FreeBSD has no GUI in its initial installation state. Here are a few steps to get the MATE desktop up and running using the binary packages. Note that the packages could also be installed by using the ports collection. For easy configuration i prefer to use VIM but it needs to be installed first. Use following command:

pkg install vim

Installing the X Window System

This is needed by the desktop environment and can be installed easily by using

pkg install xorg

Configuring the X Window System

Now we need a few commands and edit to configure the system. As root do the following

vim /boot/loader.conf

add this line at the top:

kern.vty=vt

Installing SLIM and MATE desktop

It's time to install your graphical interface… MATE does not come with a login manager sou you need to install one like SLIM.

pkg install mate
pkg install slim

after installation add this to /etc/fstab

proc          /proc       procfs  rw  0  0

now everything should be ready. Only one more step: add the following lines to /etc/rc.conf to start the desktop environment at boot:

moused_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
slim_enable="YES"

REMEMBER:

If you want a user to login to the MATE desktop, replace the user and execute the following command:

echo "exec mate-session" > /home/<myuser>/.xinitrc

VMWARE USERS:

Should you run this FreeBSD setup in a VMware product like VMware Fusion please install following packages:

pkg install xf86-video-vmware xf86-input-vmmouse