Some doubts to start

[Aaron Peterson]

On 7/5/05, Efren Bravo <efrenba at dhl.co.cu> wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> How you will realize I'm new in unix. I've been reading about freeBSD
> and I wish to know what is the meaning of:
> 
> 1-Font Server.
> 2-NFS Server and NFS Server
> 3-Ports
> 
>  From freeBSD can I start a graphical environment like KDE and GNome.
> Which of them would be recommended?
> 
> Best regards

A font server is what it sounds like.  It is a daemon that runs in a
centralized location where you can install fonts and serve them out to
multiple networked clients.

A NFS server is a file server similar to MS Windows file sharing.  NFS
is in common use on Unix.

Ports are a collection of 3rd party packages that you can compile and
install via pre-written scripts on BSD.  Generally you download a
"ports tree" which is a directory tree full of these scripts.  You
find the one you want to install, cd to it's directory and type
something like "make && make install" and it is downloaded compiled
and installed in an automated fashion.

There is more information on all of these things in the online FreeBSD
handbook found here:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html

Enjoy!