X11 windows not setting up properly

[paul thodiyil]

I have installed FreeBSD release 5.3 for AMD 64 on my PC (opteron 250
processor, 1gb RAM,  Tyan 2885 motherboard), on a separate FreeBSD
partition on a SCSI hard drive.

It boots up without error messages -- after logging on, at the command
prompt I type startx, all that loads up of the X windows system are 4
terminal consoles, each with a command prompt.  I am unable to get KDE
or GNOME desktops even though I had included these in the setup
process.

I had previously used the 5.2 release when x-windows worked very well.
 My initial attempts to upgrade to 5.3 did not upgrade X-windows, so I
decided to reinstall from scratch.

Could anyone suggest a fix for the failure of KDE or gnome desktops to
appear after startx.

Many thanks.

Paul