A shortlist of FreeBSD packages

freebsd-packages-shortlist.md

A shortlist of FreeBSD packages

Packages that I often install on test systems.

pkg install --quiet --yes drm-kmod firefox gdisk gitup htop hw-probe kde lsblk lynx nano pciutils roxterm sddm stressdisk uclcmd usbutils virtualbox-ose-additions-72 xfce xorg

I normally omit:

• drm-kmod when installing in a VirtualBox guest
• kde when I want Xfce alone
• virtualbox-ose-additions-72 when installing on real hardware.

Origin: HP EliteBook 660 16" : r/freebsd, where I initially remembered most of what's above. Four more were remembered after the first boot of the installed system.

The significant addition today is devel/uclcmd, which I'd like added to FreeBSD base because if we don't wish, we don't get.

If not in base, then I can install it to FreeBSD Installer USB memory sticks.

---

Using the tool to temporarily change the FreeBSD-base repo config (part of an experimental pkgbase upgrade from 14.2-RELEASE-p2 to 15.0-PRERELEASE):

root@pkg:~ # freebsd-version -kru ; uname -mvKU
14.2-RELEASE-p2
14.2-RELEASE-p2
14.2-RELEASE-p2
FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE-p2 releng/14.2-n269518-ac2cbb46b5f1 GENERIC amd64 1402000 1402000
root@pkg:~ # pkg repos -e | grep -B 1 url
FreeBSD-kmods: { 
    url             : "pkg+https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:14:amd64/kmods_latest_2",
--
FreeBSD-ports: { 
    url             : "pkg+https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:14:amd64/latest",
--
FreeBSD-base: { 
    url             : "pkg+https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/base_release_2",
root@pkg:~ # uclcmd set --file /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf FreeBSD-base.url 'pkg+https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/base_latest'
root@pkg:~ # pkg repos FreeBSD-base
FreeBSD-base: { 
    url             : "pkg+https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/base_latest",
    enabled         : yes,
    priority        : 0,
    mirror_type     : "SRV",
    signature_type  : "FINGERPRINTS",
    fingerprints    : "/usr/share/keys/pkg"
  }
root@pkg:~ # 

A shortlist of installations for FreeBSD 15.0 pkg-upgrade(8) test purposes:

drm-kmod firefox gitup got htop hw-probe kde lsblk lynx nano pciutils plasma6-sddm-kcm roxterm sddm uclcmd usbutils virtualbox-ose-additions xfce xorg

• added got because it's favoured at https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-hackers/2025-September/005011.html
• omitted stressdisk because fallout occurred
• 965 packages on AMD64 at the time of writing.

I added sysutils/gdisk whilst drafting https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=289651#c4. For quick and easy preparation of a device and a partition prior to creating a ZFS pool.