Kris sent the following update to the translations mailing list regarding menu localizations:

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.

The 9.0 PC-BSD Users Handbook has been translated to Indonesian and is available for download in the following formats:

• 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.

LinuxFest NorthWest is this weekend at Bellingham Technical College in Bellingham, WA. There will be a FreeBSD booth which will be handing out PC-BSD DVDs and cool swag. This is a free event, so if you’re in this part of the world, drop by and say hi!

Kris has just announced the availability of the first testing snapshot for the upcoming 9.1 release. This snapshot can be downloaded from here.

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.

Kris Moore will be giving a presentation about PC-BSD at Indiana LinuxFest in Indianapolis, IN on April 14. He will also be giving out PC-BSD DVDs, swag, and answering PC-BSD questions at the BSD booth in the expo area.

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.

A video that describes how to use PC-BSD 9.0′s Port Jail is now available on YouTube.

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.