![MidnightBSD [logo]](/images/mbsd_newlogo.png)
Developer
Welcome to MidnightBSD development.
If you are interested in joining the MidnightBSD project, please e-mail luke@midnightbsd.org. We are looking for programmers with all types of skills, port maintainers, documentation and website maintainers, and people interested in mirroring.
Background
MidnightBSD is based on FreeBSD 6.1 pre-release. The goal of the project is to create a BSD with ease of use and simplicity in mind.
Goals
- Create an easy to use desktop environment with basic functionality and a full graphical administration interface.
- Create a unique window manager designed with ease of use in mind. We will not use full blown desktop environments like KDE or Gnome.
- Integrate GNUstep into the system, but maintain BSD licensing on our own code whenever possible. The kernel and most userland software must be BSD licensed.
- Incorperate new technologies from other BSD projects that may interest desktop users. OpenBSD's OpenNTPD, OpenSSH, and wireless drivers are examples.
- Create our own ports system based on FreeBSD's ports. The system would have a graphical interface and existing utilities would be merged into a library so identical functionality is maintained on the gui and command line.
- Setup a binary update system so that users do no need to compile patches or new releases to get security updates or bug fixes.
- Listen to user feedback to improve the system. At times, many open source projects fail to listen to users making systems more difficult to use and decreasing scope.
Initially for 1.0 release, I'd like to have a new installer (wheither it be DragonFlyBSD's or a new one) along with a basic graphical environment. WindowMaker, Firefox, Thunderbird, and a few other applications. From there, based on user feedback, I'd like to build on the solid base of FreeBSD.
To clarify, this is a fork of FreeBSD. I'm not creating a distro* like DesktopBSD or PC-BSD.
Update: (March 2007)
We are planning on using WindowMaker until
the Etoile Project is farther
along with their work. Etoile is in mports as are many other GNUstep based
software packages.
Update: (October 2007)
Seirei@ has imported Etoile 0.2 into our
mports collection. You can test the window manager and many other features. We
also offer KDE 3.5.4 and WindowMaker among other environments. About half of
Gnome is in as well. We still plan to focus on GNUstep + Etoile.
0.1 Release shipped with WindowMaker and KDE on the CD as well as GNUstep. The installer did not automatically install the ports though. 0.1.1 Release will fix some bugs with the packages as well as enable "mports" by default. Work has begun on bringing X.org 7.3 into the tree, although 0.1.1 will continue to use 6.9.
* distro is often used in the Linux community. Some BSD folks hate that term applied to other projects. My working definition is a system with core componets (kernel, large parts of userland) that are not developed by the entity releasing the operating environment. It is a collection of software grouped together possibly with an installer. This can be applied to Live CD projects, BSD firewall projects, PC-BSD, DesktopBSD, and non BSD projects like Fedora, Gentoo, and so on.
Source Code
The source code is accessible via the web using cvsweb or by anonymous cvs.
cvs server: stargazer.midnightbsd.org
CVSROOT=anoncvs@stargazer.midnightbsd.org:/home/cvs
This is accessible via ssh only. password is anoncvs
allbsd.org is also mirroring our CVS server now.