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Contents

  1. How do I get GNOME for FreeBSD?
  2. GNOME is failing to build from ports. What do I do?
  3. I installed GNOME, but I'm missing application foo. What gives?
  4. What's the best way to upgrade GNOME?
  5. What is the difference between GNOME and KDE? Which one is better?
  6. Where can I get more themes for GNOME?
  7. What window managers work well with GNOME?
  8. Why can't I launch Linux apps from the GNOME panel?
  9. Why is GNOME so huge, slow and basically useless?

Full Text

1. How do I get GNOME for FreeBSD?

There are two ways to install GNOME on FreeBSD. One way is to use packages, and the other way is to use ports.

To install GNOME from packages, use the command:

# pkg_add -r gnome

This will download the latest GNOME packages from the FreeBSD FTP site, and proceed to intall them on your system. Note: As of 4.4-RELEASE, installing GNOME from packages contained on a release CDROM is broken. You should instead use the ports method below.

To build and install GNOME from ports, you should first cvsup the latest ports tree. Then:

 # cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome
 # make clean
 # make install clean

Currently, building from ports is the preferred method for installing GNOME on FreeBSD, however FreeBSD GNOME team is working on improving situation with pre-buit packages.

- -

After GNOME is installed, you should edit /etc/make.conf, - and add the following lines. If /etc/make.conf does not - exist, create the file, then add the following lines:

- - 
-WITH_GTK=yes
-WITH_ESOUND=yes
-WITH_GNOME=yes
-
- -

This last step is optional, but these lines enable other ports, - such as XMMS, to take advantage of the GNOME installation.

2. GNOME is failing to build from ports. What do I do?

The majority of GNOME compilation problems can be solved by making sure all the necessary GNOME components are up-to-date. All GNOME applications require the following core components to build:

 pkg-config
 glib
 gettext
 gtk+
 ORBit
 Imlib
 esound
 gnomelibs
 gnomecore

Verify all those components are up-to-date, then try building GNOME or your GNOME application again. You may see compiler errors relating to pthreads (POSIX threads), such as:

 undefined reference to 'strerror_r'

To fix thread related errors, make sure you have the following compiled into your kernel:

 options     P1003_1B
 options     _KPOSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING

And make sure if you're tracking -stable or -current, that you do not have NOLIBC_R set in /etc/make.conf. If you do, remove it, then rebuild world. If you still have trouble, please send email to &email;@FreeBSD.ORG with the output of the failed compilation.


3. I installed GNOME, but I'm missing application foo. What gives?

Only the core components, and a few extras, are included in the gnome package. There is another meta-port called gnome-fifth-toe that includes some more popular (and bigger) GNOME applications. gnome-fifth-toe includes Galeon, Pan, Gnumeric, AbiWord, GNUCash, Evolution, Gimp, Dia, and more.

To install gnome-fifth-toe from packages. Note: Installing gnome-fifth-toe from packages is currently broken on 4.4-RELEASE.

# pkg_add -r gnome-fifth-toe

To build gnome-fifth-toe from ports:

 # cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome-fifth-toe
 # make clean
 # make install clean

A full list of GNOME applications that have been ported to FreeBSD can be found here.

4. What's the best way to upgrade GNOME?

I find that /usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade works really well. For example:

# portupgrade -r ORBit

This will upgrade ORBit and every other port that depends on it (that needs updating).

However, sometimes so much changes that it becomes necessary to do a little housekeeping first. In that case, this usually works:

 # pkg_delete -r ORBit
 # cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome
 # make clean
 # make install clean

5. What is the difference between GNOME and KDE? Which one is better?

GNOME and KDE are both desktop environments. GNOME is based on the GTK+ widget set, and is primarily written in C. KDE on the other hand is based on the QT widget set, and is primarily written in C++.

Both environments offer a wide range of applications from toys and games to full-blown office suites. Both are actively developed and ported to FreeBSD. If you're trying to decide which one to call your own, try them both, and see which one you like better.

You can read more about KDE on FreeBSD at http://freebsd.kde.org.

6. Where can I get more themes for GNOME?

If you're tired of the default themes that come with GNOME, you do have options. First, FreeBSD's ports collection comes with a rather large collection of GTK themes for GNOME. To install these from packages, run:

# pkg_add -r gtk-engines-collection

To install the themes from ports, do:

 # cd /usr/ports/x11-toolkits/gtk-engines-collection
 # make clean
 # make install clean

If you want even more themes, checkout http://gtk.themes.org. Note, you will probably need to install the gtk-engines-collection before using any of the pixmap themes from themes.org.

7. What window managers work well with GNOME?

The gnome meta-port installs the Sawfish window manager by default. However, there are other window managers you can use with GNOME. These include:

8. Why can't I launch Linux apps from the GNOME panel?

Short answer is you can. The problem is most likely that you have Launch Feedback (xalf) enabled. xalf is a FreeBSD shared object, and as such cannot be loaded by Linux applications. When you try to load a Linux application, nothing will happen, and something like the following will show up in ~/.gnomerc-errors or on stdout:

 /usr/local/Acrobat4/Reader/intellinux/bin/acroread: error in loading shared 
 libraries: /usr/X11R6/lib/libxalflaunch.so.0: ELF file OS ABI invalid.

To fix this problem you need to install the linux-xalf port. This port (or package) installs the Linux version of libxalflaunch.so.0 in /compat/linux/usr/X11R6/lib, and will be used instead of the FreeBSD binary when launching Linux applications. You may see the following error after installing linux-xalf:

 /usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: Shared object "libkrb.so.3" not found

This can be safely ignored.

9. Why is GNOME so huge, slow and basically useless?

Well, it depends on the point of view. Of course both GNOME and KDE are still far from perfection or even completeness and hardly could be compared to commercial offerings in terms of user-friendlity, but at the same time it is a huge step in the right direction. It also should be noted, that both GNOME and KDE are still very young and situation is likely to improve as they will mature (does anybody remember what sort of crap Windows 3.11 was?).

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