxis for requesting it.

The following PBI is now available in Software Manager:

Samba: Samba4 is an attempt to implement an Active Directory compatible Domain Controller. In short, you can join a WinNT, Win2000, WinXP or Win2003 member server to a Samba4 domain, and it will behave much as it does in AD, including Kerberos domain logins where applicable.

Note that this PBI provides the server portion of Samba as PC-BSD aleady includes the client version of Samba. Since this is the server version, you will need to edit the smb.conf configuration file in order to complete the server setup. You can either do this manually or use KDE’s or GNOME’s Windows sharing services which provide front-ends to the Samba configuration.

The following PBI is now available through Software Manager:

Subversion: Subversion is a version control system designed to be as similar to cvs(1) as possible, while fixing many outstanding problems with cvs(1).

Thanks to Jesse Smith for creating the PBI and to logan54 for requesting it.

The following PBI is now available in Software Manager:

Phoronix Test Suite: The Phoronix Test Suite is the most comprehensive testing and benchmarking platform available for the *nix operating system. This software is designed to effectively carry out both qualitative and quantitative benchmarks in a clean, reproducible, and easy-to-use manner.

Thanks to Ken Moore for creating this PBI and to John R Davis Jr. for requesting it.

The following PBI is now available through Software Manager:

MyPaint: MyPaint is a fast painting/scribbling program. It supports pressure sensitive graphic tablets and comes with an easy to use brush collection. There is a complex interface for creating your own brushes, focusing on brush dynamics (changes with speed, pressure, or randomly). The canvas size is unlimited and undo is supported, but not layers.

Thanks to Ken Moore for creating this PBI and to voyager for requesting it.

The following PBI is now available through Software Manager:

Xfe: X File Explorer (Xfe) is an MS-Explorer like file manager for X. It is based on the popular, but discontinued, X Win Commander. Xfe aims to be the file manager of choice for Unix addicts.

Thanks to Jesse Smith for creating this PBI and to XENOHEAVEN for requesting it.

The following PBI is now available through Software Manager:

F-Prot: F-Prot Antivirus for BSD Workstations utilizes the renowned F-Prot Antivirus scanning engine for primary scan but has in addition to that a system of internal heuristics devised to search for unknown viruses. This version of F-Prot is a command line n-demand scanner. Please note that the license explicitly permits that F-Prot Antivirus for BSD Workstations is free for personal users on personal workstations. For any other use please consult their website for licensing information.

Thanks to Ken Moore for creating this PBI and to Xenoheaven for requesting it.