Installing Gnome-3 desktop on FreeBSD 11

Written by Johnson D

 

Gnome is one of the most popular desktop environments. Gnome 3 is the latest version of this software. In this article, let us look at how to install Gnome 3 on FreeBSD 11.
FreeBSD 11 can be downloaded from this link. Install FreeBSD according to your requirements, and once the installation is complete, use the following steps to install Gnome3 desktop evironment.

You can find more details and documentation about Gnome 3 here.

Update the package list

pkg update

Upgrade the packages, in case there are updates available

pkg upgrade

Install the packages required.

pkg install gnome-desktop gdm xorg xf86-video-fbdev

Add the following lines to /etc/rc.conf to enable mouse daemon, dbus daemon and hal daemon.

gnome_enable="YES"
moused_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
gdm_enable="YES"

Reboot the machine. Now the machine will boot into GDM login screen, where you can login to Gnome 3  session. You will get a screen similar to the image below.