Re: Installing, then installing CDE

On Tue, 18 Aug 2026, Stephen Borrill wrote:
> 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

As Michael pointed out, I actually did /etc/rc.d/rpcbind start as portmap 
isn't a thing. I just forgot when writing this email :-)

Speaking of RPC, the calendar app doesn't work because of rpc.cmsd not 
running. There may be other things, but I didn't find any in my random 
clicking about.

> 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
>> 
>> 
>