Stuck in a sparse gnome

I'm following the freebsd handbook, and I've gotten myself stuck at 5.7.1.

I've tried installing the package and installing from the source (and had to reinstall freebsd each time), but when I type:
Code:
# startx
I get the screen below (sorry its so small.) The mouse works and I can click the icon in the bottom right to bring up a shutdown and a restart button, but on clicking, the menu disappears and nothing happens.

I can access the accessibility menu but clicking anywhere else does nothing. Pressing CTRL+ALT+BKSP doesn't do anything either. I've tried Alt+F1 but nothing happens then either.

I added
Code:
gdm_enable="YES"
to rc.conf, so gnome loads at start up and thus I'm stuck.

Is it obvious what I've done wrong?
 

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Proc isn't mounted. Add to /etc/fstab:
Code:
proc                    /proc           procfs  rw              0       0
 
Ah, I got the same thing as Theen, and did edit /etc/fstab to include /proc, but upon reboot am getting a message saying:

Code:
Mounting /etc/fstab filesystems failed, startup aborted...enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh

This install from FreeBSD-8.1-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso. I hadn't used fbsd since v. 7.0, with which I only needed to do as mentioned in the installing gnome section of the handbook.

Any advice on fixing this will be most appreciated.
 
hrsetrdr said:
Ah, I got the same thing as Theen, and did edit /etc/fstab to include /proc, but upon reboot am getting a message saying:

Code:
Mounting /etc/fstab filesystems failed, startup aborted...enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh

Any advice on fixing this will be most appreciated.

It would help to see what you have in there now, but you should be able to remount / read/write:
# mount -u /

and then edit it with vi:
# vi /etc/fstab

Fix whatever's wrong, save (escape colon x), then do a ctrl-D to exit the shell and continue booting.
 
mount -u / returned OK, but [cmd=]vi /etc/fstab[/cmd] returns as
Code:
vi: not found
, which is consistent with everything else I've tried; [cmd=]reboot[/cmd] seems to work though. I can [cmd=]cd[/cmd][cmd=]ls[/cmd] the contents, but don't seem to have the means to edit anything.

Edit: I can [cmd=]cat fstab[/cmd] but can't use an editor...kinda frustrating.
 
Sorry, vi is in /usr/bin, so might as well mount everything. For that matter, you can use whatever editor you like:
# cat /etc/fstab
Then mount /var and /usr based on what it shows. I mount /tmp, too, in case it's needed.
Finally, you can edit fstab and fix whatever might be wrong.

In a really bad situation, you can use echo to rewrite fstab, but it's not fun.
 
Default way to solve this. Hit enter to load the default shell, then:
Code:
fsck -y
mount -u /
mount -a -t ufs
swapon -a
You can now use what ever editor you like. You probably made a typo in /etc/fstab somewhere.
 
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