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While testing XFCE, I noticed, that the date and time format in some desktop applications, such as Thunderbird, no longer was ISO 8601. It had become more like US or metric. I want English with Danish format and UTF-8 encoding.

Configuring language in FreeBSD login class.

According to the FreeBSD handbook, the recommended method for configuring language, format and encoding is in the login class definition. This is, however, not correct. I have not been able to test this to work. I recommend, that the language format in the login class is set to the following POSIX standard and the rest is configured in FreeBSD enviroment variables.

# nano /etc/login.conf
        :charset=UTF-8:\
        :lang=C.UTF-8:\
        :setenv=PATH_LOCALE=/usr/local/share/locale:
# cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf

Configuring language in FreeBSD environment variables.

Configure environment variables. In this example, I will be using the Bourne shells.

# nano /etc/profile
LANG=en_DK.UTF-8

I have tested this to work for system shell as well as XFCE desktop environment and Thunderbird.

en_DK.UTF-8

# locale -a | grep en_DK.UTF-8

# pkg install locale-en_DK
Message from locale-en_DK-0.1.1:
In order to set the en_DK.UTF-8 locale for the login shell of an single
user add the following configuration to ~/.login_conf:
me:\
        :charset=UTF-8:\
        :lang=en_DK.UTF-8:\
        :setenv=PATH_LOCALE=/usr/local/share/locale:
More information about the process of configuring login class methods in
available in the handbook.
More information about the PATH_LOCALE environment variable is available in the
locale(1) manual page.

References.

• Chapter 25. Localization
• Date / Time / Currency / Other Stuff – Format
• Setting Locale – Accented Characters in Console
• LOCALE in FreeBSD Manual Pages

Blank screen and muted audio in XFCE.

The first issue, I noticed, when switching from GNOME to XFCE, was, how the HDMI output was cut-off after a few minutes in which there has been no user input, such as attending a video conference. Pressing a key would turn-on the screen, but the audio would never return again. The audio could not even be re-enabled with Pulse Audio controls.

Disabling power management from XFCE interface.

Using the settings dialog, I disabled any kind of power management. This includes any screen blank and suspend option. Despite of this, the video and audio is getting cut-off. I could not find any kind of screensaver, that should be causing this.

# ps aux | grep power
/usr/local/libexec/upowerd
xfce4-power-manager
# ps aux | grep saver
# ps aux | grep screen

Removing power manager from XFCE?

I assume, that this is related to power management, because a screen saver would probably not be so aggressive. Knowing, that I will not need power management, a simple approuch would be to remove it from the installation. However, XFCE went for a forced depedency on this one. What a piece of shit programming from XFCE. Power management should be optional – and not a plague!

Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
Deinstallation has been requested for the following 2 packages (of 0 packages in the universe):
Installed packages to be REMOVED:
xfce: 4.20
xfce4-power-manager: 4.20.0
Number of packages to be removed: 2
The operation will free 2 MiB.
Proceed with deinstalling packages? [y/N]: N

How does power managment in XFCE work?

A search for occurances indicates, that it could be started automatically as an unwanted service. It could even be started, if it was running in an earlier user session.

# find / -type f -name '*xfce4-power*'
/home/lightman/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-power-manager.xml
/usr/local/share/metainfo/xfce4-power-manager.appdata.xml
/usr/local/share/man/man1/xfce4-power-manager-settings.1.gz
/usr/local/share/man/man1/xfce4-power-manager.1.gz
/usr/local/share/applications/xfce4-power-manager-settings.desktop
/usr/local/etc/xdg/autostart/xfce4-power-manager.desktop
/usr/local/bin/xfce4-power-manager-settings
/usr/local/bin/xfce4-power-manager

Stopping power manager in XFCE.

To my surprice, XFCE did actually write a built-in help, which kindly lists a quit option. It also seemed to actually quit the unwanted service. However, this is probably just a shortlived pleasure. It might restart. Especially after a new session or a reboot.

$ xfce4-power-manager --help
Usage:
  xfce4-power-manager [OPTION?]
Help Options:
  -h, --help                      Show help options
  --help-all                      Show all help options
  --help-sm-client                Show session management options
Application Options:
  --daemon                        Daemonize
  --debug                         Enable debugging
  --dump                          Dump all information
  --restart                       Restart the running instance of Xfce power manager
  -c, --customize                 Show the configuration dialog
  -q, --quit                      Quit any running xfce power manager
  -V, --version                   Version information
$ xfce4-power-manager -q

Killing the XFCE power manager from cron as a work-around.

As it remains unclear, how the unwanted service is started, a work-around is to repeat killing it from cron, until I learn, how this service can be permanently disabled. This cron job kills it every minute, if running. I have tested this be working.

# pkg info -r xfce4-power-manager
xfce4-power-manager-4.20.0:
        xfce-4.20
# pkg info -r upower
upower-1.90.7:
        xfce4-settings-4.20.1
        xfce4-power-manager-4.20.0
        gnome-power-manager-3.32.0_3
        gnome-control-center-43.2_4
        mutter-42.4_3
        gnome-settings-daemon-42.2_8
# nano /etc/crontab
*  *  *  *  *  root  pkill xfce4-power-manager
*  *  *  *  *  root  pkill upowerd
# service cron restart

Tips appreciated!

I appreciate any tips about this issue.

Configuring PulseAudio on FreeBSD.

In this example, the PulseAudio is configured to output to HDMI by default. If USB headphones are attached, then audio output is automatically switched to these. I tested this to be working.

