There are two ways to install GNOME 2.0 on FreeBSD. One way is to use packages, and the other way is to use ports.

To install GNOME 2.0 from packages, use the command:

This will download the latest GNOME 2.0 packages from the FreeBSD FTP site, and proceed to install them on your system.

To build and install GNOME 2.0 from ports, you should first cvsup the latest ports tree. Then:

# cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome2
# make clean
# make install clean
	    

Building from ports is the preferred method for installing GNOME 2.

The majority of GNOME 2.0 compilation problems can be solved by making sure all the necessary GNOME 2.0 components are up-to-date. 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     _KPOSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING
            

And make sure if you are 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. It is also helpful to include the config.log from the port's work directory.

Ports such as devel/pth and devel/ngpt can also cause pthread-related problems when compiling GNOME 2.0. If you do not need these ports installed, it is recommended that you remove them.

Only the core components, and a few extras, are included in the gnome2 package. Since GNOME 2.0 is so new, there have not been a great deal of applications ported over to it. As more applications become available, they will be ported over. In the meantime, you can, however, run GNOME 1.4 applications under GNOME 2.0.

Many applications that have already been ported are included in the gnome2-fifth-toe meta-port. gnome2-fifth-toe includes GNOME 2.0 versions of some GNOME 1.4 applications. Note, many of these applications are still in the early development stages, and may not be very stable.

To install gnome2-fifth-toe from packages:

# pkg_add -r gnome2-fifth-toe
            

To install gnome2-fifth-toe from ports:

# cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome2-fifth-toe
# make clean
# make install clean
	    

Right now, the GNOME project is still very much in flux. Work still must be done to the GNOME ports infrastructure in order to get things working cleanly. However, if you have GNOME 1.4, and you want to upgrade to GNOME 2.0, first familiarize yourself with the official upgrade instructions from the GNOME site. Next, make sure your GNOME 1.4 ports are up-to-date, then remove the following GNOME 1.4 packages from the system:

gnomecore
sawfish
gnomeapplets 
gnomemedia
gtop
libgtop
nautilus
glade
gedit
xalf
bugbuddy
gnomegames
gnomeutils
gdm
eog
	   

After those packages are removed, you can build GNOME 2.0 as per the instructions listed above.

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

This will upgrade pkgconfig 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 -rf pkgconfig\*
# cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome2
# make clean
# make install clean
	    

These steps will remove all the GNOME 1 and 2 components and applications from your machine, but only reinstalls the GNOME 2 desktop. You should be aware, that if it comes to this, you will need to reinstall your applications after reinstalling the desktop. Fortunately, this extreme measure is only rarely needed.

Sure! Right now, the FreeBSD GNOME team is in the process of migrating all GNOME 1.4 ports to a new build infrastructure. This new infrastructure, called GNOMENG, will allow GNOME 2 users to install GNOME 1.4 ports without overwriting their GNOME 2 desktop.

Before building a GNOME 1.4 port under GNOME 2, take a look at the port's Makefile, and check that it contains:

USE_GNOMENG=	yes
	    

If it does, you can safely build this port under GNOME 2. If the Makefile contains the following, do not build it as it will overwrite your GNOME 2 desktop:

USE_GNOME=	yes
	    

In that case, send email to &email;@FreeBSD.org mentioning the name of the port, and we will convert it to the new layout. Alternatively, you are free to convert the port yourself, and submit a PR.

NOTE! You must have a current /usr/ports/Mk directory in order to make use of the new GNOMENG framework. If you do not have a current Mk directory, you will still overwrite your GNOME 2 desktop even when USE_GNOMENG is defined. To update your Mk directory, make sure your ports supfile is set to retrieve the ports-base tag. This is done automatically if your supfile contains the ports-all tag.

To run GNOME 2.0 applications under GNOME 1.4, you will need to make sure your GNOME 1.4 components are up-to-date, then install the gnome2-devel port. To install this port do the following:

# cd /usr/ports/devel/gnome2-devel
# make clean
# make install
	    

After installing the gnome2-devel port, you will be able to install non-desktop GNOME 2.0 applications (e.g. math/gcalctool).

The website art.gnome.org has been setup as a general GNOME theme repository. They offer some gtk+-2.0, metacity, sawfish, nautilus, and gdm themes, as well as some backgrounds.

A new theme site called The Theme Depot has just been launched. This site contains themes for GNOME 2 as well as KDE and quite a few window managers.

A good site for some cool GNOME icons (some stock, some new) is jimmac's Icons site.

See the instructions on the website for installing the themes. If you feel inclined to port a few of them, you will not be turned away ;-).

The gnome2 meta-port installs the sawfish and metacity window managers by default. Both work quite well in GNOME 2.0. A lot of people prefer metacity since it is lighter weight. However, sawfish will be used as the default Window manager.

To switch between sawfish and metacity in GNOME 2, you will need to do the following:

killall sawfish; metacity &

To switch back, simply reverse sawfish and metacity. In an upcoming release of gnomecontrolcenter2, there will be a more user-friendly way of doing this.

Yes! Anti-aliasing requires XFree86 4.x with freetype2 support. To add freetype2 support to X, make sure you have the following modules loaded in your XF86Config file under the Modules section:

Load	"freetype"
Load	"type1"
		

Then, simply set the environment variable GDK_USE_XFT to 1 before starting GNOME. If you use gdm, you can add it to your ~/.gnomerc file (make sure this file is executable!). If you use startx, then add it to your ~/.xinitrc file.

If you have any questions, please send them to &email;@FreeBSD.org.

You need to use Nautilus to edit your GNOME 2 menus. If you want to edit any menu other than Favorites, you must be root. This feature requires GNOME 2.0.2 or later.

To edit the menus, launch Nautilus, and enter the URL applications:///. From there you should be able to edit your entire application menu.

GNOME 2 applications get their GTK+ 2 resources from themes and the corresponding theme engine. If you would rather run your GTK+ 2 applications in a non-GNOME environment then you will need to create a file named ~/.gtkrc-2.0. For the most part, you can transfer your settings from your ~/.gtkrc (used for GTK+ 1.2) file with a couple of caveats.

1. If you have any theme engine references, you will have to make sure there is a corresponding GTK+ 2 theme engine. Otherwise, remove the engine entries.
2. The default font specification should be outside of any style blocks and should be specified with the gtk-font-name keyword. For example:

   gtk-font-name = "Verdana 11"