Software recommendatios for a new(bie) system.

I pretty much just use the installer defaults if I'm not building from scratch. I add X, Netsurf, Firefox, i3 (window manager), and then splatter GPL3 all over the disk with Gimp.
 
Basically, using FreeBSD as a Desktop at home I have:

- Gnome3, as a Desktop very confortable, modern, fast, good and beautiful.
- Nautilus, file explorer (pdf, avi, mpeg, mp4, wav, mp3, ogg, zip, png, jpg, gif, etc)
- Firefox 64, for web browsing.
- Kodi, watching movies on my remote Raspberry Pi NAT server.
- emacs, for editing and programming.
- Komodo, editing/programming remote files using SSH/SFTP.
- The Gimp, best graphic editor in the galaxy.
- Shotwell, for my photos.
- Audacity, to create/modify/cut/transform my audio files (wav, mp3, ogg)
- LibreOffice, my office suite
- Xpdf, for my pdf files.
- Transmission-gtk, downloading locally and remotelly torrent files.
- Mplayer, best video player in the Solar System.
- Virtualbox, for my virtual machines (OpenBSD, Windows 10 and Ubuntu)
- Liferea, RSS reader.
- Stellarium, one of my hobbies is astronomical observation and astrofotography.

I published a post today about this, with screenshots:

http://joancatala.net/node/1376
BSD rocks!
 
Tu_Vieja said:
Greetings, BSDers.

In the verge of migrating to a FreeBSD desktop enviroment, I'm looking for some advice about what software is recommended that follow these principles:

-"Do one thing and do it well." (The core in UNIX philosophy)
-Have a BSD/MIT or any other permissive license. Even if I'm not going to edit the source code at all, I want to stay away of GPL license as much as I could (personal preference), but I know that sometimes it's impossible to avoid.
-Preserve privacy in the internet enviroment.

After some research I have a list that in some cases I have multiple options, in others I don't have anything at all. What I want it's your point of view on what is the best tool (following the previous principles) for each category. Feel free to give the explanation you want, even "that's what I use and I feel comfy with it" it's acceptable.

Shell: tcsh.
Port manager:ports-mgmt/portmaster
Window manager: x11-wm/fluxbox
Terminal emulator: ¿?
E-Mail client: mail/thunderbird
Instant messaging client: net-im/ricochet
Web Browser: www/firefox/www/links/www/lynx
Torrent client: net-p2p/rtorrent
File packer/compresser: archivers/p7zip
Office suite: editors/calligra ( Only Words, Sheets and Stage for college works )
Video player with support for mp4, mkv and x264/65 codecs: ¿?
Audio player that supports FLAC: ¿?
Image viewer: ¿?
Other useful software: ¿?

Any suggestion is welcome.
Sorry if there's bad english writting in the post, it's not my native language.

See ya later.
Click to expand...

Step -1-:
C language is good for all workaround and understanding.

Emails.
Thunderbird with exchange with tbsync for calendar.
mutt for terminal
or fast : claw-mail.

Office.
Beamer and Latex.
It is opensource and it will remain compilable after 50 years.

Spreadsheet and calc.
Gnumeric and scidavis

Calculator.
x48, free42

Games.
Doom3 (with original cds)

File browser:
Rox-filer
mc

Login manager.
slim

Old retro Windoze:
double commander

Heavy file browser (slow):
nemo (gnome)
dolphin (kde)

PDFs:
nothing is better than mupdf.

Heavy load pdf viewer:
xpdf, okular,... (slow)

what else?
Graphics.
Scribus and xpaint, and all kde great software.

Desktop.
KDE of course.
and much faster. tinywm ;)
 
Well this is easy - below is the ports list I feed ports-mgmt/synth on my build server, for my desktop PC. Minus a few bits that aren't really relevant.

archivers/unarchiver - cli unarchiver
audio/audacity - music editor
audio/cmus - cli music player
deskutils/zim@py27 - desktop notes/wiki
deskutils/taskwarrior - cli task list
devel/geany@gtk2 - text editor
editors/texstudio - LaTeX editor
editors/libreoffice - office suite
emulators/i386-wine - for windows games
games/openmw - Morrowind launcher
games/wesnoth - strat game
graphics/geeqie - graphics organier/viewer
graphics/evince-lite - pdf viewer
graphics/feh - draws my wallpaper
graphics/scrot - screenshots
graphics/xsane - scanner software
irc/weechat - IRC
mail/sylpheed - email
multimedia/mplayer - videos
security/keepassxc - password database
sysutils/lfm - cli file manager
www/seamonkey - web browser
x11-fm/xfe - graphical file manager
x11-themes/lxappearance - adjusts gtk appearance settings
x11-wm/cwm - my window manager
x11/dmenu - my app launcher
x11/slock - locks my screen
 
