Final PC-BSD 8.2 release candidate arrives

Following a first release candidate earlier this month, the PC-BSD developers have issued a second and final release candidate for version 8.2 of their BSD open source operating system for desktops. PC-BSD is based on FreeBSD, in this case FreeBSD 8.2 RC2 from a few days ago. The development preview for the second point update to PC-BSD 8.0 includes a several enhancements and improvements over the previous version.

Featuring the KDE 4.5.4 desktop environment, PC-BSD 8.2 RC2 includes minimum password complexity requirements to access user accounts and to control encryption and network support for the HP Linux InkJet Driver Project (HPLIP) enabled by default. Other changes include the addition of the PC-BSD Handbook PDF to the desktop and fixes for missing kmenu icons. As with all development releases, use of betas in production environments and on mission critical systems is not advised. Users testing the release are encouraged to provide feedback and report any bugs that they encounter.

More details about the final release candidate can be found in the release notes, in the change log and on the PC-BSD wiki. PC-BSD 8.2 RC2 is available to download for 32 and 64-bit systems from one of the project's mirrors.

PC-BSD is released under the BSD license and development is sponsored by iXsystems. The latest stable release is PC-BSD 8.1, the "Hubble Edition", from mid-July of last year. The final version of PC-BSD 8.2 is expected to arrive "in the next 2-3 weeks".

See also:

• PC-BSD 8.1 "Hubble Edition" released, a report from The H.
• Health Check: FreeBSD - "The unknown giant", a feature from The H.

(crve)