This is the FreeBSD Ports Collection. For an easy to use WEB-based interface to it, please see: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ports For general information on the Ports Collection, please see the FreeBSD Handbook ports section which is available from: http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.html for the latest official version or: The ports(7) manual page (man ports). These will explain how to use ports and packages. If you would like to search for a port, you can do so easily by saying (in /usr/ports): make search name="<name>" or: make search key="<keyword>" which will generate a list of all ports matching <name> or <keyword>. make search also supports wildcards, such as: make search name="gtk*" For information about contributing to FreeBSD ports, please see the Porter's Handbook, available at: http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/ NOTE: This tree will GROW significantly in size during normal usage! The distribution tar files can and do accumulate in /usr/ports/distfiles, and the individual ports will also use up lots of space in their work subdirectories unless you remember to "make clean" after you're done building a given port. /usr/ports/distfiles can also be periodically cleaned without ill-effect.