For my Desktop PC at home I use:

Shells: shells/zsh (interactive), sh (scripting, sometimes shells/bash), csh (root)
Window Manager: x11-wm/openbox
Panel/Bar: deskutils/pypanel, x11/wbar or deskutils/cairo-dock
Terminal: x11/xterm and x11/lilyterm
File manager: x11-fm/pcmanfm (GUI), sysutils/py-ranger (CLI)
Editor: devel/geany, editors/leafpad
Email: mail/claws-mail
RSS: www/newsboat (CLI)
Browser: www/firefox-esr, www/netsurf
Torrent: net-p2p/transmission-gtk
File packer/compresser: archivers/xarchiver (GUI), CLI tools
Office suite: editors/libreoffice and LaTeX
PDF viewer: graphics/evince-lite (GUI), graphics/mupdf (CLI)
Sound: openbox_freebsd_sound.sh and hXMixer
Audio player: multimedia/audacious-gtk3 (GUI), audio/cmus (CLI)
Video player: multimedia/mpv (has firefox play with integration)
Image viewer: graphics/viewnior (GUI), graphics/feh (CLI and wallpapers)
Screenshots: graphics/scrot

Other (more or less) usefull software: sysutils/automount, net-mgmt/networkmgr, sysutils/conky, x11/compton-conf, x11-themes/lxappearance, misc/qt5ct, security/keepassxc, x11/arandr, x11/cool-retro-term, deskutils/parcellite...
 
I would recommend sysutils/dsbmc-cli over sysutils/automount

All I use:

Bash: 
#!/bin/sh -e

## This list is generated via `pkg query -e "%a=0" %o | uniq | sort | awk '{ print $1 }' | uniq | xargs -n 5` ##

if ! [ "$(id -u)" -eq 0 ]; then
    printf "This script must be run as root\n" 1>&2
    exit 1
else
    pkg update -f && pkg install -f archivers/p7zip archivers/p7zip-codec-rar \
        audio/cmus audio/easytag sysutils/iocage sysutils/dsbmc-cli \
        deskutils/clipit deskutils/notification-daemon devel/autoconf devel/dbus devel/gconf2 \
        devel/gettext devel/git devel/gmake devel/libnotify devel/libtool devel/xdg-user-dirs devel/xdg-utils \
        editors/libreoffice editors/vim emulators/virtualbox-ose emulators/virtualbox-ose-kmod \
        graphics/drm-kmod graphics/feh graphics/frei0r graphics/ImageMagick7 graphics/zathura-pdf-poppler \
        irc/irssi java/openjdk8 lang/python mail/claws-mail \
        misc/mc multimedia/ffmpegthumbnailer multimedia/libtheora multimedia/libva-intel-driver \
        multimedia/mpv net/rsync ports-mgmt/dialog4ports ports-mgmt/pkg security/gnupg \
        security/sudo shells/zsh sysutils/consolekit2 sysutils/dunst sysutils/dvd+rw-tools \
        sysutils/fusefs-ntfs sysutils/fusefs-simple-mtpfs sysutils/lsof sysutils/policykit \
        sysutils/polkit-gnome textproc/docproj www/firefox-esr x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard \
        x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel x11-drivers/xf86-video-openchrome \
        x11-fonts/font-alias x11-fonts/font-cursor-misc x11-fonts/fonts-indic x11-fonts/noto-lite \
        x11-fonts/urwfonts x11-themes/gnome-icons-elementary x11-themes/gnome-themes-extra x11-wm/bspwm \
        x11-wm/compton x11/dmenu x11/i3status x11/lemonbar x11/numlockx x11/setxkbmap x11/sxhkd \
        x11/xauth x11/xbindkeys x11/xdotool x11/xev x11/xinit x11/xkill x11/xmodmap x11/xorg-minimal \
        x11/xrandr x11/xrdb x11/xset x11/xsetroot x11/xterm x11/xwd x11/xwininfo
fi
 
mod3777 said:
I would recommend sysutils/dsbmc-cli over sysutils/automount

All I use:

