[howto] Minimal FreeBSD desktop

taz,
what I have done so far today after having an unsuccessful portmaster x11-servers/xorg-server run is that I have done a pkg_delete -a and then repeated portsnap fetch, portsnap extract, and portsnap update. The computer I am working on is doing those commands now. I will still have to do a cd /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portmaster/ && make install clean.

I have however done nothing to directly address the problem with portmaster x11-servers/xorg-server. I have several questions. In the above mentioned process what other files are compiled and stored if any? what files do I delete and which ones do I keep? As I sit and think of this problem I do regret that I do not make backups of the file system. The system I am working on has as / a 50GB slice, swap 10GB, /var 100GB, /tmp 100GB, /usr 100GB, and /home 80GB file systems on the HD. I am making you aware of this because I became aware of the endless loop only after the error messages started coming up telling me that the SWAP space was exhausted. It then told me as well /tmp/f-1366-IPC_SAVE.HJ84wgls: 3: Syntax error "(" unexpected.
 
Ok, ports have dependence, right? Some of thees dependencies are "required to build" and some of them are "required to run". The "required to build" dependencies are only needed when you compile and will not be needed after. Make file will check if thees dependencies (both required to build and required to run) are installed on your system and if not it will compile them (the ones that are missing).

Now to get the list of "required to build" and "required to run" dependence's go to http://www.freshports.org and search for a port. In this case this would be xorg-server.

As you can see in the provided link xorg-server has a lot of "required to build" dependencies and it will take a while to compile all of that. To avoid this you uncomment this lines in your /usr/local/etc/portmaster.rc

Code:
# Install packages for build-only dependencies (--packages-build)
PM_PACKAGES_BUILD=pmp_build
# Delete build-only dependencies when finished (--delete-build-only)
PM_DEL_BUILD_ONLY=pm_dbo

This way portmaster will fetch packages for "required to build" dependencies and you won't need to compile them. Also it will delete them after it's finished with building xorg-server.

So to answer your question you don't need to know which files you need to keep or delete it's all automated.

If you wish to change the compile options for a certain port. cd to that ports folder (I'm using xorg-server as an example)

# cd /usr/ports/x11-servers/xorg-server/

and then run this command:

# make config
 
Taz,


Uncommenting those two lines in /usr/local/etc/portmaster.rc has already been done. I uncommented the lines as suggested in your very informative [how to]. Do I need to change the permissions on /usr/local/etc/portmaster.rc? By default the permissions for owner(I am not sure if that is me), group, and everyone were only _r_ . I changed them (by using chmod 777 to edit using vi() and then changing them back with chmod 444 /user/local/etc/portmaster.rc. Do any of the permissions need to be execute?


Thank you for your patience with me.
 
Now I see

I will do as you indicated in the explanatory reply to me. I did not think of it that way. I now even more clearly understand do not assume anything. Thank you.
 
RE: Status

Well I finally done did it. Running portmaster /x11-drivers/xorg-driversI once again became caught up in an endless loop. There was no way to get out of it but do a hard stop. The endless loop proved to be a vicious circle. My laptop will not boot at all. I believe and hope it is only the hard drive that crashed for the computer will not boot at all. The endless loop was telling me that the swap space was exhausted. Hard for me to believe since I allocated 10 GB to it. Any suggestions?
 
Well, the computer not working was just a temporary scare. By disconnecting all power, discharge press of power button, waiting ten minutes and reconnecting computer it came back to life.

The problem still faces me. How do I get X windows, a simple window manager, and desktop to work within the FreeBSD framework of my Toshiba Satellite L770 laptop?
 
Ok. I tried to run portmaster x11-servers/xorg-serverin the /usr/ports/x11-servers/xorg-serverdirectory.

The good news is that 96 files successfully compiled.

The bad news is that I keep getting stuck in a recursive loop. It spins round and round occasionally catching a "cog" and prints out the following or something similar:
Code:
  ===> port Directory: /usr/ports/x11-toolkits/tk84
  ===> Starting Check for build dependencies
  ===> gathering dependency list /usr/ports/x11-toolkits/tk84

/usr/ports/x11-toolkits/tk84 >> x11/libx11 >> x11/libxcb >> lang/python27 >> devel/libffi >> misc/dejagnu >> lang/expect >> x11-toolkits/tk84

I do a ctrl-C ]to break the loop and exit.

