I just checked the ports collection over at freebsd.com and its not there which means its not in the ports tree. That leaves me to believe it does not exist as a pkg either. So now I think the only way for me to install it is to download all the dependencies from the kde website and gunzip them and compile.

Am I missing anything?

Why do you need KDE 3.3? What's wrong with the KDE that's currently in ports? Just wait until it's in ports, then you're pretty much guaranteed that it's stable and will work correctly on FreeBSD. Running the latest software just for the sake of having the latest is not really a good reason, especially if it means you unpack a tarball and build it from source outside of the ports tree. Then you loose the upgradability aspect vs. installing it from ports.

I just went a looked at there site and they have this awesome thing called a Konstruct, once downloaded you run it and it downloads, installs and configures everything you need for KDE 3.3.

http://developer.kde.org/build/index.html

Take a look.

Ok, what about this. Can I upgrade kde 3.2 once 3.3 is available in the ports tree?

One thing I'll add is that some of kde _ports/package_ stuff depends if you are using XFree or xorg for FreeBSD. I changed over to xorg and started the portupgrade/portinstall for KDE 3.2.3. I have pretty much all of the kde stuff, but kdemultimdia just ain't going to happen anytime today. The port is there, and/or you can pkg_add from fruitsalad for XFree, but not everything _is_ready_ for 3.2.3/xorg. If you try the pkg_add kdemultimedia, the ports system will start including XFree, which of course is what it was compiled agains. If you dl the kdemultimedia from fruitsalad and pkg_add, same thing for the same reason. If you make install or portinstall you will get all kinds of compile errors. My guess is it isn't ready for xorg. I know from the XFree to xorg change, there are some font differences. If anyone has done this, please let me know how. I "may" dig into it tomorrow if I have time. Sounds like a nice project. Anyway....

I thought I'd be smart and get the 5.3 beta iso, which uses xorg, and copy the tbz file out of it. I got it, mounted it via md, took a look. Guess what. No kdemultimedia. So, even 3.2.3 for xorg _is_not_finished_ as of this morning. So.... I can either revert back to XFree, or wait for it to hit the ports for xorg. That leads me to believe that 3.3.3 is not ready either, and probably wont be for a while. But as you said, you can compile from scratch....

My vote is what chort said. But, you sound like an adventurous type. Go ahead and report back your outcome.

Well, whadda know, message just showed up from Michael Nottebrock saying KDE 3.3 has been commited to ports. 5.2.1-Release is currently building and made available as soon as they are ready. Wow, your lucky day!!! Wonder if it works for xorg... hmmmm... 6-CURRENT has dependency problems though. See mailing.freebsd.ports for more detail.

Didnt work. Too many problems, I got lost in all the reading and gave up. Sitting pretty with fluxbox though. Thanks for the news, Ill wait till it hits ports.


Quick Question: Is OpenOffice available as a package or do I have to do a port install?

I cant find it on the Fbsd FTP.

Thanks Chort, your words of wisdom saved me a lot of time and frustration. I gotta learn to listen to those who are more experienced. I very much appreciate your help, thank you.