From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 1 18:41:57 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: current@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E073E291 for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2014 18:41:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from be-well.ilk.org (be-well.ilk.org [23.30.133.173]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA0456E4 for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2014 18:41:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lowell-desk.lan (lowell-desk.lan [172.30.250.41]) by be-well.ilk.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DE2D733C24; Mon, 1 Dec 2014 13:41:45 -0500 (EST) Received: by lowell-desk.lan (Postfix, from userid 1147) id BF1AE39813; Mon, 1 Dec 2014 13:41:44 -0500 (EST) From: Lowell Gilbert To: Paul Cartwright Subject: Re: $DISPLAY not set References: <547CB283.1030405@gmail.com> Reply-To: questions@FreeBSD.org Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 13:41:43 -0500 In-Reply-To: <547CB283.1030405@gmail.com> (Paul Cartwright's message of "Mon, 01 Dec 2014 13:25:07 -0500") Message-ID: <44wq6bkyag.fsf@lowell-desk.lan> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Cc: current@FreeBSD.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 18:41:58 -0000 [Replies redirected to a more appropriate list.] Paul Cartwright writes: > I have installed freeBSD & have it running. I was trying to install MATE > & KDE4, but I'm getting an error. > everytime I try to run exec startkde it logs me out with this message: > > $DISPLAY is not set or cannot connect to xserver > > > echo $DISPLAY says > DISPLAY: undefined variable > > I was using this guide to set everything up: > https://cooltrainer.org/a-freebsd-desktop-howto/#with-radeon-intel-or-otherwise > > am I missing something? Well, you're missing the FreeBSD documentation, which is a lot better than a random Google result. https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html Or you might want to try PCBSD (www.pcbsd.org) which will require a lot less understanding of what is going on (at the cost, as usual, of giving you a lot less choice, at least initially). The "exec startkde" is supposed to go in your .xinitrc file, in which case you would start X with the "startx" command. > I do have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf, I did do the X -configure. Usually unnecessary, and not a great idea unless it is necessary.