Instead, I get a plain shell prompt log-in.  After logging in, I try gdm start but get this: # gdm start** (gdm-binary:977): WARNING **: Failed to acquire org.gnome.DisplayManager ** (gdm-binary:977): WARNING **: Could not acquire name; bailing out#I have installed via pkg install gnome2, added the root user and a non-root user to the wheel group, and set up rc.conf, fstab, and .xinitrc - all as specified in the basic gnome2 instructions for setting up to start via gdm. 
FreeBSD 10 on VirtualBox not booting into GDM
gnome;freebsd;gdm
In my case, after I had followed all the current available guides, I still had to pkg install xorg.  That fixed the issue.  