XFCE4, Office and Sound
XFCE4
There are many X Windows desktops available for FreeBSD, but
I prefer XFCE4 to the two most popular desktops for Linux/BSD/Unix because XFCE4 does
everything I want without using too much memory. Gnome needs from 128 to 256 MB of memory and
KDE needs twice that amount of memory to run well. XFCE4 will run fine in as little as 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB is optimal. My Inspiron 1100 laptop has 256 MB of RAM which means XFCE4 runs very
fast on it. If you want to get a preview of XFCE4, run the TrueBSD live CD.
To install XFCE4, first log in as root and then 'cd' to '/usr/ports/x11-wm/xfce4'. Then type
'make install' and wait for as long as it takes to download and compile the XFCE4 source files run installation programs. All of this will be done automatically except for two windows that prompt you for a response
The first window you will see while installing XFCE4 asks if you want to install support for experimental X11 extensions. I went ahead and said yes. I'm not sure what I would miss if I hadn't. Probably nothing.
The second window that appears asks which printing system you want to use. You can choose between lpr and cups (common unix printing system). Which you choose most likely should depend on whether your computer connects to the printer with a parallel cable or a usb cable. FreeBSD uses lpr
natively and this works very well with parallel cable connections but not so well with usb. If your printer is connected via usb, choose cups and make sure to deselect lpr.
Proceed to the next section of this overview of a FreeBSD installation to see how I set up printing using cups .
After XFCE4 is installed, you can run XFCE4 by typing 'startxfce4' at the command line.
Gnome Office
You can download and install Gnome Office in its entirety by going to the '/usr/ports/editors/gnome2-office' directory and typing 'make install'. You'll get a text editor, a spreadsheet, a database and whatever it has. I only need the first two, Abiword and Gnumeric, so I installed them as separate programs.
- Abiword (Gnome Office's text editor)
I prefer Abiword to MS Word since it does everything I want without all the extras that slow it down. Also Abiword is GNU free software and can be installed on MS Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. To install it, log in as root and run 'make install' int the '/usr/ports/editors/abiword' directory. Abiword for other operating systems can be downloaded from www.abiword.org.
- Gnumeric (Gnome Office's spreadsheet)
Install Gnumeric by logging in as root and running 'make install' in the '/usr/ports/math/gnumeric' directory. Gnumeric for MS Windows is available for downloading from www.gnome.org.
Multimedia Sound - XMMS
Xmms or X MultiMedia System is the most popular mp3 player for Linux and Unix systems. Before you use it you need to enable your sound card so that the driver loads at boot time. You can check to see if your sound card driver is already loaded by typing the following at the command line.
cat /dev/sndstat
If you don't see a sound card listed then log in as root and open the loader.conf file in the '/boot/defaults' directory and find the "sound modules" section. Locate the line that corresponds to your sound card and change '="NO"' to '="YES"'. I found the line with the comment"#intel ICH" because the Inspiron 1100 uses the Intel sound card then I altered the line so that it reads as follows:
snd_ich_load="YES"
If you can't figure out which sound card driver to load, try running the TrueBSD live CD and then
type 'cat /dev/sndstat' at the command line.
When you have made sure your sound card driver will at boot time, it's time to install xmms. As root use the command line to 'cd' to '/usr/ports/multimedia/xmms' and type 'make install'. When it's done you run xmms in X Windows by typing xmms at the command line. You can also make a short cut icon on your desktop by associating it with the xmms program located in '/usr/X11R6/bin'.
PDF Viewer
Xpdf can be installed from the '/usr/ports/graphics/xpdf' directory by typing 'make install'.
The xpdf program runs from '/usr/X11R6/bin'.
