FreeBSD 11.2, X.org, Xfce, and Firefox issues

[Polytropon]

On Tue, 30 Apr 2019 22:16:54 -0700, David Christensen wrote:
> I installed dbus, added the dbus_enable setting, and rebooted -- it may 
> have helped somewhat, but I still see a lot of complaints on the console.

Those messages seem to be normal. Nearly every Gtk program
you run (or should I say: nearly every program ported over
from Linux) issues warnings and errors, not only when it is
built, also when it is running. Nobody seems to care, and
in most cases, the messages are either nonsense or harmless.

I have also experimented and removed the sysctl.conf entry
as well as DBus from rc.conf, and then restarted Firefox
from a terminal. No error messages on program startup,
and no loss of functionality so far, and no coredumps.
However, there are things like security-related JS errors,
for example when I visit YouTube to watch cat videos. :-)



> I tried installing hal -- it was already installed at that point.

It also has to be enabled using the following rc.conf entry:

	hald_enable="YES"

As you said you're using Xfce, which uses Gtk, it could be
possible that certain Gnome-related services make Xfce work
better, but that's just a guess. I haven't used Xfce regularly
after XFCE 3 (the CDE lookalike).

https://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/faq2.html#full-gnome

My test (see above) indicates that Firefox seems to work fine
with no HAL or DBus running. Even though a DBus instance is
started (by Firefox?), killing it doesn't seem to have any
impact.



> I use a KVM switch with external keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and have 
> always had problems getting FOSS graphical desktops to work correctly 
> with the KVM on this ~2007 Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop.

Is this some "software-defined" KVM? I never had problems
with the ones that have real keys to switch connections,
instead of requiring strange keypresses on the keyboard.



> Even if I 
> resolved the Firefox issues, FreeBSD 11.2 amd64 Xfce has severe problems 
> switching between the internal laptop panel and the external monitor. 
> Debian 9 amd64 Xfce mostly works OOTB, so I'll save FreeBSD for another, 
> newer laptop.

That is probably an X configuration issue. Restarting X
should solve the problem so accomodation to the "new screen
characteristics" can be picked up correctly. Additionally,
with xrandr things can be tested (and automated).



Finally, try updating Firefox; in my experience, most
Firefox problems (like crashing tabs I saw once) can be
solved by obtaining a newer version of that browser. :-)



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