FreeBSD GUI, Gnome First

Today my goal was to get a GUI up and running on FreeBSD. Due to my own familiarity with it, I chose Gnome. The first thing you'll need to do is either compile from source, or use the package management system. I chose to go the package management route because it usually is quicker. The package required is gnome2, so I ran this command:

#pkg_add -r gnome2

This installs everything you'll need. I then attempted to start the GUI with startx but that didn't work, instead putting me into the basic X11 GUI. I then created a ~/.xinitrc file. I added the following line with the following command:

$echo "/usr/local/bin/gnome-session " > ~/.xinitrc

Then ran

$startx

This failed. I wasn't sure why, so I enabled gdm by editing the /etc/rc.conf file and adding

gdm_enable="YES"

and then rebooting. This time I got an error message, telling me some files were unable to be found. To combat that, I then did some googling and found the suggestion to add the following two lines to /etc/rc.conf

dbus_enable="YES"

hald_enable="YES"

and again rebooting. Like that I was into gnome! Next i'll be looking at getting kde installed.