6.3. Installing X11

Xorg is the 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 version of Xorg currently available in the FreeBSD Ports Collection is 7.7.

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.

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

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.

To install a minimal X11 distribution you can alternatively install x11/xorg-minimal.

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

This, and other documents, can be downloaded from http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/

For questions about FreeBSD, read the documentation before contacting <questions@FreeBSD.org>.

For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.