I have tried both FreeBSD and PC-BSD, but neither seems to work.
Linux Mint 14 64-bit runs fine as live DVD, so I don't think there are HW problems.

My Mobo is: GA-B75M-D3H (rev. 1.1)
and the processor: i3 ivy bridge

PC-BSD 9.1 didn't even start:
The start-up stopped, when it didn't find /bin/sh and wanted a shell. the only shell it accepted was csh, but any command in csh(1) crashed with a segmentation fault. Even ls(1). Writing /bin/<tab> let me see what was there in /bin, and all the shells seemed to be there.

The FreeBSD 9.1 installed, but X didn't.
Since 9.1 has no packages, I used 9-stable/Latest.
It's just that the Intel HD-graphics weren't there to be installed.

Can someone give me step-by-step instructions what to do to get the X working with FreeBSD? Given my experiences (above), I don't think PC-BSD is an option.
Just "recompiling" is not enough, because I don't know about configurations nor the paths (in which directory to give the commands in).

https://cooltrainer.org/2012/01/02/a...esktop-how-to/
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=35308

Thanks, vermaden. Quite some reading to do. :-)

PC-BSD should have worked I'd have thought.

Might test download file for md5/shal and reburn on the very slowest speed you can burn on. Use best quality cd/dvd. BSD's and Solaris were real bad for how the data is on the disk.

Guess you could try a live usb or bootable usb flash drive to test if you think it might be a optical disk issue/disk controller.

Freebsd needs quite a lot of additional work for x windows or a gui sometimes. For some reason I thought they did fully support the intel graphics.

Jefro, I don't suspect the DVD-player, because there has not been any problems with running Linux Mint 14 as Live. I leave Mint on (for other folks) when not trying to get FreeBSD to work. That is, I boot to Mint Live almost daily until I get FreeBSD installed - if my patience lasts that long. ;-)

I managed to burn a new PC-BSD DVD. Tested it a bit in a Thinkpad T400. It seems to work.
Maybe I'll try it in the weekend...

About the FreeBSD:

Got the Intel integrated graphics to "almost" work. X11 and Gnome are starting up. Keyboard and mouse work, except that the keyboard mapping (fi) seems to get forgotten every now and then.

Another weird phenomenon:

I had to use "vesa", because "intel" makes all "specled". I can't even see as who I log in (if I didn't know the order).
Am I short of memory or what?
The "specles" seem to "live" as if there is some live data in the display memory. The applications/term gets unreadable, but xterm doesn't get specled at all. Also menus are "specled".

Still another funny thing, when I log in as someone else but root and open some applications (3 seems to be enough), I very soon start getting error messages about kernel.maxfiles exceeded. What's wrong? It doesn't happen for root. Is that related to X11 or Gnome? Is increasing the maxfiles to, say, 25000 the recommended fix?

Forget it.
Thanks anyway to all the folks that participated helping me.

I installed firefox, java and tried to install flashplayer.
I had to install linux emulation, etc. manually package by package.
I tried to set the kern.maxfiles in the sysctl.conf, and the system didn't come up. Then into /boot/defaults/loader.conf and the system didn't come up.
There was no /boot/loader.conf.

The Intel HD graphics 2500 case got never solved.

I already used more than a week trying to get FreeBSD working, and there was just problems after problems. I don't want to build the whole system package by package, so I'm going with Linux Mint.
It just looks like MoBo GA-B75M-D3H with Intel i3 is not compatible with FreeBSD.

New burn of PC-BSD worked otherwise, but nothing seemed to end up to the HD (it didn't boot). The subsequent installations then crashed into the already formatted partition.

Even Debian Live didn't work on my HW, so I can't trust Debian either.

I decided to go with Linux Mint. It's running quite smoothly now.
Installing Mint took, I guess, about an hour or so.

Maybe one day...

FreeBSD was a hell of a shock for me. it dosnt help learning a system when your rushed to learn it. that was one thing that slowed me down. FreeBSD especially has problems with hardware compatability. the best way to learn it is to put it in a virtual machien and take your time thumbing through the handbook.

Learning FreeBSD is another matter. You can't start if you don't get a system up and running.
I guess my timing was also bad. Due to the security issues, the release didn't have packages at all - only ports.
So it seemed like the 9-STABLE and 9.1-RELEASE had some version conflicts, that tended to spread tree-like,
when tampered with by someone non-knowing person, like me.

I think there is also some issues with xorg when it comes to Intel integrated graphics with sandy bridge or ivy bridge.

Learning FreeBSD is like learning Slackware. You just have to read the documentation. In fact, you'd be surprised that FreeBSD and Slackware have a lot in common.

As far as the hardware issue. Most people with Radeon and Intel chipsets do have a bit of a headache getting X11 to work right, much less get 3D graphics working. However, since FreeBSD now uses LLVM/Clang the new compiler does work with Gallium3D to get hardware level subroutines working better, but I'm not sure how much support there is with the BSD kernel. I only use Nvidia graphics for FreeBSD.

Maybe give OpenBSD a try. I was a long-time FreeBSD user. I now prefer OpenBSD.

Maybe one day. I have Linux Mint up and running now.

Linux Mint is a solid distro; I've tried it a few times.

I have not used FreeBSD for a bit. Running FreeBSD 9.1 and Gnome 2.3x; it is very nice indeed!

Just downloaded FreeBSD 9.1 the other day and was messing around with it in VirtualBox. The ports seems to have been improved a lot as I got a lot built this time without a lot of hiccups.

I have yet to grab a copy of PC-BSD 9.1 yet, however.