Re: FreeBSD including default X

HI

        Are  the   students   issues  with  the  identical  same H/W  
model  laptop  ?
        If the  students  all  have  different  laptops  that  they 
purchased  themselves  to  run  Windoze  on, it  will  be  very diff 
rent  experience  for  each  student.
         As the Machines  are  different  they will  require individual  
setup.
        If  you want to  start  from  a known   starting  point  I 
suggest  that   you  use   the  Freebsd 14.2  Release  DVD which  on 
the  DVD  includes  precomplied
         binaries   for  Xorg,  GNOME   and  KDE5 ,  I  have  used it   
and  I  know  those  binaries  work  on  compatible  hardware.

         Install  the  Freebsd  14.2  Release  system.   Then Mount the  
DVD   as  described  below.


 1.

    Create a |/dist| directory, then mount the DVD.

    |# mkdir -p /dist # mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0 /dist |

 2.

    Make sure |REPOS_DIR| is correctly pointing to your local
    repository. For sh(1)
    <https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sh&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD>:

    |# export REPOS_DIR=/dist/packages/repos |

    – or, for csh(1)
    <https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=csh&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD>:

    |# setenv REPOS_DIR /dist/packages/repos |

 3.

    Use pkg(7)
    <https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pkg&sektion=7&manpath=FreeBSD>
    to bootstrap pkg(8)
    <https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pkg&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD-Ports>,
    then install packages.

    |# pkg bootstrap --yes # pkg install xorg gnome kde|


|This will  have  installed  a  working stable set  of  binaries. |
|      without requiering  Network access,|
|     If  you   now  have  30  students  with 30  different  laptops |
|     It  will  be  almost  impossible  to figure out  what  each  of 
those laptops |
|     require to be setup in  /boot/loader.conf and /etc/rc.conf |
|     what type of  graphics card is installed,  etc .
|
|     If the  students  have  identical laptops you can  figure  out  
the  required settings |
|     in advance
|

|     Regards.
|

On 4/16/25 20:07, Sayed Mohammad Badiezadegan wrote:
> Hello everyone
>
> I use FreeBSD to teach university courses and encourage students to 
> use FreeBSD.
> Almost all of my students want to have the FreeBSD operating system on 
> their laptops, either virtual or real, to start with, and I encounter 
> the problem of installing a desktop environment on all laptops every 
> day, and unfortunately, students still cannot install a simple 
> environment like xfce or mate on their laptops despite spending a lot 
> of time.
>
> Now I had a suggestion:
>
> Is it possible to provide a FreeBSD image with the X environment as 
> the default, along with various ISO or IMG files or even VMs? So that 
> students can automatically boot with the X environment by installing it?
>
> Otherwise, is it possible to include a script in the operating system 
> so that users can automatically install a simple environment like XFCE 
> by running that script?
>
> -- 
> ----------------------------------------------------
> /~ Mohamad, /
> /M.Sc. Cryptography/
>