I see X Twm only, not KDE

[jeltoesolnce]

Hello.
I have Nvidia GeForce GT1030. After the update, I stopped seeing KDE. No matter what drivers I installed, I only saw X Twm. I couldn't see KDE. I installed

nvidia-driver{580,470,390},
but the result was the same: three ancient X windows.

 

[scottro]

I have sometimes had issues with updating nvidia drivers. I also have a GT1030 and use the 580 drivers. Firstly if you have your system on ZFS you might be able to go to a former boot environment that works.

Secondly, you can try first updating your ports tree, I use gitup for that.

gitup ports

Once that's done, I use portmaster to update nvidia-drm-66-kmod-580 and nvidia-drm 66-kmod-580.

For me that has almost always fixed problems. Part of it is that pkgs can get out of sync with kernel.

I would also suggest editing your subject line to put Nvidia in the subject as then more people familiar with Nvidia might offer help.

 

[MG]

So X.org works. What does Konsole?
Is there a KDE start command? That should show if something goes wrong.

 

[T-Aoki]

Unfortunately, kmod pkg builders for releases NOT oldest supported minor version per major versions (i.e., 15.1 while oldest-supported is 15.0) doesn't build NVIDIA related kmod ports other than x11/nvidia-kmod.
(Main pkg builders that builds ALL pkgs for oldest supportetd minor version per major versions [for 15.*, 15.0 currently] builds all NVIDIA related ports sanely.)

So until this is addressed by kmod builder admins, users of such releases, users of legacy (304, 340, 390, 470 and 580) or devel variants and users of graphics/nvidia-drm-*-kmod* need to build from ports locally using 100% matching /usr/src/sys with running kernel.

By the way, you'll find the above (with different sentences, though) many times by searching this forums. By me, and by some others.

 

[T-Aoki]

So X.org works. What does Konsole?
Is there a KDE start command? That should show if something goes wrong.

How to start KDE from console (without using sddm or some other display managers/greeters) can be found in Chapter 8.2.1.4 of the Handbook.

Note that the description for .xinitrc wouldn't work as-is if you already have another exec line in you ~/.xinitrc.

You need to comment out previous ones, as exec command (built in /bin/sh that should be used by startx(1) to handle .xinitrc) lets the commands in its arguments to replace running /bin/sh itself with it, thus, following parts are never executed / handled.

Quoting the manpage of sh(1):

     exec [command [arg ...]]
             Unless command is omitted, the shell process is replaced with the
             specified program (which must be a real program, not a shell
             built-in command or function).  Any redirections on the exec
             command are marked as permanent, so that they are not undone when
             the exec command finishes.

 

[MG]

How to start KDE from console (without using sddm or some other display managers/greeters) can be found in Chapter 8.2.1.4 of the Handbook.

Note that the description for .xinitrc wouldn't work as-is if you already have another exec line in you ~/.xinitrc.

You need to comment out previous ones, as exec command (built in /bin/sh that should be used by startx(1) to handle .xinitrc) lets the commands in its arguments to replace running /bin/sh itself with it, thus, following parts are never executed / handled.

Quoting the manpage of sh(1):

     exec [command [arg ...]]
             Unless command is omitted, the shell process is replaced with the
             specified program (which must be a real program, not a shell
             built-in command or function).  Any redirections on the exec
             command are marked as permanent, so that they are not undone when
             the exec command finishes.

This is overcomplicated. Just forget the sequence. Start X only. Run anything compatible on top of it, manually to find out what works...
Not sure what happens if twm is already running. Does it conflict with a different window manager? You can kill it anyway. It has no exit function, so that has to be done.
In my opinion entire UNIX graphical solution is too complicated for PC-application.. It's a graphical program. No need to have it in a background loop that keeps on pushing it over the CLI because the user shouldn't be confronted with that. This remains from the time of groups of similar networked workstations but a CLI-only system is a workstation as well in a LAN with PC's. It only doesn't have a default graphical screen that everybody around is familiar with..

 

[SirDice]

No matter what drivers I installed, I only saw X Twm.

Why do you think the video driver determines which window manager or desktop environment gets started?

 

[T-Aoki]

Why do you think the video driver determines which window manager or desktop environment gets started?

Yes, twm is just the historical default if nothing is explicitly configured to startup.
And FreeBSD is not only for GUI environments, but for also for IoT gadgets (with stripping out unneeded parts) that does NOT AT ALL need GUIs.
So GUI is one of the OPTIONAL components.

And compared with XFree86 era that I've started sniffing FreeBSD and Linux, situations now is just like a dream! Handbook has a plenty of useful info, resources on Internet significantly and uncomparably increased (the qualities are ... it depends). No need to look for how to start DEs by extracting and loking into source codes! Dreamy!

 

[Holger]

Hello.
I have Nvidia GeForce GT1030. After the update, I stopped seeing KDE. No matter what drivers I installed, I only saw X Twm. I couldn't see KDE. I installed

nvidia-driver{580,470,390},
but the result was the same: three ancient X windows.

Could it be that you are/were running your X-session as root instead of your normal user?