IMPORTANT: As with any pre-release, there can and will be bugs, so be sure to backup your data to a removable media or another system first.

As the superuser, grab and build the newest pc-updatemanager utility. This requires you to first install Development-Qt and Development-VCS packages from Control Panel -> System Manager -> System Packages -> Development.

# svn co svn://svn.pcbsd.org/pcbsd/current/src-sh/pc-updatemanager
pc-updatemanager
# cd pc-updatemanager
# make install

Now edit /usr/local/share/pcbsd/pc-updatemanager/conf/sysupdate.conf:

Change PATCHSET: from pcbsd to pcbsdtest

Now you can scan for updates and you should see a system update to
9-STABLE-20120505 available. Let the update download as normal, then reboot. The system will reboot twice to update the kernel / world / packages, then you’ll be updated to the newer snapshot.

As with any snapshot, please report bugs to the testing mailing list so that we can work on fixing them.

The next snapshot in the PC-BSD 9-STABLE branch has just been released
for i386 and amd64 architectures. This snapshot 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-STABLE from 05-01-2012
* Xorg 7.5.2 / Xorg-server 1.10.6
* Includes the GEM kernel support patches
* Added fail2ban for SSH brute force blocking
* Added ossec to base system
* Added support for all i18n languages currently in Pootle
* Fixed sorting of installed Applications in AppCafe
* Fixed some bugs in server install causing CLI apps to fail
* Fixed stamping boot on BootCamp partitions.
* Enable starting Warden jails at system bootup
* Enable booting installer on systems with < 512MB of RAM
* Enabled splash screen support
* Multiple bugfixes to included utilities / apps

Highlights for the upcoming 9.1:

* 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.
* 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
* And much more!

Errata

* Due to some port changes the updated Xorg Intel driver did not get
automatically included. You add it post-install by adding the line
“WITH_NEW_XORG=yes” to /etc/make.conf and then building the
/usr/ports/x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel port. This will be corrected in the next snapshot.

* It is possible to update from the previous snapshot to the current version, however you will manually need to update the
/usr/local/bin/pc-updatemanager command first.

(As root)
# fetch
http://trac.pcbsd.org/export/16662/pcbsd/current/src-sh/pc-updatemanager/pc-updatemanager –o /usr/local/bin/pc-updatemanager
# chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/pc-updatemanager

You may now update via the system updater GUI.

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.

Kris Moore will present a half-day tutorial on Maintaining your own PBI Package Repository on the morning of May 9. The cost of the tutorial is $60 and pre-registration is required.

There will be a PC-BSD booth on May 11–12 in Morisett Hall (see the BSDCan website for a map). If you’re in town, drop by the booth to say hi, pick up a DVD and some swag, and meet other BSD users.

I wanted to give you a quick status update on some of the changes for Translations in the 9-STABLE snapshots, and eventually PC-BSD 9.1.

First, all languages which are available in Pootle will now be selectable for installation. Should a string not be fully translated, the default English string will be displayed instead. This will allow you to begin testing any/all languages in the upcoming snapshots.

Second, I have removed the “pbimeta.po” file from the translation process. This file had been getting so large, that it was becoming quite unreasonable to expect our translators to tackle it. This means in Pootle now you will see a more accurate representation of the translations progress. I’m currently investigating alternative methods of translating the AppCafe application descriptions.

Third and lastly, I’ve implemented some cleanup functionality into the scripts which sync the strings into Pootle. As a string is modified or removed from our subversion tree, the old string will now be automatically purged from the Pootle database, keeping the number of strings for translation at a manageable amount.

Thanks for all the work you’ve done to translate PC-BSD into other languages! Let us know on the translations mailing list if you have any questions, or run into problems going forward.

• EPUB
• PDF

Thanks goes to Tri Mulya S for the translation.

Tigersharke is working on the HTML version which should show up here some time in the next few days.

There will not be a Kindle version as this language is not supported by Amazon Kindle.

NOTE: This snapshot is only available for 64-bit systems. Also, if you need the new GEM/KMS support provided in the previous snapshot, do not install this new snapshot on your main system as that support has been removed, pending its commital to FreeBSD. If you need that support and would like to test the new snapshot, test it in a virtual environment.

The wiki is gradually being updated with the new installer and Warden information and those sections will change over the next few days to match the capabilities of this snapshot.

From the announcement:

The PC-BSD team is pleased to make available the first public 9-STABLE snapshot for 64bit systems!

This snapshot 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.

Highlights

• FreeBSD 9-STABLE from 4-11-2012
• 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.
• 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.

Errata

• There is a bug installing to boot-camp partitions which will be fixed in next snapshot.
• The warden rc.d script is not enabled by default. Add ‘warden_enable=“YES“‘ to /etc/rc.conf to enable.
• The i386 image was not built for this snapshot, however it will available in the upcoming weeks.
• The installer will not correctly start on systems with < 512MB of ram, which will be fixed in upcoming snapshots.
• This snapshot does NOT contain the upcoming Intel GEM/KMS video driver support. This will be available in a future snapshot.

If you’re interested in learning more about FreeBSD administration, there will be a full day course entitled FreeBSD for Linux System Administrators on Friday, April 13.

There is no cost to attend either the course or the conference. Pre-registration is encouraged so that you don’t have to wait in line to register when you arrive.

The video provides an overview of what a jail is and why you would want to use one, then demonstrates how to initialize the ports jail, how to install the ports tree within the jail, and how to install packages and ports within the Ports Jail.

More information about Ports Jail can be found in that section of the PC-BSD User Guide.