Workspace Switcher: cannot add workspaces

[Chris Stankevitz]

--- On Thu, 7/1/10, Byron Campbell <wa4geg at netscape.net> wrote:
> > In this box I specify a number that is greater than
> 1.  For example, "9".  Then I click "Close" (there
> is no OK or APPLY button).  The number of workspaces
> does not change.  Furthermore, when I go back into the
> preferences window, the "Number of workspaces" is back to
> 
> I have this exact same problem too, both on FreeBSD 8.1-RC1
> and FreeBSD 
> 8 Stable with Gnome 2.30.0 installed from packages.
> 
> Will be watching this thread for any solutions and anything
> to test.

Contrary to popular belief, this problem is not caused by these issues:
- misconfigured /etc/hosts
- dbus not running
- hal not running
- /proc not mounted

The problem, I believe, is related to this entry in /var/log/messages:

Jul 1 04:00:23 myhost kernel: pid 1551 (polkit-gnome-authen), uid 92: exited on signal 4 (core dumped)

It is easy to reproduce:

1. Buy a HP Z800 computer
2. Boot to FreeBSD 8.1-RC1 DVD
3. Install FreeBSD
4. portsnap fetch extract
5. pkg_add -r xorg
6. pkg_add -r gnome2
7. add gnome_enable="YES" to rc.conf
8. add /proc to /etc/fstab
9. Fix my.domain references in /etc/hosts
10. Reboot and login

I filed a bug: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=148272

Chris