$ pactl list sinks
Sink #3
State: RUNNING
Name: oss_output.dsp3
Description: 3 - Intel (0x2818) (HDMI/DP 8ch)
Mute: no
# nano /usr/local/etc/pulse/default.pa
set-default-sink oss_output.dsp3
load-module module-switch-on-connect

Switching audio output with pactl on FreeBSD.

pactl is a control interface for a running PulseAudio sound server. In this example, the audio output is switched to a pair of USB headphones. The listings indicate, that the headphones are associated with sink 4 and name oss_output.dsp5. The output is switched to to this and it is un-muted. Warning: The volume is optionally set to 100%. The volume setting is the same as the one, that is set on the headphones themselves.

$ pactl list sinks
Sink #4
State: RUNNING
Name: oss_output.dsp5
Description: 5 - Corsair CORSAIR HS80 RGB Wireless Gaming Receiver
muted: yes
Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
$ pactl list sinks short
4 oss_output.dsp5 module-oss.c s16le 2ch 44100Hz RUNNING
$ pactl set-default-sink oss_output.dsp5
$ pactl set-sink-mute oss_output.dsp5 0
$ pactl set-sink-volume oss_output.dsp5 100%

References.

• Chapter 9. Multimedia in the FreeBSD handbook.
• PulseAudio on Freshports.

I noticed, that my Poudriere build machine failed to compile net-im/signal-desktop for FreeBSD 14 with latest ports branch, because it require devel/esbuild 0.25.0, while build environment has 0.24.0. Tested 2025-03-07 and 2025-03-10.

✘ [ERROR] Cannot start service: Host version "0.24.0" does not match binary version "0.25.0"
1 error
Error: The service was stopped: write EPIPE
    at /wrkdirs/usr/ports/net-im/signal-desktop/work/Signal-Desktop-7.44.0/node_modules/esbuild/lib/main.js:968:34
    at responseCallbacks.<computed> (/wrkdirs/usr/ports/net-im/signal-desktop/work/Signal-Desktop-7.44.0/node_modules/esbuild/lib/main.js:622:9)
    at afterClose (/wrkdirs/usr/ports/net-im/signal-desktop/work/Signal-Desktop-7.44.0/node_modules/esbuild/lib/main.js:613:28)
    at /wrkdirs/usr/ports/net-im/signal-desktop/work/Signal-Desktop-7.44.0/node_modules/esbuild/lib/main.js:1988:18
    at onwriteError (node:internal/streams/writable:605:3)
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:84:21)
ERROR: "build:esbuild" exited with 1.
*** Error code 1
Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/ports/net-im/signal-desktop
=>> Cleaning up wrkdir
===>  Cleaning for signal-desktop-7.44.0_1
build of net-im/signal-desktop | signal-desktop-7.44.0_1 ended at Mon Mar 10 05:13:34 CET 2025
build time: 00:00:47
!!! build failure encountered !!!

I notified the FreeBSD maintainer. He kindly replied, that he has notified devel/esbuild and the issue will be fixed.

Earlier this year, I noticed, that a similar issue happened. The required version was 0.21, while build environment had 0.24. I notified the maintainer. It was fixed.

Prevent Signal from being removed during update.

# pkg lock signal-desktop
signal-desktop-7.42.0: lock this package? [y/N]:

It can later be unlocked.

# pkg unlock signal-desktop

Work-around for “Shared object “libFLAC.so.12″ not found”.

The update, while Signal being locked, resulted in a problem with a link to a FLAC library.

$ signal-desktop &
$ ld-elf.so.1: Shared object "libFLAC.so.12" not found, required by "signal-desktop"

I fixed this with a temporary link to the correct FLAC library. This should automatically be fixed, when Signal is fixed upstream.

# pkg info -l flac | grep libFLAC
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC++.a
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC++.so
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC++.so.11
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC++.so.11.0.0
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC.a
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC.so
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC.so.14
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC.so.14.0.0
/usr/local/share/aclocal/libFLAC++.m4
/usr/local/share/aclocal/libFLAC.m4
# pkg which /usr/local/lib/libFLAC.so.12
/usr/local/lib/libFLAC.so.12 was not found in the database
# ln -s /usr/local/lib/libFLAC.so.14 /usr/local/lib/libFLAC.so.12
# ldconfig -R
$ signal-desktop &

# rm /usr/local/lib/libFLAC.so.12
# ldconfig -R

Fixed.

The port compiled again 2025-03-21 and the package could be unlocked and the symbolic link removed.

References.

• net-im/signal-desktop on Freshports.
• devel/esbuild on Freshports.
• Bug 285291 – devel/esbuild: latest version break net-im/signal-desktop.
• c21980b417ebf0103cb183d416c1f80526866d46.

My Poudriere build machine suddently stopped at the following error, that seems to be caused by a problem with CMake or run-time dependency, which should be built automatically.

build started at Fri Mar  7 16:46:57 CET 2025
port directory: /usr/ports/graphics/evince
package name: evince-46.3.1
...
Poudriere version: poudriere-git-3.4.2
Host OSVERSION: 1402000
Jail OSVERSION: 1402000
...
Did not find CMake 'cmake'
Found CMake: NO
Run-time dependency gnome-desktop-3.0 found: NO (tried pkgconfig)
meson.build:237:20: ERROR: Dependency "gnome-desktop-3.0" not found, tried pkgconfig

Any tips for solutions are greatly appreciated.

References.

• Bugzilla 274017.