How to Install Gnome or plasma5-KDE on FreeBSD 12

Even that the FreeBSD is not a good Desktop for personal use. but still some people trying to make from it  an good desktop to simplify work for FreeBSD beginners . in this tutorial we will  explain how to install  latest Gnome version supported 2.28 and KDE plasma 5.12 from binary ,

How to install Gnome 3.28 on FreeBSD 12 

1-Updates Your installed packages

pkg update

pkg upgrade

Update

root@osradarFreeBSD:~ # pkg update
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
Fetching meta.txz: 100% 944 B 0.9kB/s 00:01
Fetching packagesite.txz: 100% 6 MiB 916.1kB/s 00:07
Processing entries: 100%
FreeBSD repository update completed. 31157 packages processed.
All repositories are up to date.
root@osradarFreeBSD:~ #

Upgrade

root@osradarFreeBSD:~ # pkg upgrade
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up to date.
All repositories are up to date.
Checking for upgrades (23 candidates): 100%
Processing candidates (23 candidates): 100%
The following 22 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

Install The needed packages for GNOME3

root@osradarFreeBSD:~ # pkg install gnome-desktop gdm xorg 
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up to date.
All repositories are up to date.
The following 554 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:

Add the following lines to /etc/rc.conf to enable mouse daemon, dbus daemon and hal daemon.

gnome_enable="YES"
moused_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
gdm_enable="YES"

Next, you will need to mount /proc. Add the following line to /etc/fstab using the “vi” command, this will mount /proc on startup:

proc /proc procfs rw 0 0

Reboot the machine.

Now the machine will boot into GDM login screen,

How to install KDE Plasma 5 on FreeBSD 12

Install KDE with the following command

pkg install plasma5-plasma-desktop

Next, you will need to mount /proc. Add the following line to /etc/fstab using the “vi” command, this will mount /proc on startup:

proc /proc procfs rw 0 0

You will next need to configure KDE to automatically start as FreeBSD boots, this can be done by adding the lines  above  to /etc/rc.conf using the “vi” command. This ensures that KDE and all its dependencies are running on boot:

Reboot the server