The following will show how to install XFCE on FreeBSD 11. Before we get started, I’d like to note that I will be using the vesa driver as that is currently working for my installation over the named intel driver.
Install XFCE using the following:
pkg update && pkg upgrade
pkg install xorg xf86-video-vesa xfce slim
We install slim above as XFCE doesn’t have its own display manager for logging into a desktop environment.
Next, we edit the /etc/rc.conf and add the following:
moused_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
slim_enable="YES"
Inside your user’s home directory, create a file called .xinitrc and add the following:
/usr/local/bin/xfce4-session
Make sure that the .xinitrc is owned by the user before rebooting. If so, reboot and log into the XFCE desktop.
So after doing a reinstall of FreeBSD on my E6420, I was able to get this same install to work using the following driver:
xf86-video-intel
the graphics are still choppy when doing things like dragging windows, but at least it works.