James Pinto <[email protected]> >Is it possible to install more than one desktop environment in BLFS ?
Should be no reason why you can't. >Is there any way I can set up xfce and then after that set up gnome 3, >finally choosing to run one of them ? will I be able to switch like i did >for the window manager above. I haven't tried swapping desktops (just window managers), but should work in a similar fashion. There are some programs that will let you swap out window managers and let you pick which window managers you want to run (like choosewm). Fluxbox and Openbox even have commands you can add to the menus to switch to other window managers. As Bruce suggested, you can create different ~/.xinitrc files and swap them out when you want to run a different desktop. I've seen a couple of distributions (like antix) that add code to the .xinitrc file so you can swap more easily. Some of them let you set up an environment variable and change that to pick which desktop you want to run. Then, when you run startx, it checks the environment variable and runs the proper applications. You'd have to make the switch outside of X Windows if using either technique though. > If yes, does Mutter window manager work with XFCE. I think most of the desktop environments let you switch window managers. The main issue is picking one that's standards compliant so that other applications can work with the window manager. freedesktop.org usually comes up with window manager and desktop standards. Some info on EWMH compliance and a tool for interacting with window managers is at: http://tomas.styblo.name/wmctrl/ freedesktop.org also has some standards on where to put config files (for the window manager): http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html >Which is the best window manager I should use, I heard fluxbox and xfce is >mostly used for older and slower systems. Im using a 2.9ghz i5, 4gb ram I >think I could go with a better looking winndow manager metacity iis old and >outdated they say Mutter it the latest replacing Metacity? Depends on personal taste. Some of the lightweight window managers (the ones that are supposed to be for older systems) are very nice on more modern machines because they work extremely efficiently. XFCE is definitely used on newer systems, but usually by users who want fast responsiveness or are interested in better efficiency. (If you're running games or other applications that are resource intensive, having everything else run highly efficiently might be a very good thing.) Some other desktop options are LXDE and razor. LXDE is GTK+ based, even more lightweight than XFCE and lets you pick and choose which pieces of the desktop applications you want to use. Razor is qt based, but much faster than KDE. I think they'll also be going the route of letting you pick and choose some applications to make up a coherent desktop. Another interesting option, if you want to try something more unusual, is Equinox Desktop Environment which is FLTK based. I was using Openbox which is more standards compliant than Fluxbox, has a nice pipe menu feature and is the window manager mainly used with LXDE. However, I've been looking at jwm and although it's extremely lightweight, it looks rather flexible. I tend to put my own desktop together, using different applications I prefer to do the various jobs. You don't have to run strictly all the programs from one desktop. You can take a tool from LXDE like lxtask and use it with another desktop. I'm experimenting with creating a configuration and theme tool for jwm, so if anyone has any jwm themes they want to share, please let me know. >i it possible to install a window manager thats not on the blfs instructions, will it work with blfs? Definitely. I think almost all the window managers are pretty much interchangeable and work on X (as long as you have the resources to run them and the libraries to build them). Here's a mention of CDM switching between different desktops: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CDM Here's some information on Qingy which can also be used as a login manager: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Qingy You might also want to look at libpaper for handling printing options more consistently between programs: http://packages.debian.org/sid/libpaper1 http://cblfs.cross-lfs.org/index.php/Libpaper Sincerely, Laura http://www.distasis.com/cpp -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/blfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
