Can somebody help me installing the Xorg?

[mrphuongmia]

I'm just a newbie trying my first FreeBSD 8.0 installation. I did as in the handbook guides but everytime I try with 'startx', a very ugly window manager appears and the display is full of random colors :( I think there's something wrong with my xorg configurations. I have a Dell Vostro 1088 with ATI Mobility Radeon 4300.
Really want to use BSD and really really need your helps.
Thanks.

[OH]

Try looking in /var/log/Xorg.0.log for any clues as to what's going wrong

[Beastie]

Does the "very ugly window manager" look like this (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Twm.png/800px-Twm.png) by any chance?
You might want to create a ~/.xinitrc file that executes the window manager of your choice, instead of the default.

[mrphuongmia]

Thanks to you all.
Yes,my desktop is just like the window manager in your picture (I guess so) but it's even worse. I can't do anything with mouse and windows. I think there must be something wrong with my card (?). I tried installing KDE yesterday but when I type 'startkde' it didn't work ("Command not found") :( Should I try with Gnome?

[wblock@]

I can't do anything with mouse and windows.

Did you enable dbus and hal as at the start of the Handbook X11 config chapter (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html)?

It is often helpful to show your xorg.conf and /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

[mrphuongmia]

Did you enable dbus and hal as at the start of the Handbook X11 config chapter (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html)?

It is often helpful to show your xorg.conf and /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

But I don't know how to print out the contents of those 2 files in the console :\
I enabled dbus and hald, and they worked well.

[zeiz]

If you installed KDE try to start it with KDM. This is from FreeBSD Handbook (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11-wm.html) :
To enable kdm, the ttyv8 entry in /etc/ttys has to be adapted. The line should look as follows:
For KDE3:
ttyv8 "/usr/local/bin/kdm -nodaemon" xterm on secure
For KDE4:
ttyv8 "/usr/local/kde4/bin/kdm -nodaemon" xterm on secure

If you want to start KDE with startx anyway follow this instruction from the Handbook:
After KDE has been installed, the X server must be told to launch this application instead of the default window manager. This is accomplished by editing the .xinitrc file:
For KDE3:
echo "exec startkde" > ~/.xinitrc
For KDE4:
echo "exec /usr/local/kde4/bin/startkde" > ~/.xinitrc
Now, whenever the X Window System is invoked with startx, KDE will be the desktop.

[mrphuongmia]

Thanks. I'll try it :)

[mrphuongmia]

No matter how I tried with both KDE and Gnome, after "startx" there's just a black screen with many colorful dots and no mouse. It hangs there and I have to go back and press Ctrl+C.
I guess I haven't do right with xorg.conf file, I don't know much about graphic card and display to config it correctly.

My xorg.conf file has:

Section "Monitor"
Indentifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "SEC"
ModelName "5441"
EndSection
...
Section "Screen"
Indentifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
...
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

[Beastie]

Try starting X without a xorg.conf file by renaming it: mv xorg.conf xorg.conf.bak.

[rhyous]

This might help you find where you went astray.
http://rhyous.com/2009/12/18/how-to-install-and-configure-a-freebsd-8-desktop-with-xorg-and-kde/

[zeiz]

If problems I usually try to set resolution in SubSection "Display".
Your resolution seems to be 1366×768 (SEC5441).
I would edit SubSection "Display" where depth is 24 and remove all the other with depth 1, 4 .. etc so it would be only one:
Subsection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1366×768"
EndSubSection
Did you try KDM or only startx?
Also what driver do you use (Section "Device")?

[mrphuongmia]

If problems I usually try to set resolution in SubSection "Display".
Your resolution seems to be 1366×768 (SEC5441).
I would edit SubSection "Display" where depth is 24 and remove all the other with depth 1, 4 .. etc so it would be only one:
Subsection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1366×768"
EndSubSection
Did you try KDM or only startx?
Also what driver do you use (Section "Device")?

Thanks zeiz!
I tried both startx (after disabled xorg.conf) and kdm but it was like before.
My card is ATI Mobility Radeon 4300. On www.ati.com there's a driver of this card for Linux, I tried it but nothing happened. Is there a open source driver for it?
I also tried with PC-BSD, it could boot into KDE, and let me choose the resolution for my display, but 1366x768 didn't work, only 1024x768 did.
I'll do again with your suggests :) hopefully
I'm now a student of Computer Science in Vietnam and interested in FreeBSD OS, but I can't find any Vietnamese forum about FreeBSD. So I tried with my not-good English in this forum.
So amazed with your helps! Thanks all!

[adamk]

The open source driver is installed with the rest of Xorg. It's part of the xf86-video-ati port. There is also the radeonhd driver which you could try, though I'm not sure it will do much good. /var/log/Xorg.0.log would be really helpful. You can dump it to a pastebin site by installing curl from ports/packages and then running:

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | curl -F 'sprunge=<-' http://sprunge.us