GhostBSD is switching the base system from FreeBSD to TrueOS

Recently, a hot discussion was going on GhostBSD forums regarding the base project. Currently, the distribution is based on FreeBSD and the discussions were on the topic whether to migrate to TrueOS base or not. The team has concluded these discussions with the decision to create future releases of GhostBSD with the TrueOS base. The team is yet to decide whether to continue FreeBSD based releases or not.

The team has decided to migrate to TrueOS base considering following facts.

For some time we have discussed problems that GhostBSD is facing in the long run. Some of our community have asked for improvements including a better rc such as OpenRC. We all have thought of OpenRC, but for a small team, it is a hard thing to do on our own as a project. After a lot of discussions, we decided to join TrueOS effort. Since then it is now making more sense as both of the main developers of GhostBSD work for iXsystems.

TrueOS is becoming more mature as an appliance building platform making it appealing for the goal of creating reproducible builds of GhostBSD. Security-enhancing features such as LibreSSL integration and improved service management with OpenRC are just a few examples of some the improvements the switch will bring.

For details, see original announcement published in GhostBSD blogs. 

GhostBSD 11.1 BETA 1 released

Mr ericbsd of GhostBSD team has announced release of GhostBSD 11.1 BETA 1, latest development release of FreeBSD based desktop operating system. This release brings MATE and Xfce flavors for i386 and x86_64 systems.

As any other development releases, GhostBSD 11.1 BETA 1 is also not free from bugs and issues. The purpose of providing a development release is to find as many bugs as possible and fix it to provide a more robust and reliable experience with final release. With this release, the team is expecting more of volunteers from community to test the installation images and report bugs.

Following are some highlights of GhostBSD 11.1 BETA 1 release:

• Provides support for VMware Workstation Guest Features out-of-box
• Fixed various issues like
  • locale setting not filling correctly
  • Update Station tray icon
  • XFCE ghostbsd-build: pkg still bootstrap from pkg.freebsd.org instead of pkg.ghostbsd.org
  • Octopkg / new repo
   

For more details, checkout original release announcement published by GhostBSD team.

GhostBSD 11.1 Alpha 1 released in MATE & Xfce flavors

Mr Eric Turgeon of GhostBSD project has announced availability of GhostBSD 11.1 Alpha 1 for testing. This is first development release prior to upcoming stable GhostBSD 11.1 release. It is available in both MATE and Xfce flavors for i386 and x86_64 architectures.

When sharing a development release with community, GhostBSD is expecting some volunteers to step in for testing the installation image. So that the final release can be made more reliable and robust by incorporating as many bugs as possible.

GhostBSD 10.1 MATE Desktop (Courtesy : Wikipedia)

GhostBSD 11.1 Alpha 1 release comes with some feature updates and fixes for various bugs. It can be summed up as follows:

• A self hosted repository for GhostBSD
• Updated packages
• Whisker Menu as default Application menu of XFCE
• Various fixes associated with:
• XFCE and MATE live-session shutdown/suspend/hibernate
• xf86-video-intel
• MATE desktop fails on initial boot for install/li>
• Clicking 'GhostBSD Bugs' item in the Main menu -> 'System Tools' brings up 'Server not found' page
• XFCE installation - incorrect keyboard layout
• ZFS setup appears to be incomplete

For more information, see original release announcement published in GhostBSD blog.

GhostBSD 10.3 Enoch released with UEFI and ZFS support

The GhostBSD project has unveiled GhostBSD 10.3 with code name Enoch. This stable release of GhostBSD is coming after almost one year of development, testing and quality assurance activities. It is available in both Xfce and MATE flavors.

GhostBSD is a FreeBSD based, user friendly BSD distribution targeting desktop users. It combines powerful FreeBSD core with user friendly installer, hardware auto-detection scripts and pre-installed desktop environments which makes it more aligned to beginners.

GhostBSD 10.3 comes with numerous bug fixes and improvements. The major highlights of this release includes support of UEFI enabled systems and the ability to create ZFS partitions. Other notable highlights of this release includes:

• Installer custom partition creation subjection
• VirtalBox support get install in boot time if needed.
• 4k partition alignment by default
• GhostBSD Software will be updated Quarterly which will bring more stability to GhostBSD still user will be able to change it to latest to have the latest software update.
• The installer partition editor UI and partitioning have been improved
• VirtualBox additions would be uninstall after installer if it is not runnig in a VirtualBox
• Slim is replacing GDM.
• Networkmgr display the full SSID
• Replaced the HTML/CSS installation slide with a GTK/CSS the slide.

For additional details and installation guide lines, see release announcement published in projects website.

Download GhostBSD 10.3 MATE Edition

64 BIT | 32 BIT

Download GhostBSD 10.3 Xfce Edition

64 BIT | 32 BIT

GhostBSD 10.3 RC1 is available now

The GhostBSD project has announced availability of GhostBSD 10.3 RC1 for testing. This development image of GhostBSD is available with MATE and Xfce desktop environments, for x86 and x64 architectures.

GhostBSD is a user friendly BSD distribution built over FreeBSD base. In addition to key features of FreeBSD, GhostBSD has a user friendly installer, hardware auto detection feature, automated network configuration and pre-installed desktop environments ..etc. GhostBSD mainly focuses on MATE and Xfce desktop environments.

GhostBSD 10.3 RC1 has got some bug fixes over previous releases, and also it includes some notable changes.

• Slim is replacing GDM
• ZFS disk encryption has been block and this feature should be available in GhostBSD 11.
• Installer custom partition creation subjection
• VirtalBox support get install in boot time if needed.
• Full UEFI Support
• Fixed installer issues with ZFS Mirror and zraid setup, custom partition problem, UEFI partition, /boot partition ..etc
• Resolved 4k partition alignment issue
• Corrected Network Manager long SSID name
• Fixed Network Manager slowness to open the menu
• Fixed Network Manager icon tray crash

For more information on this release, check release announcement published by GhostBSD team.

Download GhostBSD 10.3 RC1 Xfce

64 BIT | 32 BIT

Download GhostBSD 10.3 RC1 MATE

64 BIT | 32 BIT

GhostBSD 10.3 ALPHA2 is ready with MATE and Xfce desktops

The GhostBSD team has moved one more step closer to it's next stable release, GhostBSD 10.3. Yes. GhostBSD team has announced availability of GhostBSD 10.3 Alpha 2 for testing. This development release of GhostBSD is available with MATE and Xfce desktops and is available for i386, amd64 and amd64-uefi architectures.

Following are notable highlights of this development release of GhostBSD.

• Gbi log and partition data base is now deleting when closing gbi.
• Resetting partition data base when going back the installation type.
• 4K Partition Alignment.
• Networkmgr full SSID name.
• System Update duplicating the whole install under /boot/kernel.old
• Gbi "back" button error
• sudo configuration
• Wifi down by default
• /etc/localtime not created by installer.
• Locales are not correctly set up on installation.
• missing kern.vty=vt setting in grub.cf

For additional details see release announcement published in project website.