From owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 8 21:22:44 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 30FED16A4CE for ; Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:22:44 +0000 (GMT) Received: from fidel.freesurf.fr (fidel.freesurf.fr [212.43.206.16]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EC9843D3F for ; Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:22:43 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from olivier@gautherot.net) Received: from [212.43.209.195] (du-209-195.nat.adsl.claranet.fr [212.43.209.195]) by fidel.freesurf.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id C58B72A5F33; Mon, 8 Nov 2004 22:21:53 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <418FF0A1.8010900@gautherot.net> Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 23:18:09 +0100 From: Olivier Gautherot User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20041001 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Bryan E. Henning" References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org cc: Ron Ganzer Subject: Re: how to start X11R6 X-BeenThere: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Gathering place for new users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 21:22:44 -0000 Hi Bryan! Ron Ganzer wrote: > On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 20:09:47 -0700 > "Bryan E. Henning" wrote: > >> After I boot freebsd, and I login what do I do to start gnome or xfree86 >> Exactly what are the commands to start an application. I can browse >> directories but so far that is the extent of what I know how to do. >> Could anyone help? >> > > bryan , > if gnome is installed fully all you need to do is type #gdm > or just type #startx > > if startx fails just edit ~/.xinitrc and add/change the line exec gdm > Note: occurrence of '#' mean: "Shell prompt" If you type gdm from a shell on the console, make sure you do it as root or invoke it as: # sudo gdm The simplest way is to declare GNOME as you main desktop and the first invocation of #startx should install whatever you need. Worst case, create a new user and invoke #startx, then look at the new files in the home directory. Adding gdm to your .xinitrc may not be a good idea: gdm is a login manager, not a desktop. The window manager is called (IIRC) gnome-session. If it fails, add in the meantime these 2 lines to your .xinitrc exec gnome-wm & exec gnome-panel This should get you temporarily sorted out, although it is not the "official" way. All this assumes that you start X with the command #startx. There are many other window managers (KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment...) that you can use, depending on what services you need. Some have working bootstraps - try typing "start" followed by 2 keystrokes to see what is installed. You're likely to find hints for the above mentioned 3 desktop managers. In short, KDE is a heavyweight, full-featured desktop. XFCE is a lightweight, fast desktop. I must confess I have not tried Enlightenment myself but I heard also excellent comments about it;-) I hope you're not totally confused by now ;-) Keep us posted if you still have problems. Cheers Olivier