Intro

FreeBSD has in its repositories more than 25,000 applications available for installation.

There are two methods of installation:

  • Install from source (using ports)

    • Great for maximum control, you can select the options you need when compiling the software. The disadvantage is that the process is a little harder and involve more steps than just using a precompiled package
     

  • Install a precompiled binary package (using pkg)

    • Easy to manage but you don’t have control of how the software is built. Another disadvantage is that not all the software available has a corresponding package, so you might need to install from source in some cases

    Go to the next pages for more information about using ports and pkg to do some common tasks

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