Other Help setting up Slim

Hi folks, I'm in the process of slowly configuring my system, and right this minute I'm trying to get a display manager working.

I installed slim about a week ago via packages but I haven't been able to get it working properly.
When I start my system it opens a login screen, but after logging in I'm met with a black screen and get nothing else.

Right now I'm using dwm as my window manager and I'm on FreeBSD 13.
Thanks in advance.
 
Presumably, before installing slim, you checked to see if you could start your window manager with startx?
 
It is a few years since I tried slim. Now I use lightdm, which seems - to me - to be the best DM. Have you tried it?
 
There's nothing you need to configure in slim.conf. The default settings will work just fine[*]. You do need to create an ~/.xinitrc, something like this will do the trick:
Code:
[ -n "$1" ] && [ -x "$1" ] && exec "$1"
SLiM passes the selected DE/WM as an argument. So you need to 'exec' that argument. I added some checks to make sure it's something valid.

[*] You might want to change the current_theme to fbsd and make sure x11-themes/slim-themes is installed.
 
It is a few years since I tried slim. Now I use lightdm, which seems - to me - to be the best DM. Have you tried it?
I have not, but I’ll look into it.

There's nothing you need to configure in slim.conf. The default settings will work just fine[*]. You do need to create an ~/.xinitrc, something like this will do the trick:
Code:
[ -n "$1" ] && [ -x "$1" ] && exec "$1"
SLiM passes the selected DE/WM as an argument. So you need to 'exec' that argument. I added some checks to make sure it's something valid.

[*] You might want to change the current_theme to fbsd and make sure x11-themes/slim-themes is installed.
When you say “create an .xinitrc” do you mean I need to make one in a new directory somewhere, or that I should add the string you mention into the .xinitrc of my x11 directory?
This may seem like a silly question but I’m trying to be as crystal clear as I can; I’ve learned that assumptions don’t get my very far.
 
When you say “create an .xinitrc” do you mean I need to make one in a new directory somewhere, or that I should add the string you mention into the .xinitrc of my x11 directory?
SirDice said
~/.xinitrc
which means that this file belongs into your home directory. "~" is a shortcut for the current users home.

 
SirDice said
~/.xinitrc
which means that this file belongs into your home directory. "~" is a shortcut for the current users home.

Ok thanks, big noob here so thanks for the explanation.
 
There's nothing you need to configure in slim.conf. The default settings will work just fine[*]. You do need to create an ~/.xinitrc, something like this will do the trick:
Code:
[ -n "$1" ] && [ -x "$1" ] && exec "$1"
SLiM passes the selected DE/WM as an argument. So you need to 'exec' that argument. I added some checks to make sure it's something valid.

[*] You might want to change the current_theme to fbsd and make sure x11-themes/slim-themes is installed.
I tried created the ~/.xinitrc with the code you recommended, but all it did for me was stop X from starting when I ran startx. I can't get slim to start at all anymore and the log says

slim: X server could not be started
Giving up.
slim: unable to connect to X server

It's just that on and on for a while in the log with the occaisonal "waiting for X server to begin accepting connections" before logging "giving up".

How can I get the X server to start for slim? Would I set my x server to launch at startup, and if to how do I do that?
Prior to this I could at least get a login screen from slim, but after trying several diffrent things even that stopped working.
 
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