Basic newb question #554

[Biased]

Hi all,
I've just installed OpenBSD 5.8 on an Acer5672WLMI laptop (older Centrino dual-core 1.6GHz, 2.5Gb RAM and an ATI video card which dynamically allocates up to 512Mb RAM...

It's been quite a while since I mucked around with O/BSD, so I've forgotten more than I should. Had to (shamefully) use some howtos to do some of the basics, but have gotten KDE 3.5 up and running on the device, and added a few basic packages such as Libreoffice and what not.

What I'm looking for is some advice around both starting KDE at boot time (so, graphical login manager), AND being able to shutdown the box from the GUI (so, instead of the "end current session" as the only option, there's also be Shutdown and restart options in there as well. I've managed to set these up in the past (including the switch to enable ACPI shutdown), but have forgotten how to get it all to work.

In working through some of the various guides out there, I've gotten some stuff to work, but clearly things have changed, as older versions of O/BSD use things like rc.local, which I believe is now deprecated in favour of rc.conf.local (as an example).

Is there a definitive guide for setting up KDE 3.5 on OpenBSD 5.8? (Not keen on KDE 4, as when I've tried to install that, it's both slow on my machine, and things seem to keep being "missed" in the install, for some reason.

Some pertinent file outputs are below:

rc.conf.local

pkg_scripts="pkg_scripts dbus_daemon avahi_daemon"
dbus_enable=YES
kde_enable=YES
kdm_enable=YES

.xsession (both root and unprivileged user)

exec /usr/local/bin startkde

When the machine boots, I get a message saying dbus daemon is missing, and avahi daemon failed. Clearly I'm doing something (or several somethings) wrong...

Oh, and the sound system seems to crash every time I boot the thing (I always get the "Crash handler" message when I launch KDE).

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Sorry about the lengthy post.

[jggimi]

Originally Posted by Biased

...What I'm looking for is some advice around both starting KDE at boot time (so, graphical login manager), AND being able to shutdown the box from the GUI ...

Graphical login is done from an X11 application called a "Display Manager." There are three: The X Windows System includes the xdm(1) application, Gnome provides its own display manager gdm, and KDE has its own display manager, kdm.

....clearly things have changed, as older versions of O/BSD use things like rc.local, which I believe is now deprecated in favour of rc.conf.local (as an example).

Please review your first thread, from a year ago. We discussed (in some detail) the transition from using the rc.local script for starting package deapons to the rc.d(8) subsystem. One thing that has changed since those posts is the advent of the rcctl(8) control utility, which makes managing daemons even easier, as you need not edit a configuration file manually.

Is there a definitive guide for setting up KDE 3.5 on OpenBSD 5.8?

Not to my knowledge, though as you have discovered there are many third party 'howto" documents. If you rely on them, please be aware that are often a) out-of-date, b) written by newbies like yourself, c) often will not cover your specific use case, and d) may be incorrect or misleading.

There are meta packages for some of the larger integrated applications. These include KDE4 and Gnome3, but not KDE 3.5. And even with the meta-packages, you may still want to conduct your own customizations after installation, so some knowledge of the application is needed.

If you look at the pkg-readme file that was installed with kdebase 3.5, it discusses how to start KDE without using kdm if desired, because that startup sequence is actually more complicated than using kdm, which needs no special instructions.

One of the files installed with kdebase was /etc/rc.d/kdm. This is the script used to start and stop the kdm daemon. See FAQ 10.3 on the rc.d subsystem, along with the various man pages such as rc.conf.local(5). You can use rcctl(8) to enable and set kdm to start automatically at boot, or you can edit the file to do so.

Why isn't everything automatic and pre-configured? The port maintainers leave local provisioning to each admin -- though they have provided the daemon management script for kdm, which permits you to provision it or not, relatively quicly and easily.

The last time I counted there were approximately 50 different window managers for X available for OpenBSD, two different KDE versions included. This OS (on graphical workstations) is very flexible, and unlike some other workstation OSes, is distinctly not one-size-fits-all.

pkg_scripts="pkg_scripts dbus_daemon avahi_daemon"
dbus_enable=YES
kde_enable=YES
kdm_enable=YES

You are apparently following an out-of-date "how to" document, or you have not read FAQ 10.3, or you have not read the rc.conf.local(5) man page. Or all three.

