FreeBSD Manual Pages
desktop-installer(1) General Commands Manual desktop-installer(1) NAME desktop-installer - Quickly configure a FreeBSD desktop system SYNOPSIS desktop-installer DESCRIPTION The FreeBSD desktop configuration process requires installing many ports/packages and configuring many different subsystems, which can be a daunting task for all but the most seasoned users. The desktop-installer script automates the process of configuring a FreeBSD machine as a desktop system running any desktop environment or simple win- dow manager in the FreeBSD ports tree. More than a dozen of the most popu- lar desktops are explicitly supported and any other can be configured using the "Custom" option. To use "Custom", you need only know the category/portname of the desktop you want, and the command for starting the desktop from xinit or xsession, e.g. start-lumina-desktop for the Lumina desktop. This command can be found in category/portname/pkg-plist. The only other advantage to explic- itly supported desktops is automatic installation of a few common utili- ties, such as qpdfview and coreterminal for Lumina. You can easily install the utilities you want using "pkg install" or "auto-admin" after a Custom desktop install. Desktop-installer is a post-install script, i.e. one that you run AFTER do- ing a standard operating system and booting the new installation for the first time. ( See details below. ) Desktop-installer installs all the software necessary for the chosen desk- top as well as common desktop-independent packages such as CUPS, Firefox, LibreOffice.org, etc. It also configures system services and settings to facilitate convenient use of CD/DVD drives, USB ports, etc. MOTIVATION This script is meant to provide a middle-ground between totally manual con- figuration and complete distributions such as GhostBSD or Ubuntu Linux. The post-install script approach has some advantages over complete distrib- utions. The post-install script itself is far easier to maintain and un- like separate distributions, the resulting desktop system is a nearly pris- tine FreeBSD system with minimal differences from the default install. The system can therefore be maintained and upgraded using traditional FreeBSD command-line tools (pkg install, adduser, freebsd-update, etc.), or stock tools of the chosen desktop suite. For easy management of common system settings, try the auto-admin menu. Desktop-installer supports all CPU architectures that run FreeBSD and all supported FreeBSD versions, whereas distributions are generally limited to one version on AMD64. BASIC USE To use desktop-installer: 1. Install a basic FreeBSD system. The recommended install options are a basic user system including: All binaries Docs in your preferred language(s) Source code Installing the ports tree from the installation media is a waste of time. It will be replaced with a git clone by desktop installer. If you neglect to install the source tree, desktop-installer will install it for you automatically. It is best to use desktop-installer on a pristine FreeBSD installation. Desktop-installer can also be used to upgrade all the software on an exist- ing system, but there are too many possibilities for failure to support here since it is impossible to predict what kinds of system hacks it might encounter. Also, it's generally a good idea to back up your data, wipe your disk clean, and reinstall everything every few years, since data on magnetic disks can fall victim to "bit rot" (magnetic polarity fades over time) and read errors will eventually occur. Desktop-installer can install software from source or from binary packages (pkg install). Binary packages install much faster (seconds per package, vs minutes or hours per port built from source). However, installing from ports allows you to install on systems for which binary packages are not maintained. If you enjoy a simple life, install a -RELEASE or -STABLE version rather than -CURRENT. If you would like to help the project move forward by test- ing the latest changes, run -CURRENT. If you do not choose to install software from source, desktop-installer in- stalls most packages over the network using "pkg install", but falling back on build-from-source where necessary. (e.g. some software cannot be dis- tributed as a binary package for licensing reasons.) 2. Install desktop-installer: pkg install desktop-installer or (if you have a ports tree installed) cd /usr/ports/sysutils/desktop-installer make install or if you want the latest development version of desktop-installer, install from the latest freebsd-ports-wip: pkg install auto-admin auto-freebsd-wip-checkout wip-reinstall-port auto-admin wip-reinstall-port desktop-installer 3. Run desktop-installer: rehash # If using tcsh and just installed desktop-installer desktop-installer SEE ALSO auto-admin AUTHOR J. Bacon Acadix Consulting, LLC desktop-installer(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | MOTIVATION | BASIC USE | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR
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