FreeBSD users on the i386 and Alpha platforms have long been able to
run their favourite binary-only Linux applications using the kernel's
Linux emulation layer. This page provides patches and instructions
on setting up Linux/i386 emulation on the amd64 platform, allowing
popular applications such as Java, Acrobat Reader, OpenOffice.org,
Netscape and RealONE Player to be run.
Note: The Linux base system and a significant number of Linux
applications can now be installed more conveniently on AMD64 systems
using the FreeBSD Ports Collection. The information on this page
is provided for historical value only.
Rebuilding the kernel
Add the following lines to your kernel configuration file:
mkdir /compat/linux
cd /compat/linux
tar xvpzf /somewhere/aaa_base-10.0.0-noarch-1.tgz
sh install/doinst.sh
rmdir dev home root tmp var/tmp
tar xvpzf /somewhere/aaa_elflibs-9.2.0-i486-1.tgz
sh install/doinst.sh
tar xvpzf /somewhere/glibc-solibs-2.3.2-i486-6.tgz
sed -e 's,/sbin/ldconfig,/nonexistent,g' -e 's,cp -a,cp -p,g' -i '' install/doinst.sh
sh install/doinst.sh
tar xvpzf /somewhere/x11-6.7.0-i486-4.tgz
sh install/doinst.sh
echo '/usr/X11R6/lib' >etc/ld.so.conf
brandelf -t Linux sbin/ldconfig
sbin/ldconfig
Add the following line to your /etc/fstab file:
none /compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0
Run mount -a or reboot to mount /compat/linux/proc.
Installing utilities and additional libraries (optional)
You may download other Slackware packages and install them with the same
tar xvpzf foo.tgz && sh install/doinst.sh commands
used above. The following packages are suggested for a fairly minimal
POSIX-style userland: bash bzip2 coreutils cpio cxxlibs findutils gawk
grep gzip less sed tar.
None of these are required to install applications in the proceeding
section.
Installing Applications
This section presents instructions for installing certain popular
Linux applications that are not available for FreeBSD/amd64. All of
the applications mentioned here are known to work reasonably well.
Run the INSTALL script and follow the prompts.
(Ignore the warning about FreeBSD not being supported.
Run sed -i '' -e 's,Linux),Linux|FreeBSD),' /usr/local/Acrobat5/bin/acroread, adjusting the path if necessary.
You're done! Run /usr/local/Acrobat5/bin/acroread as a
normal user.
Java Development Kit 1.5.0 beta 2 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)
Visit the Sun's Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 1.5.0 Beta 2 web page. Click the SDK download link. Read and agree to the license. Click on the Linux self-extracting file link. Download the jdk-1_5_0-beta2-linux-i586.bin file.
Make the file executable with chmod and run it. Read and agree to the license.
The JDK will be extracted to the jdk1.5.0 subdirectory of the current working directory. You may want to move it somewhere else (e.g. /usr/local/java) and add it to your PATH. You're done!
Note: The JVM crashes during heavy use of graphical apps (SwingSet2,
Java2Demo). The i386 Linux emulation code has the same problem.
Visit the OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 Downloads page. Choose your language (these steps assume English.) Choose the Linux (x86) operating system. Choose a local or fast mirror. Click the Continue to Download button. While you wait, read the "Invitation for Contributing" and consider donating to OpenOffice.org.
You should now have OOo_1.1.2_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz (if you chose English.) Untar it, change into the OOo_1.1.2_LinuxIntel_install directory and run setup. Ignore the warning about libc.so.6 not being found.
Follow the prompts to install the program.
You're done! You can now run ~/OpenOffice.org1.1.2/soffice (or wherever you installed it.)
You should end up with a file called r1p1_linux22_libc6_i386_a1.bin; make it executable with chmod then run it as a normal user and follow the prompts to install it.
RealONE Player will start automatically and has been installed
to ~/RealPlayer9. You're done!