Introduction

This section describes the installation and configuration procedure for using the desktop environment called Xfce4 on FreeBSD on Linux + qemu.

See also Running FreeBSD on Linux + qemu.

In each explanation below, the command to be actually executed is described in the following format.

#pkg install package name

Actually, when you execute the above command, the progress of package installation is displayed, but these are omitted on this page.

The "#" at the beginning of the line above represents the root prompt.
When executing with general user authority, it is written as "$".

Execution environment, etc.

Uses Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS.

A new window will appear when you start the virtual machine, so run it in the Desktop environment. FreeBSD running on qemu is 12.2 RELEASE.

Package installation

# pkg install xorg
# pkg install xfce
# pkg install japanese/font-std
# pkg install ja-fcitx-mozc
# pkg install firefox

From top to bottom

X Window System
Xfce4 desktop environment
Japanese font
Japanese input system
web browser is.

In the above example, the packages are specified one by one, but you can also specify them collectively as follows.

# pkg install xorg xfce japanese/font-std ja-fcitx-mozc firefox

System settings

Since Xfce4 uses D-Bus, follow the steps below to start D-Bus.

# sysrc dbus_enable="YES"
# service dbus start

Personal environment settings

Exit the shell running with root privileges, and then log back in with general user privileges.

# exit
logout

FreeBSD/amd64 (fbsd122) (ttyv0)

login: yamada
Password:

$

Use a text editor such as vi/emacs to create a .xinitrc file in your home directory and write the following settings.

Emacs is not installed by default on FreeBSD, so run pkg install emacs with root privileges to install Emacs.

export LC_ALL=ja_JP.UTF-8
export LANGUAGE=ja_JP.UTF-8
export LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8
export GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx
export QT_IM_MODULE=xim
export XMODIFIERS=@im=fcitx
/usr/local/bin/mozc start
/usr/local/bin/fcitx -r -d
exec /usr/local/bin/xfce4-session

If you are using a Japanese keyboard, put the following line just before the last line xfce4-session.

/usr/local/bin/setxkbmap -layout jp

Launch desktop environment

Run the startx command to start the desktop environment.

$ startx

If the Xfce4 desktop environment is displayed as shown below, it is successful.

Click "Applications" in the upper left to display the menu. Click "Web Browser" in the menu to start Firefox. To enter Japanese, press the Ctrl and Spacebar keys at the same time. Enter characters and convert with the SPACE key. Press Ctrl and Spacebar again at the same time to return to English input.

Click "Username" in the upper right to display the menu. Click "Logout" to exit the desktop environment.

If a problem occurs

If you encounter problems such as "Desktop environment is not displayed" or "Japanese cannot be entered", check the contents of the .xinitrc file created under your home directory.

Are you using the wrong case?
Did you make a mistake in symbols such as underscore (_) and hyphen (-)? Check if there is any discrepancy with the above example.

Setting up the FreeBSD desktop environment on Ubuntu + qemu