On Thu, Jan 05, 2012, Aaron Sloman wrote about "Re: [ctwm] [ANNOUNCE] CTWM
3.8.1 released":
> After logging in I either work without graphics or (usually) use the
> 'startx' command and get my .xinitrc file to launch ctwm after doing
> some preparation, including swapping caps-lock and ctrl, starting
> pulseaudio, and launching a couple of xterm windows.
Are you using runlevel 3 and manually running startx just because you want
to run ctwm and not the Gnome or KDE window managers? If that is the reason,
you don't have to. You can use a graphical login screen just like
everyone else :-)
In the good old days, when you logged in using XDM (the graphical login
screen), if you had a ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc file (it varied on different
setups) it would get used instead of the system default and you could choose
your own window manager and everything else.
Unfortunately, since Fedora 9 was released in 2008, Fedora suddenly decided
that changing your window manager is too geeky (or who knows what), and
your ~/.xinitrc and ~/.xsession are ignored by default, and you can choose
only between KDE, Gnome or XFCE. But luckily, there's a little known
workaround: If you install the package:
yum install xorg-x11-xinit-session
Then, in the graphical login screen, you get a third option besides KDE
and Gnome, which is "user config" (or something like that) - and if you
choose that, your ~/.xsession is used, and there you can use ctwm.
If you only switch to this "user config" once in the login screen, it will
be the default next time, so from there on you will just log in normally,
and always get ctwm. Hallelujah.
> I would be interested to know what others find necessary to get ctwm
> going.
Another interesting question which window manager users have been asking
themselves for many years is where/how to run the window manager in
~/.xsession.
The traditional solution was to run it as the last command of
~/.xsession. But then, if ctwm dies, your whole session dies with it.
Since ctwm unfortunately isn't 100% stable and for me tends to die about
once or twice a month, I wrap ctwm with a small script I wrote which
respawns it if it dies. But that was not enough for me. I always have this
thought of maybe someday I'll want to kill ctwm and try a different
window manager (though I've been loyal to ctwm for 16 years now...), and
if the window manager is the last thing in ~/.xsession, I cannot kill
it without killing the session. So instead, I do this:
About 18 years ago I was using an SGI machine and was inspired by their
"reaper" program, see
http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?db=man&fname=1%20reaper
You would run "reaper" as the last command in ~/.xinitrc, and it placed
a property on the root window which caused xdm not to kill the session
even if ~/.xsession ended, until this property was removed (and the user can
end this session by removing the property). Reaper required this SGI-specific
extension to xdm (to wait until the property is removed), but I implemented
something similar (and in my opinion better), which I called "neaper":
Basically, the simple "neaper" tool just creates a root-window property and
then hangs around until someone deletes this property. If you put "neaper"
as the last command in ~/.ctwmrc, you are free to kill your window manager,
and the session only ends when you remove the property, with a command like:
xprop -root -remove _NYH_NEAPER_PROPERTY
If anyone is interested in my respawn script or neaper tool, let me
know.
Nadav.
--
Nadav Har'El | Friday, Jan 6 2012,
[email protected] |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |May you live as long as you want - and
http://nadav.harel.org.il |never want as long as you live.
