[s0xxx]

Originally Posted by jaideep_jdof

I want to use netbsd 5 as a desktop os on my laptop. I want gnome as my desktop. So I have some questions:

1) Is there a meta binary package for gnome which will install the complete gnome set.

There is a section in pkgsrc Guide devoted to Gnome:

pkgsrc includes three GNOME-related meta packages:

• meta-pkgs/gnome-base: Provides the core GNOME desktop environment. It only includes the necessary bits to get it to boot correctly, although it may lack important functionality for daily operation. The idea behind this package is to let end users build their own configurations on top of this one, first installing this meta package to achieve a functional setup and then adding individual applications.
  
• meta-pkgs/gnome: Provides a complete installation of the GNOME platform and desktop as defined by the GNOME project; this is based on the components distributed in the platform/x.y/x.y.z/sources and desktop/x.y/x.y.z/sources directories of the official FTP server. Developer-only tools found in those directories are not installed unless required by some other component to work properly. Similarly, packages from the bindings set (bindings/x.y/x.y.z/sources) are not pulled in unless required as a dependency for an end-user component. This package "extends" meta-pkgs/gnome-base.
  
• meta-pkgs/gnome-devel: Installs all the tools required to build a GNOME component when fetched from the CVS repository. These are required to let the autogen.sh scripts work appropriately.

http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/gn...#meta-packages

Originally Posted by jaideep_jdof

2) On linux we have hal and fam which handles auto mount and other stuff in gnome, what all packages do I need to install to get similar functionality on netbsd.

There was a Google SoC for porting of Hal to NetBSD. It should be in pkgsrc now. I don't use it so I don;t know.

Originally Posted by jaideep_jdof

3) I read in netbsd 5 release note that their is now a journalized filesystem, how do i enable that, what all options do i have to select during installation.

I'm not sure whether there is an option during installation as I haven't reinstalled my system in a while. But, if you want to add journaling to one of your partition's the only thing you need to do is to add 'log' option in fstab for that partition. Example:

/dev/wd0a       /       ffs     rw,log        1 1

WAPBL and softdep don't go together. WAPBL doesn't work with ffs(4) either, unless it has been done lately and I didn't hear about it. See the man page for wapbl(4) and the following:

http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/bx/blosx...0822_2037.html

Originally Posted by jaideep_jdof

4) I have a 160 gd hdd so what should be the ideal partitioning for a desktop setup, I want to dedicate whole disk to NetBSD.

That really depends of what are you're going to do with it. If it's a desktop system then make a big /home partition, 'cause that will hold all your big files like movies, music etc. No need for bigger root that 512MB. The same for /var. Put /tmp in RAM (see mount_tmpfs(8)).

Originally Posted by jaideep_jdof

5) I searched on pkgsrc.se and the complete list on pkgsrc.org but i couldn't find gnome full text search app called tracker, doesn't NetBSD support it. I use tracker and 'gnome-do' a lot.

I don't use Gnome either so I can't help you there. But a search in pkgsrc.se reveals it is in wip/meta-tracker.

At the end, just want to point you to Desktop NetBSD project, but unfortunatelly it's still at the beggining of development.

Cheers