You should now have the tools you need to get around and edit files, so you can get everything up and running. There is a great deal of information in the FreeBSD handbook (which is probably on your hard drive) and FreeBSD's web site. A wide variety of packages and ports are on the CDROM as well as the web site. The handbook tells you more about how to use them (get the package if it exists, with pkg add packagename, where packagename is the filename of the package). The CDROM has lists of the packages and ports with brief descriptions in cdrom/packages/index, cdrom/packages/index.txt, and cdrom/ports/index, with fuller descriptions in /cdrom/ports/*/*/pkg/DESCR, where the *s represent subdirectories of kinds of programs and program names respectively.

If you find the handbook too sophisticated (what with lndir and all) on installing ports from the CDROM, here is what usually works:

Find the port you want, say kermit. There will be a directory for it on the CDROM. Copy the subdirectory to /usr/local (a good place for software you add that should be available to all users) with:

# cp -R /cdrom/ports/comm/kermit /usr/local

This should result in a /usr/local/kermit subdirectory that has all the files that the kermit subdirectory on the CDROM has.

Next, create the directory /usr/ports/distfiles if it does not already exist using mkdir. Now check /cdrom/ports/distfiles for a file with a name that indicates it is the port you want. Copy that file to /usr/ports/distfiles; in recent versions you can skip this step, as FreeBSD will do it for you. In the case of kermit, there is no distfile.

Then cd to the subdirectory of /usr/local/kermit that has the file Makefile. Type

# make all install

During this process the port will FTP to get any compressed files it needs that it did not find on the CDROM or in /usr/ports/distfiles. If you do not have your network running yet and there was no file for the port in /cdrom/ports/distfiles, you will have to get the distfile using another machine and copy it to /usr/ports/distfiles. Read Makefile (with cat or more or view) to find out where to go (the master distribution site) to get the file and what its name is. (Use binary file transfers!) Then go back to /usr/local/kermit, find the directory with Makefile, and type make all install.