FreeBSD Trinity Installation Instructions

This is a step-by-step guide to installing the Trinity Desktop Environment on FreeBSD 13 and onward. This includes tips to make the process as painless as possible.

Prerequisites

Installing git and core tools

We will need to install git to obtain the files from the Trinity Gitea Workspace. We can also go ahead and get some of the core build dependencies used by the TDE port to avoid building them later:

# pkg install git libtool gettext findutils gsed bash automake cmake gmake ninja

Trouble packages

The following extras can be installed to prevent the build process from being stopped. It's much easier to install the binaries for these miscellaneous dependencies than build them and end up with obscure errors that halt the entire build. This may be updated with more that are known.

# pkg install gpgme sqlite mysql57-client orc samba binutils libxine texlive-texmf-source

Cloning the repo

Now that we have git, we can go ahead and clone the r14.0.x branch:

git clone --single-branch --branch r14.0.x https://mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org/gitea/TDE/tde-packaging.git

Keep in mind this will install the complete repository, which includes build scripts for Linux. The only directory you need in this repo is the freebsd one.

Building the port

To build the complete desktop environment with build prompts along the way do the following:

cd ~/tde-packaging/freebsd && sudo make install clean

• Sudo is used because if this is performed entirely as root then "cd" will go into root's home directory. You could also use doas or enter the directory first then switch to root using su.
• If you are okay with the default build options and don't want to be prompted, you can add NO_DIALOG=yes to the make command.

Choosing packages manually

Advanced users may not want everything included in the port. You can choose what you want by commenting out sections of a Makefile. As an example, if you don't want Dolphin, you could do the following:

ee ~/tde-packaging/freebsd/applications/system/Makefile

And then add a # to the entry for Dolphin:

This can be applied to any of the other Makefiles, but it's best to not touch essentials (i.e anything in the "dependencies" directory") unless absolutely necessary.

Issues

You may run into a snag during the build process. Even if you fix it yourself, it would be great to write a bug report to TGW here. This will help improve the quality of the port by locating and indicating the severity of a bug so it doesn't happen again in the future. This section should cover known issues and ways to bypass them for now.

imlib error

When imlib is compiling, it may stop mid-way due to too many errors. If you have imlib2 installed on your system (checked by pkg info | grep imlib) then commenting this entry out is sufficient to bypass the snag.

tdepim stuck on "[29/30] Running tests...."

Use Ctrl + C to stop the build process. Don't worry, when you start it again it will start from where you left off. Open the makefile for tdepim-trinity in an editor (such as ee):

ee ~/tde-packaging/freebsd/core/tdepim/Makefile

Now scroll to the bottom and comment out the line starting with "post-build:". This will disable the cmake check that gets stuck. Return to the master directory and start the build process again.

A dependency couldn't be found and stops the process with an error

Usually you can scroll up right before the error and see the package its trying to build. For example, while building tdepim it may halt on gpgme. You can fix this by installing the binary of gpgme via pkg like the following:

# pkg install gpgme

Then restart make. This issue is the main reason for the

Post-installation

After finishing the build process, you may want to enable Trinity's display manager (TDM). To do this, we will replace the XDM entry with TDM in /etc/ttys:

# ee /etc/ttys

Where the yellow cursor is will be the line that will contain /usr/local/bin/xdm. You want to replace this line with /opt/trinity/bin/tdm like in the image.

If all is done correctly, you should be greeted with TDM once you reboot. You can then enter your newly installed Trinity Desktop Environment. Enjoy!