Xfce MORE xfce issues...

[KenGordon]

FreeBSD 14.4 RELEASE-p11, GENERIC amd 64 system here, installed on an old Seagate 320GB HDD, using X-11 and using the xfce desktop.

I have had some audio issues here, and in trying to track those down, I went into settings and disabled pulseaudio before I realized that xfce includes pulseaudio as an integral part of xfce.

So, when I startx now, when xfce starts, the main screen is all blank and black. There is the small icon in the upper left labeled "Applications", which is still active and correctly-usable, so I can still do the work I need to do, although the applications open more slowly than they did before I messed xfce up.

Also, the small window in the upper right corner (the calendar, etc.) is still there and active.

However, there are now 4 dark squares which indicate other "workspaces" which I do not remember being there before I made a mess of this.

So, how do I fix this....if it can be fixed?

Ken Gordon

 

[rmomota]

You can try to reset your XFCE4 panels to default.

 

[Espionage724]

How did you do the graphics set-up?

I install drm-kmod + xorg, configure it (video group + kld_list), then install xfce, configure it (dbus_enable + xinitrc), reboot, then startx to desktop

 

[KenGordon]

You can try to reset your XFCE4 panels to default.

Checking Panel Preferences, I do not find a setting for default. Am I looking in the incorrect area of "Settings?"

Ken Gordon

 

[rmomota]

there's no option for that, you need to do this

https://askubuntu.com/questions/224006/resetting-xfce-panels-to-default-settings

 

[fahrenheit]

KenGordon out of curiosity when you have xfce issues, open a terminal (ALT+F2 should still work) and type: xfwm4 --compositor=off
If that works, and you get a working XFCE, your issue is that you have no hardware acceleration, see Espionage724 comment for general steps on what is needed to fix them. Except, of course if you have an AMD (i)gpu that is handled by amdgpu, in that case 14.x is broken out of the box

 

[KenGordon]

KenGordon out of curiosity when you have xfce issues, open a terminal (ALT+F2 should still work) and type: xfwm4 --compositor=off
If that works, and you get a working XFCE, your issue is that you have no hardware acceleration, see Espionage724 comment for general steps on what is needed to fix them. Except, of course if you have an AMD (i)gpu that is handled by amdgpu, in that case 14.x is broken out of the box

Well, when I do that, I get (xfwm4:96555): Gtk-WARNING **: 13:34:57.856: cannot open display:. but in colors. the word "warning" is in yellow, and the numbers beginning with 13: is in dark-blue.

Ken Gordon

 

[CShell]

For sound you might have more luck running the sndio daemon - works great for me. And yes, sndio supports Pulse Audio. Details here: (Link https://www.siberoloji.com): How to Enable Sound with `sndio` or `pulseaudio` on FreeBSD Operating System

Did you follow the steps to install xfce in the handbook as defined here (?): (Link https://docs.freebsd.org): Chapter 8. Desktop Environments

 

[CShell]

I just remembered that I (also) did a sndio FreeBSD Forum post back in September -- here's a link to that Forum Post:

(Link FreeBSD Forum): Audio via HDMI

 

[bgavin]

I’m not picking a fight here, but if XFCE is so desired then why not MX Linux that uses XFCE natively and has all the mainstream hardware accessories already in place and working?

I wanted XFCE that works with Nvidia and mainstream sound hardware so I went with MX. I have no need to shoe horn this into FBSD if MX gives me a turn key solution. Is there some advantage that FBSD offers over MX as a daily driver?