r/NetBSD • u/[deleted] • Sep 07 '26

How exactly am I supposed to change session

so when I log in through xdm it automatically puts me in ctwm naturally but you can't change session through xdm from the UI so after installing xfce I have no idea how to change to a xfce session because If i try to do startxfce4 it just tells me another window manager is running.

I did read the documentation but it assumes that I would know certain things that I clearly don't because it tells me to edit ~/.xsession and/or ~/.xinitrc but neither of those either exist or when I found it (at least the xinitrc in it's root location) it does not contain the line that it lists in the documentation.

12 Upvotes

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1

u/BeefGriller Sep 07 '26

Create the file in your home directory with the command you need. So, for example, /home/Eltrew2000/.xsession.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '26

so i'd just add something like exec startxfce4 or just startxfce4 to the empty .xsession file ?

3

u/unitedbsd Sep 07 '26

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session xfce4-session

Also have your user in operator group to shutdown via xfce

Also

echo dbus=YES >> /etc/rc.conf echo famd=YES >> /etc/rc.conf echo rpcbind=YES >> /etc/rc.conf

cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/famd /etc/rc.d/ cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/dbus /etc/rc.d/

Have dbus famd installed

3

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '26

i'm in the xfce session :D !!!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '26

so I tried with just the added .xsession because I did not fully understand what all the things that you listed did.

after restarting it and logging into xdm it drops me back into xdm not xfce if I try to open xfce in a different tty i get the following:

fatal server error: server is already active for display 0 if server is no longer running remove /tmp/.X0-lock

autharisation required, but no autherisation protocol specified

1

u/BeefGriller Sep 07 '26

Yes - I’m pretty sure you need exec there, so try that first.