FreeBSD and Linux changing Desktop Environments/login manager

Asked by Christopher

Q. I have both FreeBSD and Red Hat Linux desktop computers. I would like to change KDE to GNOME or vice versa. Under FreeBSD X windows is working but without KDE/Gnome desktop, I am using Intel Celeron computer can I run or install kde?

A.

Changing Desktop Environments under Red Hat
Use utility called switchdesk, open terminal, and type

# switchdesk

Select desktop you would like to use, click Ok.
OR
From System Setting select > Switch desktop tool
OR
Modify /etc/sysconfig/desktop file

# vi /etc/sysconfig/desktop

Setup/modify variable DISPLAYMANAGER:

• If you want Gnome Desktop setup it to DISPLAYMANAGER="GNOME"
• If you want KDE Desktop setup it to DISPLAYMANAGER="KDE"

Note: Debian user can need to modify file /etc/X11/default-display-manager and need to put full path of desktop manager. Therefore, if you are using Gnome use path /usr/bin/gdm, for Kde use path /usr/bin/kdm.

FreeBSD Desktop system
Since you are using low end Celeron I recommend using xfce desktop (you can use Gnome too but it will be little bit slow). It is a desktop environment based on the GTK+ toolkit used by GNOME, but is much more lightweight and simple.

To install xfce, type following command as root user:

# pkg_add -r xfce4

Open your configuration file .xinitrc and append/add following line to it:

# cd
# vi .xinitrc

Simply add following line:

/usr/X11R6/bin/startxfce4

Save the file, exit to shell prompt. Above line, tell the X server to launch XFce the every time X is started.