FreeBSD desktop?

Erich Dollansky oceanare at pacific.net.sg
Mon Aug 1 11:56:22 GMT 2005


Hi,

ray at redshift.com wrote:

> broad understanding of how Unix handles windows.  I get the impression there is
> a server that deals with windows called X windows and then there are different
> desktop managers (such as KDE, Gnome, etc) - but I don't understand the
> interplay between them and the Kernel as it relates to how I normally see FreeBSD.
> 
>   I'm wondering if someone can give me an overview?

A very simple model would be

FreeBSD is the base
X offers the services for the GIU
GNOME or KDE offer the real GIU.
> 
>   I'm also wondering if I'm barking up the wrong tree.  I know Mac uses Darwin,
> which is based on BSD.  And in the past, I have loaded up Redhat and SUSE and
> ended up with a nice desktop - but with FreeBSD I didn't have much luck, even

Did you simply miss the installation of one of the desktops.

Take GNOME or KDE for a start and try out later the simpler thing like 
XFCE, blackbox ...

> though I installed just about everything on the install CD's.  From what I could
> see, there were a ton of things to configure, but I couldn't find any good
> documentation on setting up my monitor or what the heck was going on overall -
> even in my BSD books, not a lot of help.
> 
X is not part of FreeBSD. X is just a normal application running on FreeBSD.

>   Anyway, any help anyone can provide would be great?  I just feel like I'm

No problem.

If I understood you right, GNOME or KDE was all you missed.

Install one of them and ask again afteward.

> Kernel.  And like I say, as much as I would like to make this all happen on
> FreeBSD, it seems like Linux maybe is a better choice?
> 
There is no real difference as GNOME and KDE are just a normal 
application for both FreeBSD and Linux.

Erich


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