Re: Installing, then installing CDE

OK, I made progress.

On Tue, 18 Aug 2026, Stephen Borrill wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Aug 2026, Liam Proven wrote:
>> I am trying out NetBSD 11 (x86-64) in a VirtualBox VM.
>> 
>> As I have encountered before, I somehow failed to install the `pkgin`
>> command. I don't know how. I managed to bodge it into place somehow,
>> and installed CDE.

I don't use pkgin. Here's what I did:
1) Login as root
2) echo "dhcpcd=YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
3) Edit .profile and uncomment the PKG_PATH line
4) reboot
5) login as root again
6) pkg_add cde
7) cp /usr/pkg/etc/share/examples/rc.d/dtlogin /etc/rc.d
7) echo "dt1ogin=YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
8) reboot

I now get the CDE login graphical login screen

1) Enter username
2) Enter password
3) Look at Starting CDE splash screen
4) Full CDE desktop starts up
5) Get "Action Required" dialog saying "The desktop messaging system could 
not be started". While this is open, you can't interact with the rest of 
the desktop. When you close it, the desktop exits and you go back to the 
login screen

Discover from searching that portmap needs to be running for ttsession 
(ToolTalk) to work, so start that:
1) echo "portmap=YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
2) /etc/rc.d/portmap start

And then CDE works.

>> I found this helpful:
>> 
>> https://groups.google.com/g/comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc/c/7eGksS80DfI
>> 
>> Is there a better guide anywhere?
>
> I don't know of a better guide to CDE. I'll see if I can get it working 
> (currently stuck finding that X11 doesn't work at all on a uEFI-booted VM on 
> XenServer).

(not Liam's problem, but here for the record):
X11 doesn't work on XenServer because uEFI sets the resolution to 
1024x786x24 (because of the low emulated VRAM limit) and wsfb doesn't 
support 24-bit bit depth:
https://gnats.netbsd.org/56054

Quick fix is to run gop 1 at the boot prompt to switch to 800x600x32. 
Better fix is to set the VM to have more video RAM:
xe vm-param-set uuid=<VMUUID> platform:vga=std platform:videoram=16

>> I managed to install it, and _try_ to launch it with `startcde` but it
>> shows a full-screen splash message, then dies with an error.
>
> Do you have the error?

Perhaps it is a resolution/colour depth thing. When I tried to run in 
800x600x32 or 1024x768x24 it didn't work.

Also, I didn't manage to get startcde to work either as root or as a 
regular user. In the latter case it was complaining about permissions on 
/var/dt/authfiles. I didn't look too hard because once I'd set dtlogin to 
start, it took me straight to a login screen after a reboot

>> The default X11 WM (`ctwm`?) but CDE won't start.
>> 
>> I tried editing /etc/rc.conf but somehow killed my VM and now it won't
>> boot at all. I am hoping for some pointers or guidance before I start
>> from scratch.
>
> What changes did you make to rc.conf? What happens when you try to boot it?
>
> rc.conf will be read after init starts and runs /etc/rc after the kernel has 
> initialised. So you cannot make a machine not boot by editing rc.conf,
> but you can make it fail to come up multi-user if rc errors out (e.g. if it 
> cannot mount filesystems).
>
> If you are stuck in single-user mode, you should be able to mount -a and then 
> use vi to edit rc.conf to undo your changes.
>
> -- 
> Stephen
>
>