Hello,

after several weeks with PC-BSD 7.1, I have few remarks concerning user interface of PC-BSD. I'm new to BSD and it's possible that there are trivial solutions for these things, but anyway:

1 - Boot manager, Partition manager, tool for mounting my non-ufs partitions:
 
- when I'm testing new OS, I will create partition on machine with at least one other OS and I won't sacrifice all my files just to format entire HDD to test this OS. So there should be easy-to-use boot manager, partition manager and tool for mounting my partitions. All this should be available when I boot from installation dvd and after install in system menu as well. When new OS seems to be OK, I will eventually increase the size of its partition (this alone is a problem I wasn't able to solve at all). Commont user can't be bothered to search the net for several days just to find tools and information needed to install something that stays on his drive just for few days.

2 - Problems with KDE4:

2a- missing log files in KSystemLog:
The file '/var/log/syslog' does not exist.
The file '/var/log/daemon.log' does not exist.
2b- KDE information center - section about partitions: I have 4 partitions on my HDD, information center shows 12 partitions, incl. dvd-drive. Without proper description that would make sense. Absolutely useless.

3 - System settings -> System manager -> portsnap function. The progress bar crashes at ca. 60%, nothing happens after this. Always. Manual "portsnap fetch update" works fine.

4 - System settings -> standard applications:

- after changing default file manager from dolphin to krusader, the widget showing recently and newly connected removable disks is not working at all. USB stick and card reader that worked fine is not detected anymore. After switching back to dolphin, everything works again.

5 - Automatic (or semi-automatic at least) manager to mount USB sticks, external usb disks and card readers without fiddling in terminal. If there is something like this, it's not working like it should. I had to mount my usb stock manually.

6 - Ports collection: I've installed firefox-3.5.b4,1 (ports/www/firefox3-devel/). New entry in application launcher -Internet appeared. I have installed Firefox from PBI as well (3.0.10) which I'm using regularly. When I started FF with this new shortcut FF started, but not 3.5.  3.0.10. How can I start 3.5?

7 - how do I remove kopete for example? It's not installed as a package, so pkg_info doesn't shows it, thus pkg_delete is out of question. It would be great if there was some menu with all the installed KDE applications, not just PBIs.

So PC-BSD as user friendly system? I can't imagine my wife installing and using it...

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dalibor kollar

Hi,

how do I set up "helper applications" for FF and thunderbird? Thunderbird is playing dead bug when clicking on any link inside an e-mail. Nothing happens. As far as I know, in windows FF is checking system setting for pre-defined applications to handle different file types. Is this possible in PC-BSD? I have to define every single helper APP, even though the standard applications to handle some file types are defined in system settings.

Raising standard window with all the applications installed would be fine with me.

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dalibor

Concerning Thunderbird playing dead bug when clicking on any www link:

System settings -> standard applications -> web browser: default setting is "opens URL for  http" -> in application depending on the content of URL.

After changing it to "in this browser" and choosing "pbi-firefox-firefox3" from menu, after clicking on www link in thunderbird nothing happens.

After switching it back to default ""opens URL for  http" -> in application depending on the content of URL", thunderbird opens the links in mails with FF again.

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dalibor

Hello,

I'm using K3B (from latest PBI) to burn DVDs. Burning speed balances between 1.5x-4x. This is quite annoying, because I'm using:

dvds: Verbatim DVD-R capable of 16x
drive: ASUS 1814BL (max. 18x)
HDD: WD Caviar Black WD5001AALS, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM

In XP with Nero 6.*, I've been burning at 10x easily.

While burning, there are no other applications running. Software buffer is allways at 100%, but buffer of my burner floats between 10 and 45% maximum. This could be the problem.

Can anybody help?
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dalibor