What am I doing wrong?

What can I do to remediate this issue?

Is my continuous questioning becoming irritating? If, yes, I apologize and will quit this line of questioning.

Thank you once again for your responses and the instructions. Without the "installing a minimum X system" I would not have even gotten this far. Thank you.
 
Please start a new thread. As the topic becomes more and more different from the title, the chance of getting useful responses drops.
 
Everything went perfectly except DVD/CD's will not mount.

Code:
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): READ DVD STRUCTURE. CDB: ad 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 8 0 0 
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): SCSI sense: ILLEGAL REQUEST asc:30,2 (Cannot read medium - incompatible format)
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): Retrying command (per sense data)
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): READ DVD STRUCTURE. CDB: ad 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 8 0 0 
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
(cd0:ata5:0:0:0): SCSI sense: ILLEGAL REQUEST asc:30,2 (Cannot read medium - incompatible format)

I am unsure how to fix it or if it is sysutils/automount related.
 
jem said:
What sort of disk do you have inserted?

Last night I said screw it, YOLO, and recompiled x11-servers/xorg-server to have HAL support, added dbus_enable="YES" and hald_enable="YES" to my /etc/rc.conf, and restarted X/ started HAL. Worked like a charm. I was watching my DVD "Harold And Kumar" in no time. When I made the post I was trying to get a CD to work and have yet to try it again to see if I can play it.

VLC is unable to play the DVD even though I can see my DVD mounted in lshal, and x11-fm/xfe. The only thing I have issues with currently are VLC not reading my DVD and my cell phones MTP filesystem not mounting or accessible via x11-fm/xfe.

DgBCvMB.png



I also made an icon for who ever is listening out there, yes you.
HERE
 
Well, it looks great! :)

I haven't plugged in a CD/DVD for ages so I tryed to mount one now to se what's what. Anyway sysutils/automount won't mount your cdrom so you would have to do it manually.

I issued this command and it worked with a CD and a DVD:

# mount_cd9660 /dev/cd0 /mnt

Did you try this before you enabled HAL?

Also I will have to update the howto with this info.
 
Thanks, been loving the setup so far. I tried the # mount command and threw it the type cd9660, I know I tried a manual mount, but I received an error message. I will try the command you listed when I get home though. I am pretty sure the mount command I tried was based on the handbooks command. I know I also tried a few different programs. After some reading of the devd(8) man page I noticed it wouldn't be able to tell when a CD/DVD was inserted so In the interested of less bloat and overall efficiency I just added HAL.

If I can somehow query $ dmesg | tail to find out when a DVD/CD was inserted and mount it with devd(8) I would because It seems very lightweight.
 
Well, personally, I would rather manually mount the cdrom than use HAL. But that's just my opinion :)
 
taz said:
Well, personally, I would rather manually mount the cdrom than use HAL. But that's just my opinion :)

I would have but I could not get it to work. I never knew there was a # mount_cd9660 /dev/cd0 /mnt command so I will try that when I get home and if it is successful I will remove HAL.
 
The preferred way is to use mount(8) and let it figure out the appropriate individual mount program. So that would be
# mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0 /mnt
 
wblock@ said:
The preferred way is to use mount(8) and let it figure out the appropriate individual mount program. So that would be
# mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0 /mnt

This was the command that I couldn't remember earlier that I tried but was returned an error. I will try to execute it again when I get home without HAL running to see if it works and if not what the error I received was. Thanks for the post wblock
 
No not forget to add -o ro to the mount. CDs are not really that easy to write to ;)
 
Hmm, I remember having trouble with that - but then again maybe it was some NTFS mount which needs to be r-o because the base ntfs-fs can not write to it.
 
shepper said:
@Beastie


An optional feature that can be added at the users discretion is a simple volumeicon that can go in the systray. From a BSD standpoint the volume icon only supports alsa and oss output.


So to clarify, I am proposing that a modular desktop project could be started that was BSD friendly and is minimal in the aspect that linux compatibility layers were bypassed. In the case of a volume control applet, no pulseaudio, no alsa wrappers, no esd. Just direct control of the core sound system.

In follow-up to my prior posts I found a systray volume control applet in Freshports. Gvolwheel works well with tint2.

Now if I can just figure out how to get it working in OpenBSD;)
 
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