A Script Making It Easier Turning A FreeBSD Install Into A Working Desktop

Written by Michael Larabel in BSD on 14 August 2019 at 12:43 AM EDT. 36 Comments
BSD
With TrueOS (formerly PC-BSD) no longer focused on delivering a quality BSD desktop as they once did, while there still are options out there for a desktop-focused BSD like MidnightBSD, for those wanting to use a vanilla FreeBSD installation can now setup a desktop easier using a new script.

FreeBSD developer Adriaan de Groot who has done much of the FreeBSD + KDE packaging work and other tasks over the years decided to create a script making it easier to deploy a desktop from a clean FreeBSD install.

The script prompts the user for picking between KDE Plasma 5, GNOME Shell 3.x, Xfce 4, and MATE while all defaulting to the SDDM display manager. The relevant packages are then installed via their pkg package management as well as attempting to detect the appropriate graphics driver packages to install. If running under Oracle VM VirtualBox, the VirtualBox guest additions will also be setup.

Those wanting to try out this script to deploy a FreeBSD desktop easier can find it via Adriaan's blog.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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