Compiling everything myself?

[Ivan "Rambius" Ivanov]

Hello

On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Daniel <annonymejens+bsd at runbox.no> wrote:
> Hi list
>
> This may be a basic question, but a question non the less.
>
> I have been using Debian for some years and have gotten tired by system freezes, having a slow system, and having a package system that requires that I install every skin of KDE to get KDE up and running.
>
> I hope FreeBSD will be better! :-)
>
> What I want to know is the following: Do I get the option of fetching sources and running through a guided compilation; or do I get binaries (like Debian) only?

You can get the system's sources using csup or cvsup, please check the
handbook at [1]. The system consist of the kernel and the world. You
can rebuild the kernel and the world following [2].

For applications such as KDE you can use the ports tree or install the
as packages. These options are described at [3].

Regards
Rambius

P.S. I do not understand what you mean with "getting binaries like
Debian only". As far as I remember in (but I may be wrong) Debian
using its package management system you can build pretty much
everything and it treats even the linux kernel as a package. This is
different in FreeBSD - you do not install the kernel as a package or
port.

[1] http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html
[2] http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/makeworld.html
[3] http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.html

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