Second attempt at FreeBSD-11.0-RELEASE-i386, Xorg, and Xfce graphical desktop

[Sergei Akhmatdinov]

I apologize for the recent double-post, sent from both email addresses by
accident.
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On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 21:00:31 -0800 David Christensen
<dpchrist at holgerdanske.com> wrote:
> I generated xorg.conf.new per the manual section 5.4.8:
> 
> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html

The handbook is slightly out of date. Get rid of any generated Xorg.conf files,
startx *should* work out of the box. In fact, in a lot of machines, X -configure
is harmful and breaks X while autoconfigure works just fine.

If startx doesn't work out of the box, all the tweaks should be done
in /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

> Can I replace my /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf with the following?
> 
> # /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/dpchrist.conf
> 
> Section "Files"
> 	FontPath     "/usr/local/share/fonts/dejavu/"
> EndSection
> 
> Section "Module"
> 	Load  "freetype"
> EndSection

Yes, just name your file something like 20-dpchrist.conf. But I reccomend
20-fonts.conf so you know what the file does.

> > As far as your qeustions go...
> >
> > Do you have both hald and dbus running?  
> 
> How do I determine if both hald and dbus are running?

All of your start-up services should be in your rc.conf.

> > Please provide your /etc/rc.conf  
> 
> toor at freebsd:/root # cat /etc/rc.conf
> clear_tmp_enable="YES"
> hostname="freebsd"
> ifconfig_em0="DHCP"
> # local_unbound requires forwarders to support DNSSEC, and AT&T gateway does
> # not:
> # local_unbound_enable="YES"
> sshd_enable="YES"
> ntpd_enable="YES"
> powerd_enable="YES"
> # Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
> dumpdev="AUTO"
> zfs_enable="YES"

Doesn't look like you have hald and/or dbus. Add both. You need dbus for
Firefox and a few other programs to work anyway.

XFCE uses HAL and DBUS along with PolKit to provide unprivileged shutdown.

Add
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"

Then either reboot or run
# service hald start
# service dbus start

> Add the suggested lines:
> 
> toor at freebsd:/etc # vi rc.conf
> clear_tmp_enable="YES"
> hostname="freebsd"
> ifconfig_em0="DHCP"
> # local_unbound requires forwarders to support DNSSEC, and AT&T gateway does
> # not:
> # local_unbound_enable="YES"
> sshd_enable="YES"
> ntpd_enable="YES"
> powerd_enable="YES"
> # Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
> dumpdev="AUTO"
> zfs_enable="YES"
> dbus_enable="YES"
> hald_enable="YES"

Well, forgive me or pointing it out, but looks like you didn't follow the
previous thread's advice, looking at your current rc.conf

> > Are you using ports or packages? A mix of two? (latter very ill advised).  
> 
> I'm using 'pkg'.

The errors you are seeing could be related to the packager's machine, but try
enabling HAL and DBUS first and see if they go away. In my experience,
GUI/DE-related errors of that nature are harmless.

If they don't go away, try using ports to build the packages. Just be sure you
don't mix ports and packages unless you know what you are doing.

On a very big tangent, most of the Desktop Environments still have strong ties
to GNU/Linux distributions. I personally recommend you try Lumina or switch to a
WM-only setup for most optimal tweak-free experience. That's not to say that you
can't do it, but... give it a thoght. Just my two cents. :)

Cheers,
-- 
Sergei Akhmatdinov

My GPG public key:
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys AD800D99
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