DWM freezes on launch

kalle97 · Jul 29, 2012

When I do startx and dwm launches it freezes, it loads up as it should do but when it's done loading it freezes and I can't move the mouse pointer or cast any key commands. I've installed it from suckless's Mercurial repo. I had to open another tty and pkill dwm to stop it.

I don't know if it's X or dwm which are messing so I maybe should try another WM too? I think it's dwm though since I can't load its man page.

It's a fresh install of FreeBSD 9.0.

Would really appriciate help.

wblock@ · Jul 29, 2012

Please show your .xinitrc.

kalle97 · Jul 29, 2012

Code:

exec dwm

It might be something with "drm" though, is it the ATI driver?

wblock@ · Jul 30, 2012

A simple window manager should not care about drm. One way to test would be to run twm(1), which should also be installed:

.xinitrc

Code:

twm &
xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 &
xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 &
xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 &
exec xterm -geometry 80x66+0+0 -name login

kalle97 · Jul 30, 2012

Exactly same thing with twm, it loads up and I see all windows(the xterms and xclock) but then I can't do anything.

kalle97 · Jul 30, 2012

Here is what happens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtZhDxVMrDA

mwatkins · Jul 30, 2012

kalle97 your input devices aren't working, perhaps there's something screwy with your xorg.conf or you don't have one. If it exists, please upload it to a pastebin and leave us a link.

Re dwm, did you edit the config.mk file? Perhaps the default is putting the man page in the wrong location for FreeBSD; default paths are Linux specific IIRC.

YouriBSD · Jul 30, 2012

kalle97 said:
Here is what happens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtZhDxVMrDA

Try to put twm on the last line and don't add a '&'.

kalle97 · Jul 30, 2012

I don't have a xorg.conf and I did not edit the config.mk which solves the man page issue. Should I add something to the xorg.conf which declears the input device? Both mouse and keyboard works in tty.

kalle97 · Jul 30, 2012

I found a similar issue http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=28320 I'll try take out some info from it.

kalle97 · Jul 30, 2012

I had not read the Handbook carefully enough, I forgot to use "Xorg -configure" and also do add "hald_enable="YES"".

Thanks for all help though.

Ogham · Jul 30, 2012

Do you also have dbus in your /etc/rc.conf?

Code:

hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"

kalle97 · Jul 30, 2012

Yes, but is dbus really required, I only use cli apps except firefox?

wblock@ · Jul 31, 2012

Neither are required unless you run KDE or Gnome. Disable both in /etc/rc.conf and add

Code:

Option       "AutoAddDevices" "Off"

to the ServerLayout section of xorg.conf.

Ogham · Jul 31, 2012

Like wblock@ said, worth mentioning if you are running a full DE like Gnome/KDE.

I've used the AutoAddDevices option a few times myself whilst using x11-wm/spectrwm, and leaning towards the minimalist camp I find it quite satisfying

wblock@ · Jul 31, 2012

Even more minimalist is to rebuild x11-servers/xorg-server with the HAL option disabled. Then xorg-server doesn't need or use hald at all. I run dbus, because it can be used by applications software for notifications.

Ogham · Jul 31, 2012

wblock@ said:
Even more minimalist is to rebuild x11-servers/xorg-server with the HAL option disabled. Then xorg-server doesn't need or use hald at all. I run dbus, because it can be used by applications software for notifications.

Very good point! I'll give that a try on my next update

kpedersen · Jul 31, 2012

wblock@ said:
Neither are required unless you run KDE or Gnome. Disable both in /etc/rc.conf and add

Code:

Option "AutoAddDevices" "Off"

to the ServerLayout section of xorg.conf.

I have no figures to back this up but I imagine there are a lot less FreeBSD users who use Gnome and KDE than those who use simple window managers. Is it an option to have this as default in our Xorg port.

Or at least to have the port (and thus package) built with hald support disabled.

wblock@ · Jul 31, 2012

Someone would have to test KDE and Gnome for correct operation when xorg-server has been built without hal.

Ogham · Jul 31, 2012

kpedersen said:
I have no figures to back this up but I imagine there are a lot less FreeBSD users who use Gnome and KDE than those who use simple window managers. Is it an option to have this as default in our Xorg port.

Or at least to have the port (and thus package) built with hald support disabled.

Xorg is quite a large port, so I imagine the default configuration and package need to have very 'friendly' defaults. I would guess the majority of our heavy DE users installing from packages would be a little upset if they had to compile xorg.

Although, as you said there may be an overwhelming majority of light WM users, in which case the tables are turned!

I think many people would prefer this change in the default configuration, but I may be unaware of some negative consequence?

It had not crossed my mind to disable HAL in the config until it was pointed out here, I was quite happy adding the xorg.conf option until now. Being mainly a user of portmaster -P with setenv PACKAGESITE .../packages-9-stable/Latest/ and a habitual light WM user - I would certainly welcome this change.