A Script Making It Easier Turning A FreeBSD Install Into A Working Desktop

With TrueOS (formerly PC-BSD) no longer focused on delivering a quality BSD desktop as they once did, while there still are options out there for a desktop-focused BSD like MidnightBSD, for those wanting to use a vanilla FreeBSD installation can now setup a desktop easier using a new script.

FreeBSD developer Adriaan de Groot who has done much of the FreeBSD + KDE packaging work and other tasks over the years decided to create a script making it easier to deploy a desktop from a clean FreeBSD install.

The script prompts the user for picking between KDE Plasma 5, GNOME Shell 3.x, Xfce 4, and MATE while all defaulting to the SDDM display manager. The relevant packages are then installed via their pkg package management as well as attempting to detect the appropriate graphics driver packages to install. If running under Oracle VM VirtualBox, the VirtualBox guest additions will also be setup.

Those wanting to try out this script to deploy a FreeBSD desktop easier can find it via Adriaan's blog.