# Announcing VirtualBSD 9.0



## karunko (Jan 19, 2012)

Dear all,

I'm well aware that the FreeBSD Forums is probably not the best audience for the following announcement, as you're probably using FreeBSD on a daily basis and have little use for a desktop-oriented FreeBSD 9.0 distributed as a virtual machine. Still, you might be interested in helping us spread the word (and contribute a bit of bandwidth in the process) so keep reading for the details

Thank you for your time,
Reece Tarbert

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*Introduction*

VirtualBSD 9.0 is a desktop-ready FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE built around the XFCE Desktop Environment and is distributed as a VMware appliance that can also be made to work with VirtualBox, so even non techies can be up and running in no time.

But we also wanted to provide good aesthetics and usability, therefore we added many of the most common applications, plugins and multimedia codecs. In other words, chances are that you will find VirtualBSD very functional "right out of the box".


*Does The World Really Need Another FreeBSD Distribution?*

Probably not but, in our defense, this not a "distribution" or distro in common parlance. Remember that VirtualBSD is built on FreeBSD 9.0, which means that anyone with a bit of time (and lots of patience) could obtain the same end result. If nothing else, we like to think of VirtualBSD as a technology demonstrator -- and a good looking one at that!


*Intended Audience*

VirtualBSD is squarely aimed at people who: 

Heard about it, but have never tried FreeBSD;
Wanted to, but didn't have enough time to build the system from
scratch;
Used FreeBSD in the past, but have since moved to a different OS and
are struck by nostalgia from time to time

But you know what? We think that FreeBSD really deserves a bigger following, so if we can motivate even a single person to upgrade from this virtual installation to a real one we'll feel that our mission has been accomplished and congratulate ourselves on a job well done! ;-)


*Relevant Links*

HOME: http://www.virtualbsd.info
FAQ:  http://www.virtualbsd.info/faq.html
Download: http://www.virtualbsd.info/virtualbsd-90.torrent


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