xorg, xdm, desktop env

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 4 Mar 2010 09:30:05 +0100, n dhert <ndhertbsd at gmail.com> wrote:
> Installed a fresh FreeBSD-8.0, xorg, configured xorg for my screen,
> installed xdm.
> After reboot I see a graphical login window. When entering username and
> password, it seems to accept it, but immediatly present the graphical login
> window again. (In console mode (Ctrl-Alt-F1) I can login at the login:
> prompt with the
> same username/password).
> Has FreeSBD somewhere a default environment (in that case why does it not
> appear after logging in at the
> XDM graphical window) or do you still need to install a Desktop environment
> (Gnome, KDE, Xfce) and is it
> normal that after logging in at the XDM window, you are thrown out again..

As far as I know, earlier X installations came with the
tab window manager - twm. This doesn't seem to be the case
anymore. Because neither X or FreeBSD itself do include
a complete desktop environment (such as KDE, Gnome, Xfce),
you need to install it yourself, and then make it available
to your user using ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc respectively.

If those files are not present, a default should be used by
X. According to which version of X you have installed, those
defaults could launch twm with some xterms (the default is
somewhere in /usr/local/lib/X11, ex /usr/X11R6/lib/X11), or
just recognize that X program initialisation is missing and
then exit - which is still a bit strange, because the X server
should run anyway, "without programs".

Check /var/log/Xorg.0.log for possible errors.

What does happen if you don't run xdm, but instead log in
with your user account and then run the "startx" command?


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...