Xfce individual windows flickering, lag in terminal, fresh installation.

L

linuxlover

First I did a fresh installation of FreeBSD 14.4-RELEASE. Had that issue. also, whenever I type in terminal, the typed character isnt displayed until I type some other character, or resize the terminal window.
I made a lot of changes in various files, didnt fix the issue.
Then I asked chatgpt, it told me to disable compositor by using command xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -s false

Still the issue was not fixed.

Then I googled. followed steps from https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/unable-to-run-xfce.89369/ didnt work

followed steps from my previous post: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/cant-install-use-xfce.98735/ that did not work either.

Then I made a fresh installation of FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE in the hopes of resolving the issue. I followed the handbook precisely. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/bsdinstall/ and https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/ and https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/desktop/ still same issue. (xfce wasnt even starting without /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia-driver.conf, so I had to create it). I have installed x11/nvidia-driver and nvidia-settings.

I didnt do echo 'proc /proc procfs rw 0 0' >> /etc/fstab because the handbook doesnt say to do it with xfce.

currently my rc.conf has:
Code: 
# cat /etc/rc.conf
hostname="cool-hostname"
ifconfig_em0="DHCP"
ifconfig_em0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
ntpd_enable="YES"
ntpd_sync_on_start="YES"
powerd_enable="YES"
moused_nondefault_enable="NO"
# Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
dumpdev="AUTO"

kld_list="nvidia-modeset nvidia-drm"
dbus_enable="YES"

and /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia-driver.conf has:
Code: 
Section "Device"
    Identifier "nVIDIA GTX 1650"
    Driver     "nvidia"
EndSection

still the same issue.

How to fix the issue? I am ok with fresh installation.

I have 12th gen i5, 32GB ddr4 RAM, and gtx 1650 without external power version.
 
As terminal in fxce, same problem with sakura or mate-terminal or xterm ?
Give mate-desktop a try.
Disabling composition can sometimes help like you did. But don't try all advices you find. You end up with an "over-configured" configuration.
In that case cd .config ; rm -vfR xf*
 
Are you using x11-wm/picom with Xfce4?
If yes, it's known issue.

If you're on latest branch of ports/pkgs, upgrading NVIDIA things (now at 580.142) would fix at least for flickering issue (reported here).

As you've described you're loading nvidia-drm.ko, what need to be upgraded at minimum are:
And you'll need to install graphics/egl-wayland2.

If you're on quarterly (default for *-RELEASE), you have 2 choices.
  1. Wait until 2026Q2 appears (would be early April).
  2. Switch to latest branch of pkg.
Note that I've never encountered the issue using x11/mate with compiz-reloaded maintained by Ken DEGUCHI as an overlay.
 
T-Aoki said:
Are you using x11-wm/picom with Xfce4?
If yes, it's known issue.
Click to expand...

I made the bare installation. Base OS, then "pkg install xorg", "pkg install xfce" and Firefox. I didnt install anything else except nvidia drivers.

It's 11 April today. If I download recent "release" version, and make a fresh installation, would it resolve the issue?
 
Alain De Vos said:
As terminal in fxce, same problem with sakura or mate-terminal or xterm ?
Give mate-desktop a try.
Disabling composition can sometimes help like you did. But don't try all advices you find. You end up with an "over-configured" configuration.
In that case cd .config ; rm -vfR xf*
Click to expand...
I didn't try any other desktop. I should have done that. But after reading comment by T-Aoki I think issue is with nvidia drivers, in that case would another desktop environment make a difference? I'm genuinely asking this. I honestly don't know. Not a rhetorical or sarcastic question.
 
linuxlover said:
would another desktop environment make a difference?
Click to expand...
I had the issues you are having with XFCE...

I am (now) running the Cinnamon desk environment and ... it's actually OK for me right now ! YMMV - but aside from a few XFCE features that I miss -- it's been a fairly close desktop match for me.

You can also try Wayland -- but honestly I wasn't that impressed with Wayland at this point -- but that's a "Maybe it's JUST ME" thing :cool: -- YMMV. Wayland might improve at some point.

One note: The FreeBSD [15.0-RELEASE-p5] NVIDIA driver has been updated (recently) to: nvidia-driver-595.58.03 and that (might?) have fixed XFCE desktop -- I just haven't checked.

[15.0-RELEASE-p5]
Code: 
$ pkg info | grep nvidia
nvidia-driver-595.58.03        NVIDIA graphics driver userland
nvidia-drm-66-kmod-595.58.03.1500068 NVIDIA DRM Kernel Module
nvidia-drm-kmod-595.58.03      NVIDIA DRM kernel module
nvidia-kmod-595.58.03.1500068  NVIDIA graphics driver kernel module
$

Good luck !
 
Hi
VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU117 [GeForce GTX 1650]
15:34 %> pkg inf nvidia-driver
nvidia-driver-595.58.03
Name : nvidia-driver
Version : 595.58.03
Installed on : Wed Apr 1 11:29:26 2026 CEST
Origin : x11/nvidia-driver
Architecture : FreeBSD:15:amd64
Prefix : /usr/local
Categories : x11
Licenses : NVIDIA
Maintainer : x11@FreeBSD.org
WWW : https://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
Comment : NVIDIA graphics driver userland
Click to expand...

15:36 %> pkg repositories
FreeBSD-ports: {
url : "http://pkg0.sjb.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/latest",
enabled : yes,
priority : 0,
signature_type : "FINGERPRINTS",
fingerprints : "/usr/share/keys/pkg"
}
FreeBSD-base: {
url : "pkg+https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/base_release_0",
enabled : yes,
priority : 0,
mirror_type : "SRV",
signature_type : "FINGERPRINTS",
fingerprints : "/usr/share/keys/pkgbase-15"
}
Click to expand...
15:37 %>
rc.conf kld_list="ext2fs nvidia-modeset fusefs"
linux_enable="YES"
env
DESKTOP_SESSION=xfce
Click to expand...

start auto picom
Click to expand...
Previously, on FreeBSD 14.3, there were no problems.
Install picom
 
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