Beginners Guide - How To Set Up A FreeBSD Desktop From Scratch

this thread of yours seems to have attracted a lot of attention here on the forum, it should remain to help other members with difficulty.
 
I used an earlier version of this How To some time ago to successfully install a MATE desktop on a FreeBSD 12-RELEASE and subsequently upgraded that to a FreeBSD 13 version. Then, although I cannot now remember what happened in detail, my entire computer "took a hike" and I had to replace the motherboard. In the process, my FreeBSD install also went away.

Several months to a year later, i.e. last week (after undergoing some severe health issues this past summer), I decided to try to rebuild a FreeBSD-14-RELEASE desktop, using MATE. After a couple of hours of work. that installation failed. PORTMASTER couldn't finish the installation of XORG. I **think*** the FreeBSD install somehow resulted in the system paths being corrupted. Anyway, I'll try it again, but using an earlier version of FreeBSD just in case there is a problem with Ver 14-RELEASE.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Ken Gordon
 
For one thing, PORTSNAP did not appear to install when I installed the OPSYS: I had to do PKG INSTALL PORTSNAP in order to get it.

Ken Gordon
 
OK. I spent a good amount of time yesterday installing FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-P(something) on this computer's second HDD, then followed the HOW TO here. This time, installation of XORG completed without any errors.

BUT, when I built the .xinitrc in my home directory, then after rebooting, did startx, I got file not found, or in other words "What?'. So, am I still stuck.

I am going to complete the installation of the Nvidia drivers, etc., but I still think there is something wrong with the path.

Anyone have any ideas?

What is bugging me is that the last time I did this, I had no issues whatever. Everything just worked, so something has changed, but I cannot figure out what.

Ken Gordon
 
KenGordon said:
For one thing, PORTSNAP did not appear to install when I installed the OPSYS: I had to do PKG INSTALL PORTSNAP in order to get it.
Click to expand...
portsnap(8) is removed from the base with 14.0. You are advised to investigate alternative ways to fetch a ports tree, the infrastructure needed for portsnap(8) will get removed in the future too. For now you can indeed install the port/package: ports-mgmt/portsnap.
 
On occasion when startx doesn't work (though the symtoms are usually more of it taking a long time), it can be that it can't find your hostname. Part of the startx script includes running hostname -f.

Does just running xint work? If so, that may be the problem. That can be fixed by changing your /etc/hosts file or just adding your system's host name to /etc/hosts. However, as I said, the more typical sign of that being a problem is X taking a lonnnng time to start.

Also, looking at /var/log/Xorg.0.log might give some clues. Search for lines containing [EE]. Then there's the obvious. Does your ~/.xinitrc have a line to start your particular desktop or window manager?
 
KenGordon said:
Anyone have any ideas?
Click to expand...

Gentle hint:
  • start a new topic for your issue
  • when it concludes, you can bring a summary here.
(With the moderation that's required in this topic: it's impossible to know, before posting, whether I'm duplicating effort with someone else expressing the same idea.)

Postscript: found (thanks),

forums.freebsd.org

Solved - STARTX error...among other things...

Some time ago, I built a desktop on the second HDD (the first HDD has Billy Gates' junk on it) in my personal office computer, using FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-P(something), XORG, the MATE desktop, and other software. It installed easily and worked perfectly. After using it for a some time, the entire...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org
 
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