Debian VM with GUI

[Soloam]

I'm trying to install a Debian 10 VM in freenas... But can't seem to get the Gui working... I always used Debian without Gui... But now I need the Gui because I need a service that only runs in Gui. But I can't get the Gui working... I can't add it to a existing VM, not even in a new VM... It installs all OK, but then the Gui never starts.

Any ideia on this?
Thank you

 

[Samuel Tai]

The GUI won't be available if you're using the web shell. You need to switch to VNC to view the GUI, and only the X frame buffer device will be available.

 

[Soloam]

I'm not using the web vnc, I'm using Real VNC! What do you mean by only the X frame will be available?

Thank you

 

[KrisBee]

That's the "X frame buffer" of "fbdev" used with Xorg. The bhyve VNC device needs to use the "fbdev" in Xorg. Problem is that default debian xorg set up uses the "modesetting" driver which fails inside a bhyve VM, otherwise you would see your debian desktop via the attached VNC device.

These days you don't need to create and/or edit an xorg.conf which typicaly lives under /etc/X11/.

A quick hack is to generate a xorg.conf fie in your VM and edit the "device section", e.g:

X -configure
cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

edit:

Code:

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz",
        ### <percent>: "<f>%"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "SWcursor"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "kmsdev"                    # <str>
        #Option     "ShadowFB"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "AccelMethod"               # <str>
        #Option     "PageFlip"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ZaphodHeads"               # <str>
        #Option     "DoubleShadow"              # [<bool>]
        Identifier  "Card0"
        Driver  "fbdev"
        #Driver      "modesetting"
        BusID       "PCI:0:29:0"
EndSection

Restart and hopefully X starts and away you go:

 

[LlamaN]

Sorry to necro this thread, but I need to say "thanks". KrisBee, your explanation helped me solve the same problem that OP had. Hopefully others will find this helpful as well.