# Want a GUI -- most "how to" search results poor/wrong



## gwr (Feb 16, 2021)

I've been away from the various *BSD for a while but decided I wanted to try some development work in FreeBSD.
I'd like to do that dev. work in a desktop installation running as a guest under VMware Fusion (on MacOS).
So I downloaded 12.2 and installed in a new VM.  Installation went mostly OK (though I naively tried to install for UEFI BIOS which had problems -- no biggie). That gave me a familiar BSD looking shell.  So... how to get a graphical login?  Some web searching...

The results pointed many different directions based on whether one prefers KDE, Gnome, Mate, etc.  Personally I'm more familiar with Gnome 2 (now Mate) and most instructions for that suggested:


```
pkg install xorg mate slim
```
And add to /etc/rc.conf

```
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
slim_enable="YES"
```

After a reboot, that gave me a login screen, but attempts to logon fail (even with a correct p/w).
Further searching suggests creating a $HOME/.xinitrc containing "exec mate-session"...
which I happen to know is really not the right way to be doing that...

So I look around some more and see that a lot of my search results were quite old (2015 or so) and that the "slim" display manager is no longer being maintained, etc.  On another system I use, I have mate + lightDM so I thought I'd try that.  Very few of my search results suggested that, and only a couple hinted at how to do it, but with some experiments I came up with:

(Note: Already installed "xorg" and "mate" above.)

```
pkg delete slim
pkg install lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
```
and replace the "slim" line of rc.conf so the end looks like:

```
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
lightdm_enable="YES"
```

After that, login works as expected (and no, it's not necessary to create a $HOME/.xinitrc nor should it be necessary).
I will say that the "slim" greeter was more attractive, but I'm pretty sure that's only because nobody has added any branding stuff (eg. default background) to the lightDM greeter.   Maybe I'll try doing so...

Anyway, I hope this note shows up in the search results of the next person looking for a "mate" installation.

Lastly, let me say "Thanks!"  -- these are minor documentation problems.  The important things all work.


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## SirDice (Feb 16, 2021)

Still use SLiM myself. It might not be maintained anymore it still works perfectly. Install the x11-themes/slim-themes and set `current_theme` in slim.conf to `fbsd`. Then you'll have a nice looking FreeBSD "branded" login 

SLiM does require a ~/.xinitrc, this should do it:

```
[ -n "$1" ] && [ -x "$1" ] && exec "$1"
```
The reason is that SLiM allows you to switch which desktop manager or window manager you want, just hit the F1 button on the login screen to cycle through the ones you have installed. The fancy ~/.xinitrc will then automatically run the correct application for the chosen desktop/window manager. That'll also make it easier to install various different ones, so you can try them all.


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## gwr (Feb 16, 2021)

My comment about $HOME/.xinitrc was just meant to point out that it's supposed to be optional, and if not present some system-wide default is supposed to be selected or offered.  With lightDM that happens via:

```
/usr/local/etc/lightdm/Xsession
/usr/local/share/xsessions/...
```
I gather lightDM has ways to offer choices during login etc. though I'm not familiar with the details.


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## tingo (Feb 16, 2021)

My two cents: I can start the gui myself after logging in, don't need a graphical login. So I just install xorg-minimal, xfce and then do `startxfce4` after logging in.


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## Minbari (Feb 16, 2021)

I don't understand why people are bothering with DM if they only run only one DE. If you want that your DE to run after the login all is need is the following code in your shell rc:

```
if [ $( /usr/bin/tty ) = "/dev/ttyv0" ]; then
        startx
    logout
fi
```


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## gnath (Feb 17, 2021)

Not brave enough for entering one line for each WM,DE in ~/.xinitrc and commenting all but one of his choice.


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## unitrunker (Feb 17, 2021)

Look at desktopinstaller in ports. It has mate as one of the options.


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## wolffnx (Feb 17, 2021)

Slim do the work, and you can enable autologin with slim too


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## SirDice (Feb 17, 2021)

gwr said:


> So... how to get a graphical login? Some web searching...


Did you forget to check our excellent handbook? 

Chapter 5. The X Window System


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