Unable to get Desktop Environment working

alwindoss

alwindoss

I took the chance of wiping out the Linux on my laptop and install FreeBSD I was able to install and even got my Wi-Fi network working. I don't regret my decision.

However, I am unable to get the gnome Desktop Environment to start. I followed the Handbook instructions.

Here is something that I did in the boot options in BIOS, I am not sure if this information is helpful, I am posting it here because I saw difference in how screen appeared.
  1. I chose UEFI Hybrid(with CSM)
  2. If I choose UEFI Native(without CSM) the displays resolution changes it becomes much sharper but doesn't go beyond the boot screen of Freebase and I see a lot of flicker on the screen
  3. If I choose Legacy Freebase doesn't even load.
I am not sure how to proceed with this issue
 
alwindoss said:
I took the chance of wiping out the Linux on my laptop and install FreeBSD I was able to install and even got my Wi-Fi network working. I don't regret my decision.
Click to expand...

It's okay.

alwindoss said:
However, I am unable to get the gnome Desktop Environment to start. I followed the Handbook instructions.

Here is something that I did in the boot options in BIOS, I am not sure if this information is helpful, I am posting it here because I saw difference in how screen appeared.
Click to expand...

* First of all, could you tell us which is your machine ?
* Your graphics card is Intel, Nvidia ... ?
* Did you install your graphics card drivers properly ?
* In your /usr/local/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc file you commented on the lines:

# twm &
# xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 &
# xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 &
# xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 &
# exec xterm -geometry 80x66+0+0 -name login ?
* In the same file, as raised by your exec ?


These are all small details that we all, sometimes, forget when we have problems. In this case, we cannot start the GNOME desktop.

Also let me tell you alwindoss that I'm not a guru, far from it, just a rookie who happened something similar to yours.
 
judd
My Laptop is: HP ProBook 640 G1
According to the product spec the Graphics card is(Not sure which one I have), spec is here:
  • Integrated: Intel HD Graphics 4600
  • Discrete: AMD Radeon HD 8750M, with 1GB dedicated DDR5 video memory
I didn't install anything other than vim using pkg install vim-console
Apart from this I followed the instructions in the handbook to install gnome2

I don't see this file in my system /usr/local/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

I am very sorry I missed specifying all the information you have requested, this is the first time ever that DE hasn't worked for me, I didn't even know what information to specify, thanks for being patient
 
  1. Booting UEFI should be faster than CSM or Legacy
  2. The installer chooses the right boot loader (boot(8)/uefi(8)) to install based on how you booted the install medium. If you later change the boot method in the UEFI/BIOS, naturally the OS can not boot...
  3. Please freebsd-update & pkg install drm-kmod
  4. AFAIK Gnome3 is pretty much broken? Consider to choose x11/mate instead. You can deinstall the Gnome3 stuff later, if Mate is ok for you. Disclaimer: I'm a KDE user & don't know about the state of the Gnome stuff from my own personal experience.
  5. Please post the ouput of pciconf -vl | grep -B3 display
Setting some sysctl(8) knobs & edit some rc.conf(5) settings via sysrc(8) should enable your DE to run, thus I post my usual Standard disclaimer: install the docs: pkg install {de,en}-freebsd-doc, replace de with your native tongue, and point your favorite browser to /usr/local/share/doc/freebsd.

You can add to the ALIAS section of /usr/local/etc/pkg.conf message: "query '[%C/%n] %M'",, read through all pkg message|less and apply the requested settings. Instead of less(1), you may find sysutils/most more user-friendly. Beginners will prefer edit(1) or editors/nano instead of vi(1).
 
mjollnir here is the info. Apologies since my laptop does not have any browser I will have to take pictures of the console and attach it here.
Since gnome didn't work I tried even kde as described in the handbook, even that didn't work. I now tried mate as well, no success there too.

I am sure I am missing something not sure what though
 

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So you boot via UEFI (CSM enabled) and get to the FreeBSD boot menu, and you can boot by hitting the <ENTER> key? Then you get to the console until a login: , when the DRM kernel module gets loaded the screen resolution changes, but your desktop does not start automagically (that's called the display manager). Correct?
 
I would recommend xfce4 over mate.

p/s: package name is just xfce, not xfce4.
 
mjollnir said:
So you boot via UEFI (CSM enabled) and get to the FreeBSD boot menu, and you can boot by hitting the <ENTER> key? Then you get to the console until a login: , when the DRM kernel module gets loaded the screen resolution changes, but your desktop does not start automagically (that's called the display manager). Correct?
Click to expand...
That's exactly what is happening mjollnir
 
sysctl said:
I would recommend xfce4 over mate.

p/s: package name is just xfce, not xfce4.
Click to expand...
xfce is one thing I didn't try, I guess I will try that as well. Irrespective of which DE I use the display manager should still come up which I think in my case is not coming up.
 
alwindoss said:
That's exactly what is happening mjollnir
Click to expand...
I tried running startx manually it showed errors on looking at the logs i couldn't understand much. I have attached screenshot
alwindoss said:
That's exactly what is happening mjollnir
Click to expand...
I tried running startx manually, but if failed, I have attached the screenshot of the logs. I am not able to understand what is going wrong here.
 

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  1. Ok, you have to set up the DRM/KMS kernel module to get the /dev/dri/card0 -> /dev/drm/0 device file. Did you reboot? If kldstat|grep kms shows nothing, try kldload /boot/modules/i915kms.ko. Does this produce any error message?
  2. Please post you /boot/loader.conf & /etc/rc.conf, inline formatted as CODE if they're small, else append as text files.
  3. What kind of CPU & GPU do you have? Post the output of dmesg | grep CPU:. If you've got bad luck, your GPU is too new and not supported yet... another option is to
  4. install graphics/drm-fbsd12.0-kmod from inside the ports tree:
    cd /usr/ports/graphics/drm-fbsd12.0-kmod, make install clean
  5. Get X11 running, once that starts without errors,...
  6. Install a display manager: pkg install psearch & pick one from psearch -s "display manager" (except security/pam_kde), e.g. x11/lightdm and don't forget to do what's told by it's pkg info -D <portname>, i.e. basically add your user to the video group: pw groupmod video -m alwin, set some sysctl(8) knobs and start the services the DE wants to have.
 
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