Solved DE/WM wont work, single programs open however

[Trist]

This doesn't appear to have been asked before, I have tried many combinations of keyword searches and saw nothing relevant. I am new to 64-bit FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE.

I will explain my situation briefly. First of all, my problem is pretty general, Xorg will not work. I installed from the first DVD and am in the shell. I installed the bare minimum I needed to enter an X environment, as has worked for me in FreeBSD derivatives (Arch BSD, though I also couldn't get Fluxbox in particular to work but others worked) and several Linux distros (Gentoo Linux, Arch Linux, etc).

pkg install xorg-minimal fluxbox xf86-video-ati rxvt rxvt-unicode

Then I used echo "exec fluxbox" >> ~/.xinitrc". When I startx, I hit a black screen. The last line before I hit the blank environment is "Loading extension GLX". At one point it actually pointed me to an error, but I cannot replicate it and all I remember about it was something related to "mtrr". I commented out "exec fluxbox" and then used pkg install twm. Finally I retried startx, as I knew that twm would be booted if no environment was found. Nothing, blank screen. Just as a catch all, I tried echo "rxvt" >> ~/.xinitrc and then again, using startx. This actually worked. I thought maybe it was an error relating to something not installed with xorg-minimal, so I went ahead and installed the entire package through pkg install xorg and tried startx again with fluxbox, and get nothing. So I tried a different desktop environment, MATE, performing the same routine as up top. Nothing. Every single test I did I had to reboot, I am frustrated.

Could someone tell me what the issue could potentially be?

 

[Trist]

Also forgot to mention that the last time I gave FreeBSD a try Xorg did work with MATE and I just don't understand it. Though for some reason I can never get Fluxbox to work in any FreeBSD derivative (now that I think about it I don't even think Arch BSD had Fluxbox in its repositories).

 

[wblock@]

There are a lot of possible sources of problems. What did you use for xorg.conf? What happened if you deleted ~/.xinitrc and tried startx with the full x11/xorg installed?

I've never had a problem with Fluxbox, but do not use it regularly.

 

[chrbr]

I commented out "exec fluxbox" and then used pkg install twm. Finally I retried startx, as I knew that twm would be booted if no environment was found. Nothing, blank screen.

When I start x11-wm/twm I have a black screen and no cursor as well. By pressing the left mouse key the expected default twm menu pops up and the mouse cursor appears. Have you tried this, too?

 

[scottro]

On occasion, though I have not had the issue with fluxbox, it will have to do with a required font not being available. Just for the heck of it, try installing x11-fonts/font-misc-misc and x11-fonts/terminus-font if they're not installed.

For what it's worth, I usually install xorg-server, font-misc-misc, terminus-font xf86-input-mouse, xf86-input-keyboard xf86-video-intel (my driver, depends upon the machine, mostly laptops so usually intel, though I have a workstation that uses NVidia), xterm, rxvt-unicode, xinit and xauth. I then sometimes install openbox, but these days, more usually dwm. I have no idea if doing it this way cuts down the bloat or not. Also make sure dbus is running though I don't know if you'll need it. (You will for firefox, at least I do). You shouldn't need HAL, but if it's installed, you can try starting it too and see if it makes a difference.

I freely admit that these are all stabs in the dark--I haven't had a problem with X and FreeBSD in awhile, but vaguely remember running into some of these issues from time to time.

 

[Trist]

wblock@
chrbr
scottro
I used the default configuration. I had just uninstalled everything related to xorg, then reinstalled with pkg install xorg and then rm ~/.xinitrc and then finally startx, it just seemed to work. And even Fluxbox is working. I really don't understand, I had tried this just yesterday.

Thanks for all the help.