FreeBSD: X works sometimes

[NecroLin]

I installed FreeBSD the other day (FreeBSD 5.2.1) and X just doesn't seem to like me or something. It will work just fine 2 out of 5 times. Other times it freezes during start, at random times, or sometimes works untill I want to log off & then freezes. :mad:
By random times I mean that it will either freeze when it's just starting to write messages, at other times it tries to start X the screen flickers & then goes black and then nada, nothing.


Any pointers as to where I can start?

[Uranus]

That's weird...
Do you install binary or use ports? If the first, I'd try the second, if the second, I'd try the first :)
/me recommends ports though
How have you configured X?
I'd try configuring it once with Xorg -configure and then alter the file to your needs.
Very weird - since computers are generally quite predictable :)
Sam

[NecroLin]

I just installed X from the CD, so binary. I'll try the ports ... except that that will take so long. Just to install Anjuta took like 3 hours & that's a small program. (I forgot to mention that I'm still using BSD on my old test machine 300MHz Celeron, so compiling anything takes forever). :(


I just can't understand why X would work once and then not work. You'd think that it would either work or not work. It's bizzare.

:confused:

[DSwain]

I was going to suggest you start running FreeBSD 5.3 so you can get xorg which should work fine but maybe not a preference on a 300mhz Celeron. I do run it on my laptop (166mhz lol) but it's rather slow so I can understand if you didn't want to do that.

[NecroLin]

Yeah, I was thinking of just downloading 5.3 too.

It's funny that you mention performance though. It's wierd but I've installed just about every possible OS on my test machine and performance variations are HUGE when using the same software. For example, using the Gnome desktop on Red Hat was too slow to use starting at version 7.3, but FreeBSD and Slackware can run the latest versions of Gnome just fine on the same machine. So far the best performing OS has been FreeBSD.... when it decides to work that is.:D

[DSwain]

Haha I have to agree FreeBSD is the best I've seen personally. It's odd I notice with all OS's I try they all seem buggy and poorly designed just because of not being used to it. It always seems like you're the only one who gets the whacked out problems lol. Pretty annoying but it happens. At any rate you may wanna think about FreeBSD 5.3 as I've had no troubles and it gives you xorg as default. Pretty nice I'd have to say.

[NecroLin]

Just burned FreeBSD 5.3 CD, hope it works.:D

[DSwain]

Good luck with that. I just finished recompiling my kernel and I'm installing packages for it now so it should be all good pretty soon.

[NecroLin]

Woah, I'm impressed. Just finished doing a clean install & it worked right out of the box!!! (per se) I didn't even have to configure X. I'm amazed.

Sweet. :D

BSD is getting as easy as Windows to set up. lol

[DSwain]

Wow without configuring X? Now how'd you pull that off?? Well at any rate nice job and I'm glad to see it's working. How does it perform running X?

Oh yeah and you may want to recompile the kernel with some optimizer flags too sometime in the future. It helps a fair amount I'd have to say. It won't pull off a mirical or anything but it does help. Maybe that's another day though. At any rate glad to see it's all working.

[NecroLin]

Originally posted by DSwain
Wow without configuring X? Now how'd you pull that off?? Well at any rate nice job and I'm glad to see it's working. How does it perform running X?


All I did was install the system (after formatting the HDD of course), and I couldn't find anything about configuring X in /stand/sysinstall, so I just typed "startx" and it worked. I was like WTF? How did that happen? But who cares, it works.

It seems to be running pretty smoothly on the machine.

Thanks.

[DSwain]

Haha wow nuts.