[PC-BSD Testing] 8.0 ALPHA for your inspection: some things I've noticed

[Arthur Koziol]

Right, just finished installing it yesterday and was kicking the 
tires a bit. Noticed a couple things.

1. If I run the Display Setup Wizard from System tools, it hangs at 
the black background with the mouse cursor. I can move the cursor but 
nothing happens. CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE doesn't drop me to shell. Hitting 
the power button does invoke a graceful shutdown. 100% repeatable on my end.

2. When booting and choosing Option 7 to run the Display Setup 
Wizard, I notice it will say "Determining Monitor's Refresh Rate 
Capability" two times while in text mode before it brings up the GUI 
resolution choice screen. In my case, I'm using my old Dell GX280 
abuse box with integrated Intel 915 VGA in it. It defaults to Intel 
but if I choose Intel-3D-Enable and click apply with the default 
settings, it'll go through its song and dance in GUI mode, kick out 
to the "Saving X-Org Config" business, display "Determining Monitor's 
Refresh Rate Capability" and then bring me right back to the GUI 
Display Setup. If I go through the process again and choose 
Intel-3D-Enable and click Apply, it will go through the song and 
dance again saying it's writing the new X-Org config file and THEN 
begins booting to the desktop. 100% repeatable on my end. I think 
this junk has been fixed in the 2.8.1 driver, whenever it hits ports. 
It's probably partly X-Server 1.6.1's fault as well. Too bad no 1.6.3 
in ports yet.

3. System Settings > Network Settings > clicking on Network Settings 
throws a "Your Platform Is Not Supported" message screen.

4. Click on System Settings > Display > Gamma no longer shuts down. Woot.

5. Seems that on this newer KDE, checking on Enable Desktop Effects 
no longer throws an error on my 915-based system and the checkbox 
stays checked even after a reboot. I think it's due to the updated 
KWin. Nonetheless, that's cool.

6. Policy kit? Do I smell kiosk mode? Remote killswitches!? Moo ha ha 
ha! <rubbing hands>

7. Love the new effect where hovering the cursor over icons in System 
Setting shows you what additional options are within that setting. Nice.

8. Booting seems faster.

More as it comes.

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