Setting up a Freebsd Multimedia Desktop (Page 1 of 4)
Written by
Steve Lake
Posted on: Jun 13, 2007 at 03:26pm
Section:
Tutorials
Printer Friendly Version
Legacy URL
Of all the many wonderful and free operating systems out there, few can begin to meet or
surpass the quality, stability, and structured operation of FreeBSD. That’s why I
like it so much and have used it for years. But out of the box, FreeBSD is and always will
be a server OS. That’s the way it’s written. That’s why other groups have
come out and created desktop versions of Freebsd, namely FreeBSIE and DesktopBSD, both of
which are based on the Freebsd 5.x desktop line and use the XFCE and KDE window managers
respectively, to provide users with a viable Freebsd desktop. But despite both of these
really good alternatives to the stock Freebsd install, I’ve found that nothing beets
setting up your own Freebsd desktop right from scratch, and in this tutorial I plan to
show you how to do just that. What you’ll end up with is a desktop environment that
is top notch and tailored right to your liking that is pure and uncustomized by anyone
else, except you. So it’s a system you can have exactly your way to your liking.
For
those who are new or unfamiliar with Freebsd, this will also be a great way for you to
learn how to use and troubleshoot the OS, because by going this way, while it is not the
easiest and you’ll likely run into at least one snag or problem not listed in this
tutorial that you’ll have to troubleshoot and solve, you’ll learn so much about
the OS that you’ll either come to love it to death, or hate it without reserve.
I’m hoping for the first choice. And lastly, I do admit that there are easier ways to
do what I’m about to show you. Mostly via the previously two named desktop oriented
Freebsd distributions named before. But that’s not the point of this tutorial.
I’ve done this as a teaching tutorial to help you learn Freebsd while creating your
own custom built Freebsd install. The idea is, if you don’t know how to properly use
an OS, what’s the point of having it in the first place? Doing things by hand and
struggling through tutorials like this are sometimes the best way to learn and understand
an OS, and the better you understand it, the more you’ll either come to love or hate
it and the richer your user experience will be in the end. Now let’s get started with
the first stage of this setup, which is the installation of the OS.
| Previous Page |
|| |
|  |
|
Average vistor rating: 4.2 out of 5 (15 total votes) | |
