Dual-Boot Ubuntu and PC-BSD - Part 3: Post Installation and Final Thoughts

So it's early in the morning and finally everything is installed. I don't know exactly if they will work as expected, though.

First boot - Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
The first boot for Ubuntu was as I expected it to be having installed it 2 times prior to this feat. On a fresh install, after setting up the WiFi connection, the Update Manager instantly kicked in presenting me with a whooping 224MB worth of updates. It took close to an hour to get all these updates to install before I went about and did the routine checking if sound worked, setting the display resolution, installing packages, etc. Since I am fairly familiar with Ubuntu, I didn't have a hard time navigating around the system.

First boot - PC-BSD 8.0
I was really disappointed at first because I couldn't  boot into PC-BSD. It seems that by not checking the install bootloader option presented during the installation, PC-BSD is left in the dark. As with any *nix systems, there is a way to get this done. So to get PC-BSD to boot, I had to do some sort of virtual wizardry (which I will cover in another post). I am not really a fan of KDE, I prefer Gnome, but once I got into the PC-BSD desktop, I was excited to try it out. As I am better experienced with Ubuntu, I admit I found it hard to navigate the system. And there was the question of getting the WiFi connection up, which, again, I needed to do virtual wizardry (again, covered in another post) to get WiFi working. But sound seemed to be working and the display settings, using the intel-3d-enabled driver, worked with Compiz effects.

Final Thoughts
Basically, I am very happy because I was able to accomplish what I set out to do -- create a dual-boot between Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and PC-BSD 8.0. Of course, getting each OS to work as I want them to is another story, and those stories will be covered in future posts. Based on experience with older Ubuntu installations I did in the past, I never really expect everything to work out of the box. I am left with the impression that *nix systems are harder to manage initially compared to Windows with regard to hardware support. Of course, there is the Mac but since I cannot afford one, I will venture on with Ubuntu and PC-BSD for now.

As I am using a laptop computer, the majority of function keys don't seem to work. I am not sure if I can get them to work, but I am hoping I could.