Solved gdm black screen when starting from ttys file

S

Sebel

Hi,

I'm a newbie in Unix-like systems and trying to learn how FreeBSD works reading the entire handbook.

I just set up a gnome environment which works great when typing gdm on a command line with root privileges.

Reading the handbook I see that I can edit the /etc/ttys file to make Gnome start with the system. That's what I did, but when gdm is launched that way the screen remains black and nothing can be done.

Here is the modified line :

Code: 
ttyv8   "/usr/local/sbin/gdm"  xterm   on secure
I'm now stuck in that situation because it starts automatically. How can I modify the /etc/ttys file in order to set ttyv8 to off ? Or prevent Gnome from starting just once ?

Thanks for your help !

Sebel
 
You're not supposed to start it that way. Remove the change from /etc/ttys and simply add to /etc/rc.conf:
Code: 
gdm_enable="YES"

To fix it, boot to single user mode, remount the filesystems (they're mounted read-only in single mode) and change the file and reboot.

But before enabling GDM make sure X is actually configured correctly by starting it with startx. Once it's configured correctly you can enable GDM again.

Also note that you can use CTRL-ALT-1 to 7 to switch back to the console.
 
I tried this option before but without knowing that the file systems are read-only in single user mode...

Remounted all partitions with mount -a and the edition of /etc/ttys became possible.

Thanks for you support !

Sebel
 
Sebel said:
I tried this option before but without knowing that the file systems are read-only in single user mode...
Click to expand...
Yes, it's something most first time users run into. Just keep in mind when you boot to single user mode that only the root (/) filesytem is mounted and read-only.

Remember these commands:
Code: 
fsck -y  # Run the filesystem checks, automatically fixing errors
mount -u / # re-mount / as read-write
mount -a -t ufs # mount all UFS filesystems from fstab
swapon -a  # optional, turns on swap
 
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