Bash: 
#!/bin/sh -e

## This list is generated via `pkg query -e "%a=0" %o | uniq | sort | awk '{ print $1 }' | uniq | xargs -n 5` ##

if ! [ "$(id -u)" -eq 0 ]; then
    printf "This script must be run as root\n" 1>&2
    exit 1
else
    pkg update -f && pkg install -f archivers/p7zip archivers/p7zip-codec-rar \
        audio/cmus audio/easytag sysutils/iocage sysutils/dsbmc-cli \
        deskutils/clipit deskutils/notification-daemon devel/autoconf devel/dbus devel/gconf2 \
        devel/gettext devel/git devel/gmake devel/libnotify devel/libtool devel/xdg-user-dirs devel/xdg-utils \
        editors/libreoffice editors/vim emulators/virtualbox-ose emulators/virtualbox-ose-kmod \
        graphics/drm-kmod graphics/feh graphics/frei0r graphics/ImageMagick7 graphics/zathura-pdf-poppler \
        irc/irssi java/openjdk8 lang/python mail/claws-mail \
        misc/mc multimedia/ffmpegthumbnailer multimedia/libtheora multimedia/libva-intel-driver \
        multimedia/mpv net/rsync ports-mgmt/dialog4ports ports-mgmt/pkg security/gnupg \
        security/sudo shells/zsh sysutils/consolekit2 sysutils/dunst sysutils/dvd+rw-tools \
        sysutils/fusefs-ntfs sysutils/fusefs-simple-mtpfs sysutils/lsof sysutils/policykit \
        sysutils/polkit-gnome textproc/docproj www/firefox-esr x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard \
        x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel x11-drivers/xf86-video-openchrome \
        x11-fonts/font-alias x11-fonts/font-cursor-misc x11-fonts/fonts-indic x11-fonts/noto-lite \
        x11-fonts/urwfonts x11-themes/gnome-icons-elementary x11-themes/gnome-themes-extra x11-wm/bspwm \
        x11-wm/compton x11/dmenu x11/i3status x11/lemonbar x11/numlockx x11/setxkbmap x11/sxhkd \
        x11/xauth x11/xbindkeys x11/xdotool x11/xev x11/xinit x11/xkill x11/xmodmap x11/xorg-minimal \
        x11/xrandr x11/xrdb x11/xset x11/xsetroot x11/xterm x11/xwd x11/xwininfo
fi
Click to expand...

i try to avoid java, it makes slow system. zsh is good one. xmessage is a good workaround.
What about emacs for more power in the hands?
 
Shell: csh
Terminal: Sakura
Process viewers: Top, Gotop
File manager: Xfe
Automounting: DSBMD
Desktop Notifications: Dunst
Window Manager: CWM
Multimedia: Mplayer+playd, Audacious
Office: Libreoffice
Image Viewers: Sxiv, Viewnior
Web: Firefox, Qbittorrent
 
Interesting that folks are using sysutils/dunst for WMs. I have used it before on Linux and liked it but oddly enough on FreeBSD using x11-wm/cwm and NOT using sysutils/dunst, I get notifications. Maybe these are native to a particular app? Notably, email/sylpheed provides notifications. I don't really need any others, I just thought if I didn't have a notification system in place, I wouldn't get any.
 
It is also possible to use mate-notification-daemon,
it has few dependencies and almost all of them are already installed,
if you're using dbus, gtk, etc. Also there is no need to configure
or to launch it manually, just install it, remove other notification
daemons and it will be automatically started, when notification
will appear. Also it is possible to configure its theme and position
with % mate-notification-properties command.
1yUVGR4.png

Dwfhx5N.png

Personally I don't use dunst, because it has no buttons,
but sometimes such buttons are very useful.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Spartrekus said:
i try to avoid java, it makes slow system. zsh is good one. xmessage is a good workaround.
What about emacs for more power in the hands?
Click to expand...

I have used Emacs back in Linux days. It is quite good. I no longer need that. I currently use 99% Vanilla Vim with nord theme (mostly). I am learning Java, that's why I have that installed. I am not into CS much, just for fun xD
 
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