From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 8 21:32:20 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9ED7816FF7E for ; Thu, 8 Jun 2006 18:13:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from ezekiel.daleco.biz (southernuniform.com [66.76.92.18]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 469B843D60 for ; Thu, 8 Jun 2006 18:13:54 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Received: from [192.168.2.2] ([69.27.149.254]) by ezekiel.daleco.biz (8.13.4/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k58ICgvi009401; Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:13:06 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz) Message-ID: <4488688F.9030103@daleco.biz> Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 13:12:31 -0500 From: Kevin Kinsey User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060509 SeaMonkey/1.0.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Mayo, Richard A RDECOM CERDEC STCD SRI" References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: "'freebsd-questions@freebsd.org'" Subject: Re: Beginner Questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 21:32:21 -0000 Mayo, Richard A RDECOM CERDEC STCD SRI wrote: > I'm setting up a FreeBSD box for the first time, so naturally > I have a bunch of questions. I'm sure these are addressed > on the web somewhere, but I'm not having any luck finding > anything so here goes: > > What file controls the way Xwindows sets up after I log on? > I got the graphical login screen, but now I want to start > Xwindows with kde rather than twm. > Welcome to FreeBSD! For some reason, the mail servers I use (or perhaps the FreeBSD server itself) are lagging a few hours behind, so I hope you've not been flooded with responses. The general answer is "it depends". As near as I can tell in your case, it would be ~/.xsession; in my case, it is ~/.xinitrc (/home/myusername/.xinitrc). That is assuming that by "graphical login screen", you meant that you were looking at "xdm", the "X Display Manager"? I boot to a console prompt and then run "startx", so "xinit" is actually setting up my session; I would have "exec startkde" in ~/.xinitrc if I wanted to run KDE. I assume (IANAE) that .xsession is similar. Take a look at Xorg(1) and especially xdm(1) for more information. If you have KDE installed, it comes with "kdm"; the thing to do might be modify /etc/ttys to run kdm instead of getty on one of your virtual terminals; lots of folks do this, from what I understand. I formerly had this box running GNOME; here's the relevant bits of /etc/ttys: ttyv0 "/usr/X11R6/bin/gdm" cons25 on secure #ttyv0 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure So, this would run the Gnome Display Manager (gdm) on the first virtual terminal on boot-up, and by default, gdm called GNOME. I assume that kdm does the same for KDE. HTH, (and that I'm not late) Kevin Kinsey