Newbie: offline package use / XFCE.

[Thomas W. Holloway]

Greetings from newbie land.

I have what I hope is a simple question about using packages offline, with  
particular reference to XFCE if that matters. I am not so much asking "how  
do I do this?" as I am "Do I understand this correctly?"

I have read the appropriate sections of the Handbook, Lehey's _Complete  
FreeBSD_ (both paragraphs :) ), and Lucas' _Absolute FreeBSD (2nd ed.). I  
have googled and done some searching of this list's archives, and couldn't  
tease the answer out of them. As you will see, it would be a LOT of work  
to "just try it", so I don't feel too bad about asking before diving in.

I would like to install XFCE on a FreeBSD 7.1 box that is and will remain  
(for now) offline. No network connection at all. If I have read correctly,  
this means downloading the appropriate package(s) and using pkg_add. So  
far, so good (I haven't done it, but it seems clear enough).

The package for XFCE4, as listed here

   http://www.freebsd.org/ports/xfce.html

is a "meta-port" (I believe I understand the idea), which seems to have  
about one hundred (100) dependencies. Of course, some of those will have  
dependencies of their own, and so on. My question is this:

In order to "download/ftp the package" for XFCE4, I would have to obtain  
all hundred (or so) of the listed files _and_ any dependencies they may  
have so as to point pkg_add at them locally. Is this correct?  If not  
correct, what have I missed (a pointer to what I've missed should be  
sufficient).

I've also looked at it from the XFCE side, where there is a nice, detailed  
doc by Benedikt Meurer, here

   http://www.os-works.com/documentation/xfce-installers/4.2.1/xfce-installer/

This strongly implies that I can bypass the pkg_add procedure entirely.  
Might be worth trying, but I'd still like to know if I've understood what  
the package listing above is saying.

Editorial comment and/or general advice on XFCE is not unwelcome. It's  
just secondary to the question.

Thanks in advance, and

regards,

Tom Holloway.

PS: I almost forgot the traditional "PLEASE HELP!!!"   ;)  But this is not  
for work and I am not on any deadline whatever.