Install FreeBSD with XFCE and NVIDIA Drivers [bare-metal] reddit / freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-07 08:09 I wrote a detailed guide on how to [install FreeBSD with XFCE and NVIDIA](https://nudesystems.com/install-freebsd-with-xfce-and-nvidia- drivers/) proprietary drivers \[Dual GPU\], Linuxulator, and other cool stuff. This guide targets the Linux and Windows users willing to explore FreeBSD. Special thanks to [@FreeBSDHelp](https://twitter.com/FreeBSDHelp) [@FreeBSDLove](https://twitter.com/FreeBSDLove) [@vmisev](https://twitter.com/vmisev) [@RoboNuggie](https://twitter.com/RoboNuggie) [@vermaden](https://vermaden.wordpress.com) and every one part of the amazing FreeBSD community on Twitter for their valuable inputs and suggestions. Any feedback on how can I improve this guide further is highly appreciated! The following system components are installed and configured in the guide: * FreeBSD 13 * Xorg * XFCE4 and XFCE Goodies * Dbus  * Lightdm and Lightdm GTK Greeter * NVIDIA Drivers * Linux binary compatibility I performed a bare-metal installation of FreeBSD on a machine with the following specs: * Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz * Gigabyte [Z87X-UD3H](https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z87X- UD3H-rev-1x#ov) Motherboard * Samsung SSD 850 \[500GB\] * 32 GB RAM * 2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 GPUs * Logitech BRIO 4K \[optional\] * Zoom H6 \[optional\] All components work flawlessly. Hope it helps! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GoodNewsDude · 2021-11-07 11:04 Your website is offline - I get "Error communicating with origin" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- reddit_original · 2021-11-07 11:11 Without looking at your page, how is it different than following the Handbook? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-07 11:18 Strange. Trying to get it fixed ASAP. Thanks for letting me know - appreciate it!. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2021-11-07 11:18 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dankar79 · 2021-11-07 11:31 Yeah same thing here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nospeakspanish · 2021-11-07 13:47 It's a straight forward guide as opposed to a handbook. So it basically tells you the choices to make instead of explaining them all. Useful for as get started ASAP source. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- edthesmokebeard · 2021-11-07 15:51 these are the posts I come here for ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2021-11-07 17:46 website offline... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bsdmax · 2021-11-07 20:20 Your website is down ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DarthRevanG4 · 2021-11-07 21:35 Link Is down ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 00:20 Yep, some issue with my host provider since two days ago. I am migrating my website over to another hosting provider. Thanks for the heads up! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DarthRevanG4 · 2021-11-08 00:38 Cool, I definitely want to check this out when you have it back up. RemindMe! 3 days ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MNfrstrtD · 2021-11-08 00:51 Excellent tutorial! A lot of the YouTube tutorials either neglect XFCE or Nvidia cards. The chief benefit of following OP's tutorial here for newcomers like me is the Nvidia driver tutorial and the experience gained editing config files. I wish this was out 2 weeks ago when I put FreeBSD on my desktop for the first time, would have saved me a lot of frustration! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2021-11-08 01:40 Good job. Looks great. Not a bad idea to include pulse xfce4 plugin for sound and firefox for the noobs out there. not sure about this line below pkg install nvidia-driver nvidia-settings think is supposed to be pkg install nvidia-driver nvidia-xconfig either may work. not sure Wish I had this guide when I first started. nicely done ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:16 Hey, the issue is fixed and the site is up! Thanks a lot for your patience - appreciate it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:18 Thanks man! Appreciate it! I hope you find this guide useful. There is a lot more content for FreeBSD that I am currently working on. Stay safe! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:18 Hey, DNS issues as I moved to a new hosting provider. The issue is fixed now. Hope you find this guide helpful. Cheers! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:24 Hey man, thanks a lot for checking my guide and constructive feedback - I appreciate you taking the time! Indeed, checked now and the right package is nvidia-xconfig and not the nvidia-settings. Many, many thanks for this correction. Thanks again and please stay safe! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:32 Thanks a million for the kind words and for taking the time to check my guide. Indeed. Most videos on YT and guides you find online are for FreeBSD VM and overlook the known issues and fixes for, e.g., black screen and GPU as well as the BusID fix which are all covered in my guide. I am using FreeBSD as a daily driver for a while now and I can tell you that once you set it up correctly, is a bloody rock-solid system. Nothing comes close. Thanks again and stay safe! