About "how the GUI should look like after installation!"

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2006-11-01 17:18, Evans Durandisse <evans000_1999 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am brand new to unix.  I m a beginner student in computer
> engineering. I wanted to install freeBSD since there's such a fuss
> about it. I got the iso images and mounted them on a CD with Alcohol
> 120.

I don't know what "Alcohol 120" is, but since it helped you write ISO
images to CD-ROM disks, it must be a good thing *grin*

> I installed freebsd without much configuration. I answered 'no' when
> asked to configure things what could be configured later. But I do not
> know if I installed it right, eventhough I tried to follow the
> instructions from the handbook.

If it boots, and you can see a login prompt, it's installed fine.  Most
of the post-installation tasks can be done quite fine from a plain login
shell, like the one you can see now after the boot process completes.

> When I open my computer, after installation, there's the screen that
> asked if I want to start freebsd or dos. So I choose freebsd. Then, I
> logged in and typed 'startx' to start the gui (that's what I should
> do! right!).

Bingo!  You have all you need for a basic FreeBSD installation *and* a
desktop environment based on X11.  Now is the time to install a desktop
environment, if you haven't done so already :)

> Consequently, it'd been loaded. I am just seeing four comand
> shells. That's all I can see! No taskbars! No background picture
> (greying grinded dots: like pixels in a low definition
> image). There're just four squared box (shell). My mouse worked! But
> there's nothing it can be used for. I tried to work myself over that
> by typing some commands. But I don't know that much of the Unix
> language; so it's been to no avail!

What you saw is the very Spartan, very basic, extremely low-profile
desktop that comes with the X11 system.  The decorations around the
Windows are minimal, there is no fancy menu with lots of programs,
program utilities, games, and other software.  You can definitely build
on top of this minimal desktop, but if you want a more featureful, more
fancy desktop, you will have to install one yourself.

In FreeBSD, there are dozens of choises for a desktop environment
running on top of the basic X11 installation you have now.  You can read
more about the available environments at:

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

> So my question is should I get this kind of graphic environment? or
> something missing in the installation.

Don't worry.  All is fine.  This is the bare-bones "window manager" that
comes with the X11 distribution.  You can always install whatever you
want, on top of X11.

I am typing this message in GNU Emacs, running under XFCE4.  The XFCE4
desktop is a fairly light, but nice desktop environment, which you can
install easily on top of FreeBSD and X11.  Other choise for a desktop
environment are: GNOME and KDE.  Read the Handbook section mentioned
above, and you'll quickly know how to install and use one of them too.

> I have an intel D845GLVA motherboard with a Pent IV, integrated video
> card, Samsung SyncMaster 753DF (maybe it's the hardware). But I didn't
> get any error message for that.
>
> Thank you for considering helping! Have a good day!

Good day to you too.  Oh, and "welcome to FreeBSD" :)

- Giorgos