FreeBSD 8.0 and KDE, the next step

By finndo On March 30, 2010 · 1 Comment

Ok, so my FreeBSD box boots, I have the beastie to welcome me to my system, KDE launches when I type startx, my mouse and KB both work from the console and in [...]

Ok, so my FreeBSD box boots, I have the beastie to welcome me to my system, KDE launches when I type startx, my mouse and KB both work from the console and in KDE, and my system is nearly completely up to date.  All looking good so far, now I need to get some things working in KDE, I am not sure if I want to install the ATI drivers… it always leads me back to the dreaded “blank black screen”  so I may hold out on doing that, as the last time I installed them I had to do a reinstall of the system to get booted again.  Although I may not have to worry about that since I have KDE setup to load only when I tell it to.

 

The first thing I noticed is there is no GUI package management system, I do not mind running it from the console, in fact I may just prefer it; however I do not like not having the option to do so.  so here is a list of things I need to do to get everything where I want it… (not in any particular order)

 

  1. install VirtualBox (done but not running/needs configuration)
  2. install VMWare Workstation (I have a license for either 6.0 or 6.5 on ebay for linux x64 a while back for $5, I was the only one who bid.  I have the iso somewhere on one of my drives)
  3. mount all my ntfs drives and setup nfs support (all done before I started writing this except for 2 folders I want mounted in specific places)
  4. test my remote and local network ssh login (should be setup already, except forwarding the port on the router)
  5. get Google Chrome working
  6. test audio and video playback (can I watch hulu?)
  7. get my VM‘s to launch and successfully run programs (should be easy after installing the correct apps and configuring them, worried about the ATI drivers)
  8. install firefox (my backup browser for when web pages don’t work in chrome)
  9. test remote access to FreeBSD for my mounted ntfs drives (I have a friend in Korea that is willing to help)
  10. begin converting  my ntfs drives to a better FS
  11. convert my drives from MBR to GPT to utilize GUID‘s
  12. find a port/package manager GUI interface for KDE
  13. eliminate all traces of Gnome from my computer (several packages I have installed have dependencies that have Gnome in the name, need to find out if they are necessary and nuke em if not!!)
  14. build my first kernel
  15. get wine installed and working (in case I have something that will refuses to run in a VM)
  16. either install some older DOS games (<—two different links there) or find something newer out there install and get them working (VM or wine, just for fun and to say “oh yeah I love that game, I still it installed on my system…”)
  17. get Xorg port forwarding to work with cygwin.
  18. setup a respectable backup system (currently my backup drive turned into emergency storage when I had a few HDD’s all fail within weeks of each other last year, now I have new drives and enough storage space, I even copied the data off the external backup, but have not yet done a backup of FreeBSD.  Might make this item number one!!)
  19. get java working (part of getting hulu to run)
  20. get flash working (part of getting hulu to run)

 

Sorry about not getting this up sooner, I thought I posted it before I went out of town last week, but I found it today sitting here the drafts section still needing some work…

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FreeBSD 8.0 and KDE 4.4

By finndo On March 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Continuing on from my last post, it was really quite simple to get KDE to run after I closed that post.  in fact I only had to type in 2 lines and the second one ran KDE.

 

exec /usr/local/kde4/bin/startkde4 > ~/.xinitrc startx

 

BAM! that was [...]

Continuing on from my last post, it was really quite simple to get KDE to run after I closed that post.  in fact I only had to type in 2 lines and the second one ran KDE.

 

  1. exec /usr/local/kde4/bin/startkde4 > ~/.xinitrc
  2. startx

 

BAM! that was it, finally!! after 2.5 years of trying I could not believe it was so simple… and then I noticed… I had no KB or Mouse… I did not know it was possible to be so happy and so sad at the same time…

 

You can search the inet any way you want and you’ll find out that running “X -configure” will generate your xorg.conf.new file that you then have to move to “/usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf “   one more item to note, when you test this, make sure you type “X -retro” or “Xorg -retro” else you will just get a blank screen.

*****WARNING*****ok, now that I got your attention, you must run the following command before attempting to use your xorg.conf in the previously mentioned location or you will lock your system up and have to hit the power button. “sudo chmod root:wheel /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf“  if you do not have sudo installed, you have 3 choices.

 

  1. login as root (something I never do except to add my user id to the sudoers file)
  2. type “su -” and switch to root
  3. login as root and type “pkg_add -r sudo” then either add yourself to the wheel group or add yourself to the sudoers file

 

there are several ways to add yourself to the wheel group, the only one that sticks out in my mind right now that I can vouch for is “pw moduser [username] -G wheel [username]” this one sets your group to wheel AND your default group [username], if you skip the second [username] you will no longer have access to any of your own files or you can type “pw groupmod wheel -m [username]” should do the same, to add yourself to the sudoers file you need to type “visudo” then you will be in vi, here is what to do if you don’t know vi.

 

  1. press ”/” (initiates a search)
  2. type “root” (tells vi what to search for)
  3. press enter (begins the search process)
  4. press “n” (takes you to the next instance of “root”)
  5. press “o” (creates a new blank line under the current one and starts editing)
  6. type [username] [tab] “ALL=(ALL) ALL“  (make sure you use caps on the “ALL”, this allows [username] to use sudo)
  7. press ESC (stops edit mode)
  8. press “:” (informs vi you wish to enter a command)
  9. type “wq!” (tells vi to “write” the current file to disk and “quit” vi “NOW”
  10. press enter (executes the command you have entered

 

Now you will no longer have to log in as root on your machine, or su to root again.  Back to my problems…  So, I ran the dreaded -configure command (dreaded because after running it on any system in the last 2-3 years the only result I have ever gotten is the blank black screen syndrome) and of course, I got exactly what I was expecting… a blank black screen when I tested X with that config file.  This is the reason I did not switch to FreeBSD instead of windows back when FreeBSD 6.1 was released, I could never get beyond this point.  Well, about a days worth of inet searching and I have come across some useful information that “worked” for several users.  Nothing worked for me (feel free to search the issue and you’ll get a lovely list of others having this issue, some getting off easy, some giving up, some finding alternate ways to do it.)  about 15 minutes ago (not that you will know when that was based off my posting time, but it makes sense to say it that way…) I found a lovely forum post on FreeBSD.org, now when you look at that post you may not be surprised by what you see there, it is fairly common troubleshooting and common knowledge about the workings of FreeBSD and X.org; HOWEVER!!! and here is the kicker, it has in it a code snippet of the ever elusive “ServerFlags” section of  xorg.conf, something that apparently is not auto generated and really is not documented well (additionally other posts I saw told you to stick it in the “ServerLayout” section, which only causes X to crash without loading.)  I added the following to my xorg.conf file:

 

  1. Section “ServerFlags”
  2.                 Option “AllowEmptyInput” “off”
  3. EndSection
  4. Section “InputDevice”
  5.                 Identifier   “Keyboard0″
  6.                 Driver         ”kbd”
  7.                 Option “XkbOptions” “terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp”
  8. EndSection

 

Now, if you ran “X -configure” lines 4, 5, 6, and 8 should already be in there.  Lines 1 – 3 allow my mouse to work in X, and line 7 allows me to hit ctrl+alt+bksp to exit X and both worked!!  So I quickly exited X and tried “startx” and sure enough, KDE loaded, I could see it, and my mouse worked!!  hot dog!!

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