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5.3 Installing X11

Xorg or XFree86™ may be installed on FreeBSD. Beginning with FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE, Xorg is the default X11 implementation for FreeBSD. Xorg is the X server of the open source X Window System implementation released by the X.Org Foundation. Xorg is based on the code of XFree86 4.4RC2 and X11R6.6. The X.Org Foundation released X11R6.7 in April 2004 and X11R6.8.2 in February 2005, this latter is the version currently available in the FreeBSD Ports Collection.

To build and install Xorg from the Ports Collection:

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

Note: To build Xorg in its entirety, be sure to have at least 4 GB of free space available.

To build and install XFree86 from the Ports Collection:

# cd /usr/ports/x11/XFree86-4
# make install clean

Alternatively, X11 can be installed directly from packages. Binary packages to use with pkg_add(1) tool are also available for X11. When the remote fetching feature of pkg_add(1) is used, the version number of the package must be removed. pkg_add(1) will automatically fetch the latest version of the application.

So to fetch and install the package of Xorg, simply type:

# pkg_add -r xorg

The XFree86 4.X package can be installed by typing:

# pkg_add -r XFree86

Note: The examples above will install the complete X11 distribution including the servers, clients, fonts etc. Separate packages and ports of X11 are also available.

The rest of this chapter will explain how to configure X11, and how to set up a productive desktop environment.

5.3.1 Moving from XFree86™ to Xorg

As with any port, you should check the /usr/ports/UPDATING file for changes. Included in this file are instructions for converting your system from XFree86 to Xorg.

Use CVSup to update your ports tree prior to attempting any conversion. You will also need to install sysutils/portupgrade prior to converting your X11 installation.

In your /etc/make.conf you will need to add the variable X_WINDOW_SYSTEM=xorg. This ensures that your system knows which X11 is being used. The older XFREE86_VERSION variable has been deprecated and has been replaced with the X_WINDOW_SYSTEM variable.

Then, use the following commands:

# pkg_delete -f /var/db/pkg/imake-4* /var/db/pkg/XFree86-*
# cd /usr/ports/x11/xorg
# make install clean
# pkgdb -F

The pkgdb(1) command is part of the portupgrade software and will update various package dependencies.

Note: To build Xorg in its entirety, be sure to have at least 4 GB of free space available.

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