I received the 4 disk pack of FreeBSD. I used the #1 CD to install The Unix System. However, I do not know how to install the additional applications from the remaininf 3 CD's.
There are three main methods of installing additional software under FreeBSD.
First is "distributions". These are core parts of FreeBSD which can be installed in different configurations. XFree is one of these. You can add these during installation or after installation using /stand/sysinstall by going to "Configure" -> "Distributions".
Second is packages. These are third-party programs (not officially part of the FreeBSD project) that can be added to the system. Packages are precompiled and ready-to-run, much like software in the Windows world. You can install them by using /stand/sysinstall and going to "Configure" -> "Packages". Or you can download a package file and use pkg_add to install it. The first is simpler, as many packages require other packages before they can be installed, and sysinstall does this for you.
The third (and my favorite) method is the ports system. This is simply a directory tree full of config files. You change to the directory you want and use the 'make' command. The config file will tell make where to download the source from and what to do to compile and install it. Using the ports is nice because you can edit the config file (called a "Makefile") to customize exactly how the software is installed. Using the ports takes a lot of time, because the software is "compiled" from the original written code before it is installed. Depending on the speed of your computer, some ports might take many, many hours to build and install.
Much more can be found here: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.html
That is the FreeBSD handbook. It is the best place to go to get your questions answered. It should also be on your newly installed FreeBSD system in the /usr/share/doc/en/books/handbook directory.
If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.
-- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com
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