Setting Multiple Desktop Environtment FreeBSD TTYVxx

JagoTekno.com - If you want to run multiple Desktop Environtment like (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, etc) and Window manager (DWM, i3, BSPWM, etc) at the sime time on your machine, you can try this method.

The concept is we run those DE on different TTYx on FreeBSD it called TTYVx. Where the x is the number of those TTY. And FreeBSD those TTYV starts from 0, not from 1 like Linux.

For Example :

• TTYV0 as default I will run DWM (Ctrl+ALT+F1)
• TTYV1 will run KDE (Ctrl+ALT+F2)
• TTYV2 will run Gnome (Ctrl+ALT+F3)
• TTYV3 will run XFCE (Ctrl+ALT+F4)

Look how amazing is that.

This toturial also related with : Setting multiple desktop on linux.

So here we need to edit 2 files : .xinitrc and .profile or .zprofile if you are using ZSH.

Read also how to setup ZSH on FreeBSD.

Edit .xinitrc file

Edit your .xinitrc files so it looks like this :

#!/bin/sh

case $( basename "$( tty )" ) in 
        ttyv0) 
# Start DWM on TTYV0 
feh --bg-fill --randomize ~/Pictures/wp/* &    
picom &    
xset r rate 300 50 &    
while true;do    
      copyq &    
      slstatus &    
      dbus-launch --exit-with-session dwm > /dev/null 2>&1    
done    
exec dwm        
;; 
       ttyv1) 
# Start KDE Plasma on TTYV1
exec ck-launch-session startplasma-x11
;; 

       ttyv2) 
# Start Gnome on TTYV2
exec gnome-session
;; 
       ttyv3) 
# Start XFCE on TTYV3
. /usr/local/etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc
;; 
        esac 

Edit .zprofile file

Then edit the file .zprofile so it looks like this

exec startx

After that please relogin to your account. And make sure it runs on every TTYVx that you have set.

Good luck.