Installing Gnome DE, Terminal On FreeBSD 12

If you’re coming all the way from GNU/Linux to BSDs, How do you feel seeing an OS just with a default C Shell, And you’re like are you kidding me? Okay, Enough, You might have your reasons for using FreeBSD, This article is about how to install Gnome Desktop Environment, Gnome-Terminal for your FreeBSD.

Installing Gnome3 Desktop Environment On FreeBSD

I won’t be explaining much, But if you’ve any questions you can make use of the comment box, Just use the following commands.

root@:~ # pkg update
root@:~ # pkg install nano vim bash 
root@:~ # pkg install xorg
root@:~ # pkg install gnome3
root@:~ # pkg install gnome-desktop gdm

After you’ve already installed the following packages, edit rc.conf

root@:~ # nano /etc/rc.conf

Add the following down below,

dbus_enable=”YES”
hald_enable=”YES”
gdm_enable=”YES”
gnome_enable=”YES”

It will look like this

After, Then you need to edit fstab.

root@:~ # vim /etc/fstab

Add, the following to it,

proc /proc procfs rw 0 0

It will look like this: If your questions is why do we need to add this:
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x11-wm.html

Okay, After you’re done with that you need to create a .xinitrc file

root@:~ # vim .xinitrc

Add the following inside it.

exec /usr/local/bin/gnome-session

As you might know we are login as root user, then copy the file to the user account.

root@:~ # cp .xinitrc /home/useraccount
E.g, shehuawwal is the other user account on the sys,
root@:~ # cp .xinitrc /home/shehuawwal

Then change ownership of the .xinitrc file to the useraccount mine which is shehuawwal

root@:~ # chown shehuawwal:shehuawwal /home/shehuawwal/.xinitrc

Install Other Utilities Tools That You Might Like

So, I prefer using gnome-terminal and bash than cshell, You might install everything on the go,

root@:~ # pkg install gnome-terminal bash

After the installation

root@:~ # bash

If you want to check, what shell you’re using, the easiest way is use

root@:~ # ps -p $$

If you’ve any questions or something else, You can make use of the comment box.