Xorg Quickstart
Everyone knows that FreeBSD is a great server operating system, but one thing I think it doesn’t get much credit for is how easy it is to set it up for use as a laptop or desktop workstation. This blog post will provide a quickstart for new users or people who infrequently setup desktop systems.
It will be short on details, but there are plenty of resources if available in previous blog posts, or even on the FreeBSD Wiki if you would like to dive a bit deeper. We’ll assume you have a laptop or desktop system with an Intel CPU and integrated Intel Graphics (aka Intel HD Graphics) as well as a FreeBSD install. In this case we’ll be using a system tracking CURRENT, but these directions should also work on 12.0-RELEASE and newer.
Overview
The overview of the process is: 1) Install the drm-kmod pkg, perform minor configuration, reboot. 2) Install xorg-server, a window manager (XFCE4) and some useful tools. 3) Launch X.
Walkthrough
Install the drm-kmod pkg (output edited for brevity)
The first step is to install the appropriate package to enable the GPU on your system, this is called the DRM Kernel Module, or drm-kmod:
$ sudo pkg install drm-kmod
New packages to be INSTALLED:
drm-kmod: g20181126 [FreeBSD]
drm-current-kmod: 4.16.g20190305 [FreeBSD]
Message from drm-current-kmod-4.16.g20190305:
The experimental drm-current-kmod port can be enabled for amdgpu (for AMD
GPUs starting with the HD7000 series / Tahiti) or i915kms (for Intel
APUs starting with HD3000 / Sandy Bridge) through kld_list in
/etc/rc.conf. radeonkms for older AMD GPUs can be loaded and there are
some positive reports if EFI boot is NOT enabled (similar to amdgpu).
For amdgpu: kld_list="amdgpu"
For Intel: kld_list="/boot/modules/i915kms.ko"
For radeonkms: kld_list="/boot/modules/radeonkms.ko"
Please ensure that all users requiring graphics are members of the
"video" group.
Older generations are supported by the legacy kms modules (radeonkms /
i915kms) in base or by installing graphics/drm-legacy-kmod.
Please carefully read the helpful pkg message after this step. It will explain how to do two very important steps: 1) Update rc.conf to load the i915kms driver on boot. 2) Add yourself to the video group.
Let’s do that now:
$ sudo sysrc kld_list+="/boot/modules/i915kms.ko"
kld_list: if_iwm -> if_iwm /boot/modules/i915kms.ko
$ sudo pw groupmod video -M $USER
At this point reboot your system to cleanly load the driver for your graphics chip. Assuming it reboots successfully, you can verify the driver is installed by executing:
$ dmesg | grep drm
Lines prefixed with [drm] indicate the i915kms driver has attached to your system, it also provides some useful debugging info if needed.
Install Xorg and XFCE4
Now that we’ve verified our DRM driver is loaded let’s get to the fun stuff and install Xorg, a GUI and some web browsers:
$ sudo pkg install xorg-server xfce firefox chromium
Once this command completes you’ll be good to go. One nice feature is that the xfce package is actually a meta-package that makes sure XFCE gets installed along with many useful utilities.
Start Xorg
So now we are all set to dive into XFCE! In my environment I just add a single line to my .xinitrc file like so to ensure XFCE is picked up:
$ echo "exec startxfce4" >> ~/.xinitrc
Then it is a matter of just running startx like so. XFCE should be launched and away we go:
$ startx
Next Steps
I hope this guide is helpful for you all. You will notice that there is no need to configure an xorg.conf file. You can still do more complex configurations with custom config files, but for most users things should just work by default.
Also, if you have a system with an AMD GPU you would follow most of the same steps above. If you read the package message after installing drm-kmod you will see instructions on how to enable that in rc.conf.
Additionally, if you would like to boot up Xorg by default, you can refer to the FreeBSD Handbook section on configuring XDM.
If you run into problems don’t hesitate to reach out to us on the freebsd-x11@ mailing list or on Gitter.im where we hang out in the “FreeBSDDesktop” room.
Happy hacking!
Written by Pete Wright