While FreeBSD is popular among ISPs for its performance and stability, it is quite ready for day-to-day use as a desktop. With several thousand applications available as packages or ports, you can build a perfect desktop that suits all your needs.
Once you have achieved the installation of your desktop, you may want to go one step further with misc/instant-workstation. This “meta-port” allows you to build a typical set of ports for a workstation. You can customize it by editing /usr/ports/misc/instant-workstation/Makefile. Follow the syntax used for the default set to add or remove ports, and build it with the usual procedure. Eventually, you will be able to create a big package that corresponds to your very own desktop and install it to your other workstations!
Here is a quick review of all the desktop applications covered in this chapter:
| Application Name | Package Name | Ports Name |
|---|---|---|
| Mozilla | mozilla | www/mozilla |
| Opera | opera | www/opera |
| Firefox | firefox | www/firefox |
| KOffice | koffice-kde3 | editors/koffice-kde3 |
| AbiWord | abiword | editors/abiword |
| The GIMP | gimp | graphics/gimp |
| OpenOffice.org | openoffice | editors/openoffice-1.1 |
| Acrobat Reader® | acroread | print/acroread7 |
| gv | gv | print/gv |
| Xpdf | xpdf | graphics/xpdf |
| GQview | gqview | graphics/gqview |
| GnuCash | gnucash | finance/gnucash |
| Gnumeric | gnumeric | math/gnumeric |
| Abacus | abacus | deskutils/abacus |
This, and other documents, can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/.
For questions about FreeBSD, read the documentation before contacting <[email protected]>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <[email protected]>.