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:34 Guys, issues solved. Migrated to a better hosting provider and DNS took a bit of time to propagate the new settings. Apologize for that. Hope you find this guide useful! Stay safe! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:39 You can follow the handbook or my guide \[which is a bit more tailored for the new users\] and most likely reach the same results. You can check my guide if you want - I don't serve ads on my website. As a FreeBSD user for a while now, my purpose is to bring more awareness towards BSD systems and attract more users on the Unix side. And the more content we serve, the more users we atract. Stay safe! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:42 Hey Mario, apologize for that. Some DNS issues are now fixed due to migrating to a better hosting provider. Hope you find this guide useful! Cheers, and stay safe! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 04:43 Thanks for the reply. That was my sole purpose indeed :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nospeakspanish · 2021-11-08 05:14 Well I gave it a whirl after botching my last install. Couple notes: 1. Step 5, running "nvidia-xconfig" returns command not found. Ran as root and user, no change. Retraced steps and followed everything before. Found [this](https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/howto-setup- xorg-with-nvidias-driver.52311/) and wrote the conf by hand and that worked. 2. Finished the guide, performed every step, reboot, and when it goes to start the greeter, just get a black screen. No cursor, nothing. I haven't tried to troubleshoot yet, but will try tomorrow. My PC: Gigabyte X570 UD rev. 1.1 current BIOS version Ryzen7 3700X Nvidia RTX 2070 Super I did make a couple additions on the installer: Installed optional components: ports, src Selected under system configuration: powerd, ntpd, ntpupdate ​ I could have screwed something up, but just wanted to get this all down while it was fresh. Thanks for writing it though. Nvidia drivers threw me for a loop and I thought I had to compile from source. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MNfrstrtD · 2021-11-08 05:29 Indeed! Taking the training wheels off of my open-source by coming to FreeBSD from various Debian forks has so far been fantastic! I First put FreeBSD on a headless server 10 months ago, then started tinkering with IceWM on a Raspberry Pi 3B+. There is something fantastic about native ZFS support! Cheers! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dankar79 · 2021-11-08 05:56 Thank-you very much, what an awesome guide. Will try it out soon as I get some time, thanks again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2021-11-08 09:52 I would like to read a tutorial to learn how to install the linux version of the nvidia drivers inside a jail + linuxulator :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 11:00 Give me a few days to research a bit and get it done :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2021-11-08 12:07 can't be done ! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-08 23:00 I'll still have a look. If not, bhyve with pass through I'm sure can be done. You can then use X11 forwarding for the app you need. What exactly you are looking to achieve? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- loziomario · 2021-11-08 23:17 I like your resourcefulness. I'm like you. Do you want to share our email address,to work together to some kind of project that we like ? Actually I've already passed through my nvidia RTX 2080 ti to a debian guest OS using bhyve. it works,it is recognized. Even the CUDA libraries are detected inside the vm. I'm trying to configure a remote application that give to me the 3D acceleration because I need it to display what's happening inside the VM when I create and I render my blender projects with Blender. I've installed the no-machine server. Here it comes the problem. FreeBSD does not support the no-machine client ! So,the idea is to install nomachine in FreeBSD using a jail + the linuxulator ! This because I want to connect to the VM while I'm using the same FreeBSD,on the same machine. This is valid even if I want to install Teamviewer inside the VM,because I need to run teamviewer also on FreeBSD. So,the project is : how to configure a jail + linuxulator to run a remote application linux native such as nomachine or teamviewer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nexenta81 · 2021-11-09 11:24 Thank you, man, really appreciate your kind words! I like very much what you're doing and I am super interested to pitch in with what I can. I sent you a PM. See you there! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2021-12-11 17:33 Thanks! > `freebsd-update fetch && freebsd-update install` – can be abbreviated: > `freebsd-update fetch install` I usually precede the command with `setenv PAGER cat` * YMMV; my root user's shell is `/bin/csh` ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2021-12-11 17:36 > `ee /etc/rc.conf` Instead, I should always exemplify use of `sysrc` (as you have for the `kld_list` example).