POPS: Package Of the PackageS for FreeBSD
[English][Japanese]
Overview
POPS is a package of the packages for FreeBSD, and can be compared to
`a distribution' in a context of the Linux community. In the *BSDish
tradition, administrators should install as many packages as they need
by their own hand. This is not only very tough for newbies, but also
for experts: for the former it is impossible to cover the vast
variation of existing softwares, and even for the latter, it is very
difficult to choose the appropriate software for their own purposes
and install them as many machines as they have.
POPS eases the pain in choosing and installing packages. All you have
to do is to run an install script. POPS, of course, is NOT a perfect
system, but is very much helpful for average users who have to carve
their ways by themselves.
The aims and objectives are the followings:
- to provide reference environment for beginners.
- to provide a common environment for many users.
- to provide easy way to duplicate FreeBSD boxes.
The aims and objectives are NOT the followings:
- to produce a lot of newbies who are eternally newbies.
- to provide the GUI environment which is similar to MS Windows.
- to make a money by selling the distribution.
Installation
If you try POPS, you only have to prepare for more than 3.5GB free disk space
in a
/usr partition. The current version of POPS requires about 2.5GB
itself, i.e. the total amount of the disk spaces /usr needs is, even
in addition to the X-user distribution, over 3GB. However, you cannot
compile a kernel, install additional packages, in this case. We recommend
you to allocate at least 4GB for /usr.
- Install FreeBSD 4.9 (or version which corresponds to POPS)
- Please take care to install XFree86 4.3.0 cleanly.
- Obtain CD-ROM image of POPS and burn it.
- Mount the CD-ROM.
- run ./install in the directory
List of packages
Some useful packages are not included in POPS because of licence matters.
For instanse, RealPlayer, Flash Plugin for Mozilla,
Japanese Font for Acrobat Reader, JDK 1.3.1 and
qmail are not included. If you wish to use these packages, install
them by yourself via ports.
Distribution
- The CD-ROM image of POPS.20040109.fbsd49 (for FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE)
contains a bug (a package list file was empty).
- The CD-ROM image of POPS.20040329.fbsd49 (for FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE) is
here (618MB).
MD5 (pops-20040329-fbsd49.iso) = c196bb34b06a4e3258893ba498888fc1
Errata
Some skelton files of dot files contain errors in POPS.2003.05.06.fbsd48.
Please modify them as the followings:
in /usr/share/skel/dot.cshrc:
Wrong: setenv LANG ja_JP.EUC
Correct: setenv LANG ja_JP.eucJP
Wrong: setenv XMODIFIERS="@im=kinput2"
Correct: setenv XMODIFIERS "@im=kinput2"
in /usr/share/skel/dot.xinitrc:
Wrong: LANG=ja_JP.EUC
Correct: LANG=ja_JP.eucJP
Security Adovisory
ToDo
- Provide send-pr system.
- Clarify Japanese IM.
- Clarify WindowManagers.
Contact Address
If you have comments, questions or suggestions, please send an e-mail
to me <kimoto@ohnolab.org>.
I will prepare send-pr mechanism soon.
Special Thanks
I thank all the people who helped me.
- Mr. Akihiro SHIMIZU @ NTT
- Mr. Akio NODA @ NEC-SIC
- Mr. Hajime MASAOKA @ KUT
- Mr. Sekiji FUNAHASHI @ KUT
- Mr. Taro MARUYAMA @ taromaru.org
- Mr. Yukimitsu IZAWA @ NetStar
- Dr. Yutaka KIKUCHI @ KUT
(in alphabetical order)
And also thank the people who gave me many comments concerned about the web page.
- Mr. Kazu TAKAGI @ Kyutech
Publications
- Constructing common environment for independent networks.
- Masahiko KIMOTO and Hiroyuki OHNO
IPSJ Journal, Jan. 2004 (will be published)
Masahiko KIMOTO, Ph.D. <kimoto@ohnolab.org>
Last modified: Sat Sep 9 14:18:02 JST 2006