awww, shucks! I was about 10 minutes out of the house today and remembered probably the most basic answer of all for that question. Any window manager listed in that /usr/share/apps/switchdesk directory can be selected by running the "switchdesk" program from a GUI screen. It basically changes your .Xclients or your .xinitrc or something, but it's there and it works.
It just happens, John, that I retrofitted two RedHat 7.x boxes recently for WindowMaker, so all this was fresh in my mind. Just tonight, I brought up "startx /usr/bin/gnome-session" tonight on a near-virginal install. I hadn't been to Ximian.com, and the box wasn't in runlevel 5. It was beautiful. It was religious. It was Gnome, 1.2 or maybe a primitive 1.4, with not a single icon on the desktop, out-of-box. No URLs to ximian or redhat, no floppy launchers, nada. I brought up an "xterm -e top -d 2", then started fooling around with a bunch of crap. I never got above about 5% CPU or memory for X, except for when I was actually opening a new app, and that box is a K-6 266 laptop with 96 MB ram. Ximian runs around 30-50% CPU and memory on that same box. KDE3, too. It's criminal. Anyway, I remember having to do this crash course in X, prepping for my RHCE a couple years ago. Had a big flowchart and everything. The hardest part about explaining X to someone else is that each distro AND each version will customize the resources, and some of the files X will look for in series can redundantly fill in each other's functions. e.g., you can find advice to put your window managers and other "clients" in ~/.Xclients or in ~/.xinitrc. BUT... if you boot runlevel 5 and your gdm/kdm/xdm is session-aware, it'll ignore both those files. It gets worse. I was just trying to point out how to do it in your $HOME, how to do it in your login screen, and how to do it from an app (switchdesk). Hope it's as helpful as it is verbose. -- -j John Beamon On Sun, 2 Jun 2002, John Hebert wrote: > Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 06:31:16 -0700 (PDT) > From: John Hebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: appreciate the verbosity was Re: Adding X login choices, > was (Re: [brlug-general] Another Quick Poll..) > > John B., > > I really appreciate you taking the time to answer > questions in such a thorough manner. I've been > learning alot from reading your answers. > > Thanks, > John Hebert > > --- john beamon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > There are several ways you can select between window > > managers. > > > > First, if you put the name of an X client (wmaker, > > gnome-session, kde, > > blackbox) in a $HOME/.Xclients file, and make it > > executable (chmod +x > > .Xclients), startx will read it and start that > > client for you. Mine just > > has the word "gnome-session" in it, but I run > > WindowMaker out of my > > graphical login manager. > > > > Second, you can edit a few files and add your wm of > > choice to the xdm > > login menu. Speaking from a RedHat layout, your > > graphical login configs > > will be somewhere under /etc/X11, in the Xsession > > file and in at least one > > other file that depends on your login manager. If > > you're using KDE by > > default, they'll be in the "kdmrc" file. If you > > installed Ximian or > > something else that made Gnome your default and your > > login manager, > > they'll be files in /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions as simple > > two-line shell scripts > > that are pretty self-explanatory. > > > > I have kdm running as a login manager, and I looked > > for mentions of > > "failsafe" and "twm" in the /etc/X11/xdm/kdmrc file. > > They're in a "case" > > statement around line 100 on my box... > > > > case $1 in > > gnome) > > exec -l $SHELL -c "gnome-session" > > ;; > > kde) > > exec -l $SHELL -c > > "/usr/share/apps/switchdesk/Xclients.kde" > > ;; > > ## if you install WindowMaker by rpm, it will place > > a "switchdesk" file > > ## that you can reference like so > > windowmaker) > > exec -l $SHELL -c > > "/usr/share/apps/switchdesk/Xclients.windowmaker" > > ;; > > esac > > > > If you didn't install by rpm or otherwise don't find > > that switchdesk file, > > it reads as follows... > > > > #!/bin/bash > > exec /usr/bin/wmaker > > > > ... and is executable. > > > > I have a similar case statement in my > > /etc/X11/xdm/Xsessions file, which > > is probably purely for running the standard xdm > > login manager instead of > > the kdm login manager that comes with KDE and has > > the little dragon on it. > > > > -- > > -j > > > > John Beamon > > > > On Sun, 2 Jun 2002, Chopin Cusachs wrote: > > > > > Date: Sun, 02 Jun 2002 06:57:27 -0500 > > > From: Chopin Cusachs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Reply-To: [email protected] > > > To: [email protected] > > > Subject: Re: [brlug-general] Another Quick Poll.. > > > > > > > > > Will be back to the battle this week, but would > > probably have voted for KDE if > > > my Red Hat 7.3 box didn't lock up when I try to > > start KDE. Have blackbox and > > > another downloaded but not yet installed, but want > > to run down a bug or two > > > on the > > > system before more experiments. Have had > > problems with setting up DUN, too. > > > Linux box dual boots and the other OS seems to > > communicate well with the world. > > > > > > > > > Newbie question: If I have several GUIs > > installed, how can I select one > > > from them > > > from the command line? Startx runs the default. > > Are there parameters I > > > have so > > > far missed that permit selecting another? Gnome > > is installed, too. > > > > > > Think I have a deeper problem than simply GUI; > > have trouble getting the command > > > line setup program to cooperate. > > > > > > Choppy > > > > > > At 10:40 PM 6/1/02 -0500, you wrote: > > > >Now for another poll... > > > > > > > >What is your favorite Window Manager? > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > General mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > > > http://brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > General mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com > > _______________________________________________ > General mailing list > [email protected] > http://brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net >
