Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 11:41:38 +0100 From: "Jeff Rollin" <jeff.rollin@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The Ports collection / FreeBSD CDs Message-ID: <8a0028260609120341v61920cf5p3aad4710ef3bd634@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <d85a51ff0609120304kf4bb0bdy8fba0ed4c7f174e6@mail.gmail.com> References: <d85a51ff0609120304kf4bb0bdy8fba0ed4c7f174e6@mail.gmail.com>
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On 12/09/06, Arindam <arindam.mukerjee@gmail.com> wrote: > > I am a Linux user and have been recently trying to shift to FreeBSD. I > got hold of a couple of FreeBSD CD ISOs (version 6.1) - their names > being 6.1-RELEASE-i386-discX.iso, X being 1 and 2. > > I did my installation with the Disc1 alone. I did not need Disc2. What > is the purpose of Disc2 and what can I do with it. > > I chose not to install the ports collection because as of now, I do > not have access to Internet in my home-network and it would take a > little while before I can set it up for browsing. Does Disc2 contain > some of the ports collection? > > Finally, what is the ports collection? To take your last question first: The ports collection allows you to install software from source that does not come as part of the base distribution - that equates, more or less, to stuff that on FreeBSD installs itself to directories in / and /usr. The base distribution includes stuff like the X Window System, but not KDE, Firefox or MH, the mail handler. These latter three are available as ports, which when compiled go into /usr/local by default on FreeBSD. The FreeBSD installation program asks if you want "to install the ports collection," but what it actually does is install a bunch of directories (under /usr/ports) that you can use to browse what's available in the ports collection. For example, to download a port, say, Firefox compiled for use with the Linux compatibility layer, go into /usr/ports/linux/linux-firefox and type: $ make install clean (note you need to have Linux compatibility already installed and turned on to make this work). ($ stands for the prompt, as you probably know); make reads the Makefile, and according to instructions in it, downloads the sources and compiles them; make install and make clean (given here in shorthand) respectively install the compiled port and clean up after make. The alternative way to install software is from packages, which are pre-compiled ports. You can use sysinstall to install them, or pkg_add from the commandline. Disc2 mostly contains some of these packages (others are on Disc1). Cheers You're welcome! Jeff.
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