Member Avatar for nanosani

How can I bring the GUI mode of FreeBSD. In Linux (RedHat) I can just press Ctrl-Alt-F7 and the GUI comes up ... but FreeBSD doesnt work that way ... so how does it work ??

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FreeBSD does not automatically tie X to a fixed virtual terminal the way many Linux distributions often do (so Ctrl‑Alt‑F7 only works when X was actually started on that VT). X must be started explicitly on FreeBSD — either manually from a console or by a display manager that launches X at boot — and whichever method is used determines which VT it runs on.

In this thread has already installed Xorg; the next required piece is a window manager or desktop environment. As pointed out, an X session needs something to run (a WM/DE). When X starts with nothing to launch it will leave an empty/black screen or exit. For manual sessions an ~/.xinitrc that ends by executing your window manager is the usual approach; for an automatic graphical login enable a display manager’s rc script.

Basic, low‑risk troubleshooting steps:

  • Inspect the X server log for real errors (look for lines beginning with “(EE)” or driver/screen failures). A quick way to view the tail of the log is:

    tail -n 80 /var/log/Xorg.0.log

    Focus on the first (EE) you find — it usually names the failing driver or missing resource.

  • The font path/refcount message that appeared in the original report is normally benign; it is rarely the root cause of a crash.

  • If the log complains about drivers or “no screens found,” install the appropriate X driver or try a generic fallback driver. If X starts but has no window manager, make sure the WM is installed and launched by your init file.

To get a graphical login at boot, enable the display manager in /etc/rc.conf (for example, enable the appropriate rc variable for xdm/gdm/kdm/slim). If problems persist, the most useful diagnostic is the exact (EE) lines from the Xorg log plus the video chipset/driver being used.

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Member Avatar for nanosani

Okay what I did was this :

# cd /usr/ports/x11/xorg
# make install clean

And it installed without giving errors ... then I made the default configuration by

# Xorg -configure

and then tried this :

# Xorg -config xorg.conf.new

But I have a black screen without anything ... Whats the problem ... am I missing something ?

Member Avatar for nanosani

I just restarted the machine .. and then typed

#startx

After a while the screen went blank .. then I pressed ctrl-alt-backspace ... it came to the text mode and showed the following last two lines :

waiting for X server to shut down FreeFontPath: FPE "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/nisc/" refcount is 2, should be 1: fixing

Thats all ..

Member Avatar for alc6379

Have you installed a window manager at all?

You probably need to install one. Just like you went into the x11 directory, cd into the /usr/ports/x11-wm directory, and build a window manager there.

If you're using startx, make a file called .xinitrc in your home directory. At the very least, it should contain:

#sample .xinitrc file. 

exec /usr/bin/fluxbox

where I've put exec /usr/bin/fluxbox, you'd put the path to your newly installed window manager. Be sure to run chmod +x on the file, to make it executable.

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