# Help with mate GUI



## TAL15 (Jul 23, 2017)

hello,
I'm new to BSD, I was a distro-hopper in Linux for a while and have been experiencing difficulties in making the MATE desktop work, 
After running the command 
#mate-session
To test the GUI I get this message,
WARNING **: Cannot open display;
I already downloaded Xorg so this should be working,

Thanks for any help.


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## mrclksr (Jul 24, 2017)

Hello TAL15 ,

there are two recommended ways to start a X session:

Use [FONT=Courier New]startx
[/FONT]
Create the file ~/.xinitrc:


```
% echo "exec /usr/local/bin/mate-session" > ~/.xinitrc"
```
Then you can start your X session with `startx`


Use a X login manager like x11/slim:

Install x11/slim. Add `slim_enable="YES"` to /etc/rc.conf. Create the file ~/.xsession:


```
% echo "exec /usr/local/bin/mate-session" > ~/.xsession"
```
Finally, reboot or just execute `service slim start` as root.


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## TAL15 (Jul 24, 2017)

mrclksr said:


> Hello TAL15 ,
> 
> there are two recommended ways to start a X session:
> 
> ...


when I start the command service slim start, it just says Mate-session: MATE and doesn't do anything, it just offers me a new command line,


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## TAL15 (Jul 24, 2017)

Apparently xorg isn't recognizing my screen, despite the fact it's a laptop, please help.


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## mrclksr (Jul 24, 2017)

It seems, you haven't configured X, yet. See https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/x-config.html

If you get stuck, just ask.


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