My FreeBSD Setup

From the manual, I've learned various new commands for upgrading and installing software and so

# updating the system
freebsd-upgrade fetch
freebsd-upgrade install

# updating package
pkg upgrade

Next is installing and using X, which I encountered some problems. This is mainly because of me, as I didn't even know what graphic card this computer has other than some integrated one (likely Intel).

# installing X was easy
pkg install xorg

Installing X is easy, then I tried startx and it failed immediately, which is not surprising because I haven't configured any graphic driver. I then tried the Linux way which is editing xorg.conf file, and I found the FreeBSD manual also has section about doing this. So I spent half an hr doing this without much success (because the manual says use "intel" as Driver). It was pretty late and I was so sleepy to debug and so went to bed.

On the next day, I quickly googled for FreeBSD, X, Intel and fond out that the correct dirver is i915kms (not intel). Moreover, I shouldn't even have to edit xorg.con or any file, everything should be automatically detected and loaded. Anyway, don't remember all the details but I think I did something like below

pkg install drm-kmod


# /etc/rc.conf
kld_list="i915kms"
dbus_enable="YES"  # for KDE

Now startx works and so I don't need use root and so added the username I created to the video group and log in using that username (I also found out that I cannot su to root and then had to also add my username to wheel).

Anyway, I then installed KDE, created a simple ~/.xinitrc file

exec ck-launch-session startplasma-x11

and startx to start KDE.

• Why KDE? In the past I typically used either WindowMaker or Trinity desktop. I wanted to try something new. I probably will switch back to WindowMaker soon, but so far I like that the new KDE because it allows me to perform natural (invert) mouse scrolling in Firefox (when I was in Linux I was never able to get Firefox to do this kind of scrolling with Trinity or WindowMaker).

• Sometimes it won't automatically turn off my monitor. Never had this problem with the older, smaller monitor.
• Can't get my Canon printer to work. It sees the printer (wireless) but Canon does not have the driver for this printer for BSD.
• Slack is not available on FreeBSD, so I had to run it inside Firefox.
• I can't get my monitor to output any sound. The monitor has a speaker. And KDE reports that sound driver working fine, but I can't hear any sound.
  • got this to work, not sure how though.

• /boot/loader.conf

kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0"
kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0"
cryptodev_load="YES"
zfs_load="YES"
kern.vty=vt
#snd_hda_load="YES"
snd_driver_load="YES"

• /etc/rc.conf

hostname="ROARS"
ifconfig_em0="DHCP"
ifconfig_em0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
sshd_enable="YES"
# Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
dumpdev="AUTO"
zfs_enable="YES"
kld_list="i915kms"
dbus_enable="YES"
ntpd_enable="YES"
cupsd_enable="YES"
devfs_system_ruleset="system"
coretemp_load="YES"
sendmail_enable="NONE"
sddm_enable="yes"

• ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini

[Settings]
gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme=false
gtk-button-images=true
gtk-cursor-theme-name=breeze_cursors
gtk-cursor-theme-size=24
gtk-decoration-layout=icon:minimize,maximize,close
gtk-enable-animations=false
gtk-font-name=Hack,  10
gtk-icon-theme-name=breeze
gtk-key-theme-name=Emacs
gtk-menu-images=true
gtk-modules=colorreload-gtk-module:window-decorations-gtk-module
gtk-primary-button-warps-slider=false
gtk-theme-name=Emacs
gtk-toolbar-style=3
gtk-xft-dpi=98304