Thanks Camaleón and Johan for your suggestions. For reference, here's what happened:
Camaleón: i did try the update-alternatives path, including the --display option to check. It reports wmaker, but has no effect otherwise that i can tell. The idea of choosing a window manager a login time is intriguing, but for my system (6.0.4 "squeeze") there doesn't seem to be an option to do this. Johan: I tried the gui method you suggested for changing the wm (and i believe your path was correct). This time there was an effect, but not much and sort of the wrong one :( What happened was that the screen drawing shifted upwards, as if it were no longer taking into account the menu bar along the top of the entire screen. So a few things had their top parts hidden by this shift, but none of the wmaker stuff seemed to be present. But it is very valuable nevertheless --- i imagine that i have to disable the entire gnome apparatus somehow (but don't know whether wmaker is savvy enough to manage under those circumstances). Thanks in advance for any other advice anybody may have. (Is anybody actually using WindowMaker on this list? Maybe my problem is i'm posting to the wrong list? :) But thanks everybody for your help because you certainly are very helpful!) dan On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 9:18 AM, Camaleón <noela...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:36:09 -0700, Dan Hitt wrote: > >> I'm running debian 6.0.4 (squeeze). >> >> I'm attempting to change my window manager from the default metacity to >> wmaker (WindowMaker). >> >> I attempted the change by >> sudo update-alternatives --display x-window-manager >> and then choosing the wmaker alternative. > > (...) > > Mmm, juts a quick note. You can try with: > > update-alternatives --config x-window-manager > > Which will ask you about the preferred option. Then you can check the > current setting with "--display". > > You can also consider in selecting WM from the available window managers > dropdown menu at the login screen. > > Greetings, > > -- > Camaleón > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jn983p$qo9$1...@dough.gmane.org > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/caophizkd3jkj1rbx3qv4h3stysxe58htjc_z4htnhngxpni...@mail.gmail.com
