[Welly Wu]

I own VMWare Workstation 7.1.3 for Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. I created a 20.00 GB virtual machine and I installed FreeBSD 8.1 RELEASE AMD64. After following the instructions found within the FreeBSD Handbook, I installed X.Org server and Gnome 2. When I start my FreeBSD VM, it loads up GDM and I am able to log in using my regular user account and password.
 
I want to install packages and I want to update my FreeBSD.
 
I know about pkg_add -r package name to add packages, but I am not able to add packages successfully because I am logged in as a normal user. How do I add packages to FreeBSD under Gnome 2? I tried the Add/Remove Software under Gnome 2, but the FreeBSD community is telling me that this feature is broken and it is on their list to be fixed soon.
 
How do I update my FreeBSD operating system when I am logged in as a regular user under Gnome 2?
 
I tried the sudo and gksudo commands, but they are not installed. How do I install these commands when I am logged in as a regular user in Gnome 2? I also tried to do a make install clean from the appropriate ports directories for these commands, but that failed.
 
I tried to invoke the su command, but the terminal tells me Sorry.
 
I also tried the freebsd-update command to update FreeBSD, but that failed too.
 
How do I disable GDM and Gnome 2 from starting up when I power on my FreeBSD VM?
 
I am consulting the Handbook and I am doing searches within the FreeBSD community, but I have had better luck finding solutions here at Head-Fi.
 
Thank you.

 

[Welly Wu]

Never mind. I figured it out by myself.

 

[Welly Wu]

FreeBSD 8.1 RELEASE is far superior to Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. It is just so much simpler to use and installing software applications is much easier and coherent than with the different GNU/Linux distributions. FreeBSD actually encourages you to learn more about the fundamentals about UNIX operating systems by starting with a minimalist design approach to creating the file system and the operating system. It is much faster than Ubuntu 10.10 and it is much more reliable and FreeBSD is much more secure especially if you add the OpenBSD packages or build it from the ports tree.
 
FreeBSD makes more sense to me than GNU/Linux because it is a cohesive and complete operating system that shares more similarities than differences among OpenBSD, NetBSD, PC-BSD, etc. I will continue to read the FreeBSD handbook and I will spend more time in the FreeBSD discussion forums.
 
I recommend FreeBSD as an alternative to GNU/Linux if you really want to learn how UNIX works. It will give you a solid understanding of GNU/Linux if you decide to go that route with a major distribution later on.