Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2024 17:01:43 +0100 From: Alexander Burke <alex@alexburke.ca> To: paulf@quillandmouse.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Installing/running X11 Message-ID: <b702f1f0-10ef-40b6-a0bd-b2ce413e4e73@alexburke.ca> In-Reply-To: <20240203144851.d47zguvjtisjdsz4@yosemite.mars.lan> References: <20240203144851.d47zguvjtisjdsz4@yosemite.mars.lan>
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Hi Paul, Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I'm starting to get the feeling that you might not have paid as much attention to the wealth of documentation on FreeBSD as perhaps you could have. There's nothing wrong with just diving in, but a bit of guidance in unfamiliar waters is never a bad thing! The most general/basic advice is here; in this case, jump to step 9: https://freebsdfoundation.org/setting-up-a-desktop-environment-from-scratch/ Going up a notch in detail is the excellent FreeBSD Handbook. The Desktop section has separate subsections for the KDE, GNOME, XFCE, MATE, Cinnamon, and LXQT desktop environments. Look around for reviews and screenshots and pick one; they are listed here in approximate descending order of popularity: https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/desktop/ I also cannot speak highly enough of vermaden's fabulous blog, which has generally been my first or second port of call when I had questions before I turned to the mailing lists. Here's his page collating all of his entries regarding setting up a FreeBSD desktop: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/Â (scroll down past the screenshots) There's also the FreeBSD Forums, which are very searchable: https://forums.freebsd.org/ Given your level of experience, I recommend sticking to packages, and not touching the port system. You can explore the various packages which exist at Freshports: https://www.freshports.org/ Important to remember is that packages are simply precompiled ports. They're a lot easier to deal with than ports. Cheers, Alex On 2024-02-03 15:48, Paul M Foster wrote: > Folks: > > For context, I have a fresh install of version 14. I've made myself part of > the wheel and video groups. I've installed drm-kmod, xdm, xf86-video-intel, > xfce, xorg and xterm. I've added hald_enable="YES", dbus_enable="YES" and > kld_list="i915kms" to /etc/rc.conf. > > At this point, advice diverges significantly. Some sites say I should be > able to just run startx and all will be fine. Some want you to run xorg > -configure. Some want you to hack X11 config files. > > What I can tell you is that X won't start with startx. For one thing, it > outputs these errors: > > (EE) > Fatal server error: > (EE) no screens found(EE) > (EE) > > Also, for what it's worth, service dbus start works. But service hald start > doesn't. The error is: > > hald does not exist in /etc/rc.d or the local startup directories > (/usr/local/etc/rc.d), or is not executable. > > I have no idea how to proceed. > > Paul >
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