6.6 Summary

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
Netscape® linux-netscape7 www/netscape7
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/acroread5
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 <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.

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