• There are no *_enable variables in this subsystem. All of these will be ignored.
• There are *_flag variables required, which you are not using
• The dbus_daemon was renamed. It's now called "messagebus"

.xsession (both root and unprivileged user)

Avoid logging in as root, this is not a best practice. Log in as your unprivileged user, and use su(8), doas(1), or install sudo, which has moved to ports.

The $HOME/.xsession file is read only by the Display Manager applications such as kdm. If you are starti X with startx(1) or xinit(1) from a console, the file used instead is $HOME/.xinitrc.

exec /usr/local/bin startkde

This looks to be incorrect, there should be a slash, not a space, before the startkde.

[Biased]

Thanks for the comprehensive post.

Looks like I have some reading to do.

FWIW, I don't generally login as root; As you say, I login as an unprivileged user, and escalate privileges (via su/sudo etc.) Should have made that clearer. The (probably out of date) guides I followed had all of the setup being done as root, including adding KDE to .xsession or .xinitrc(?) (depending on how the GUI was supposed to be launched).

Yes, I recall that post I made; I was using rc.conf.local, but that wasn't working. Your post has clarified to an extent why. I'll revisit that, and read up on the FAQs etc. and go from there.

Thanks again.

[jggimi]

Just take it one step at a time. Provisioning daemons on OpenBSD is actually pretty simple -- it only seems like complicated magic because you haven't yet done it ... I don't count the use of misleading documentation, as that was a component of the problem.

[shep]

KDE3 is beginning to show it's age in OpenBSD 5.8 and the KDE3 guide was last updated in 2011.
My suspicion is that KDE3s days are numbered and the maintainers did not feel it is now a high priority. You can get as sense of the correct syntax from the links below and by looking at the information in your own /usr/local/share/doc/pkg-readmes.

Links for Xfce4 readme.

KDE4 readme

Gnome3 readme

and lastly
GNUStep readme.

As an aside, KDE3 has been revived as the Trinity Desktop.

[Itproman]

"When the machine boots, I get a message saying dbus daemon is missing, and avahi daemon failed."

I'm having the same error as you,but with Gnome3.

I discovered that dbus has been changed to messagebus,so I changed that,but that still didn't help,so I have some reading to do!

It installed perfectly on my other machine under OpenBSD 5.7,but,obviously some things have changed a bit.

Thankfully,I can go back to the default X window manager,for now.

[Biased]

Originally Posted by Itproman

"When the machine boots, I get a message saying dbus daemon is missing, and avahi daemon failed."

I'm having the same error as you,but with Gnome3.

I discovered that dbus has been changed to messagebus,so I changed that,but that still didn't help,so I have some reading to do!

It installed perfectly on my other machine under OpenBSD 5.7,but,obviously some things have changed a bit.

Thankfully,I can go back to the default X window manager,for now.

I still haven't solved the issue of getting KDE to start automatically at boot, but have solved the issues to which you refer. Note the following from my /etc/rc.conf.local

rcctl set messagebus status on
rcctl set avahi_daemon status on
rcctl set cupsd status on
rcctl order messagebus avahi_daemon cupsd
pkg_scripts=messagebus avahi_daemon cupsd
multicast_host=YES

There may be a superfluous line or two in there, but I'm not getting boot-time errors.

[jggimi]

rc.conf and rc.conf.local are not scripts. They are parsed for variable assignments. Only. By rc(8) at boot, and by rc.subr(8) when daemons are started/stopped.

rcctl(8) is an executable: a shell script stored in /usr/sbin, and if you have these "commands" in your /etc/rc.conf.local file, they will have no effect whatsoever.

[Itproman]

Originally Posted by Biased

I still haven't solved the issue of getting KDE to start automatically at boot, but have solved the issues to which you refer. Note the following from my /etc/rc.conf.local

rcctl set messagebus status on
rcctl set avahi_daemon status on
rcctl set cupsd status on
rcctl order messagebus avahi_daemon cupsd
pkg_scripts=messagebus avahi_daemon cupsd
multicast_host=YES

There may be a superfluous line or two in there, but I'm not getting boot-time errors.

Mine boots Gnome3 automatically just fine now.