Desktop, obsolete settings
This is for those who are familiar with older versions of FreeBSD.
Xorg
Manually setting the option in xorg.conf to the next line enabled the mouse and keyboard:
Option "AllowEmptyInput" "False"
/etc/rc.conf:
hald_enable="YES"
The hald option can be replaced with FreeBSD's native program devd(8), if the options were set in x11-servers/xorg-server before compiling. Some ported programs still use hald, however.
For a custom xorg configuration file:
% Xorg -configure
After testing this configuration, xorg.conf.new would have been copied to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
% cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
SLiM
x11/slim was a practical choice for a login manager, which didn't have remote login access. To enable slim, edit the line in /etc/ttys to :
ttyv8 "/usr/local/bin/slim -nodaemon" xterm on secure
Slim requires a *.desktop file, typically in /usr/local/share/xsessions/. This directory is specified in /usr/local/etc/slim.conf next to the sessiondir option. If the directory doesn't exist, create it with the mkdir -p command.
Example of a minimal /usr/local/share/xsessions/fluxbox.desktop file:
[Desktop Entry] Name=FLUXBOX Exec=fluxbox
.desktop files are in xdg-style, demonstrated at Desktop Entry Specification.
Customization
To change the background, look into /usr/local/share/slim/themes/default/ [optionally create a backup file of background.jpg] then copy your choice background image to /usr/local/share/slim/themes/default/background.jpg
% cd /usr/local/share/slim/themes/default % mv background.jpg background.bk.jpg % cp [pathname/your file] background.jpg
To create multiple themes, you may create a new directory under themes/ that is similar to the default/ directory, then specify this themes subdirectory from /usr/local/etc/slim.conf. If you do this, be sure each used folder ends off with three files named: slim.theme, background.jpg and panel.png.
Add or edit your themes to slim.conf:
#current theme, use comma separated list to specify a set to randomly choose from current_theme default,mytheme
To create themes directories:
% cd /usr/local/share/slim/themes % cp -R default mytheme
Then edit the mytheme/ files to your liking. For more details of slim configuration, type either:
% man slim
% less /usr/local/etc/slim.conf.sample