General Information

Installing Pico can sometimes be misunderstood.  Many system administrators just install Nano, and symlink Pico to Nano.  I prefer to do it this way, as Nano has the same interface as Pico, just a few subtle differences.  I shall explain both ways...

Requirements

1. Root access to the server
   
2. Internet access
   
3. Compilation tools

Installation

Section A -- Ports

ports is a distribution set packaged with FreeBSD that enables you to install hundreds of programs with a simple makefile.  If you don't have ports installed, let's install it.

# /stand/sysinstall Distributions ports

This opens the sysinstall menu, the one you used (or your admin used) when installing FreeBSD and installs the ports distribution set for you.  After about half an hour, it'll be finished, and you can exit sysinstall.

Section B -- Nano

Installing Nano is very simple if you have installed the FreeBSD ports system.  If not, see above.

#	cd /usr/local/ports/editors/nano/ && make install clean

That wasn't hard was it?  With ports, you can simply change to the category directory, then the actual program that you want, and run the makefile.  A godsend!  Now that's finished, we can symlink pico to nano since users are more than likely going to type pico file.name instead of nano file.name

# #	ln -s /usr/local/bin/nano /usr/local/bin/pico rehash

Simple! Now you can use both nano file.name and pico file.name

If you'd rather install the proper Pico program, read on...

Section C -- Pico

So you've decided to install Pico instead of Nano?  No problem, some people prefer to.  To install Pico, we'll use ports again.

#	cd /usr/ports/editors/pico/ && make install clean

That's all you need to do!

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Author: configure
configure at dteq dot org