[afnog] X Windows

[Hervey Allen]

musoket at mtn.co.ug wrote:
> This is what I get 
> 
...

There are a few ways to approach this.

It appears you have Xorg installed. Have you run?

# Xorg -configure

as root?

Then, the file that is outputted is /root/xorg.conf.new

Now test to see if the configuration works with your hardware:

# Xorg -config /root/xorg.conf.new

If you get a blank screen with a moving cursor, things are 
likely to work. Press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to exit the screen.

If it looked good you can copy /root/xorg.conf.new to 
/etc/X11/xorg.conf - You can edit this file to set default 
resolutiosn, color depths, refresh rates, etc.).

Now you need to decide on your display manager and windowing 
environment. If you have not installed Gnome or KDE, then 
you can try typing:

# xdm

to get a login prompt. Or, just type startx to start up a 
generic X Window environment.

If you want Gnome or KDE, then you need to install these 
packages. If you install KDE, then you can use "kdm" to 
start X and give you a login prompt. kdm, also, can support 
the choice of multiple desktop environments (i.e. you could 
install Gnome as well). Or, if you prefer Gnome (I do ;-)), 
then install this and type "gdm" to get the Gnome Display 
Manager to present you with a graphical login prompt.

As you attempt all this read through Chapter 5 of the 
FreeBSD Handbook:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11.html

Once you get X Window working this gives you some very good 
tips for cleaning up fonts, etc. And, steps you through 
configuring using XFree86 or Xorg (I recommend using Xorg, 
which is the default X11 install for FreeBSD 5.4).

There are several ways to install Gnome and/or KDE. If you 
have the FreeBSD CD set with you can use the 
/stand/sysinstall utility if you wish. There are 
instructions for this method here:

http://ws.edu.isoc.org/workshops/2005/ccTLD-Nairobi/day1/freebsd/intro-freebsd-exercises.html#x11

Or, you can find the Gnome and/or KDE package directory on 
your CD set (disc 2 I believe) and just install the parent 
package for either desktop (gnome2-2.10.0 or kde-3.4.2 [kde 
version may be different]) and this will pull in all the 
additional packages required.

Best of luck.

- Hervey Allen

-- 
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Hervey Allen      Network Startup Resource Center
hervey at nsrc.org GPG Key Fingerprint:
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