On Sat, Oct 29, 2005 at 08:55:25AM -0400, Cory Papenfuss wrote:
> Exactly. Ratpoison is the closest thing you can do to run without
> a window manager while still running a window manager. It doesn't draw
> any decorations on the screen. All it does is manage the focus of any
> applications.
It also gives you an easy way to "pop out of MythTV for a minute". My
back-end and desktop machines both run real window managers because I
only occasionaly use them for interacting with MythTV. The playback
usually happens on an XBox on the upper floor. The start-up sequence on
that box (after entering runlevel 5) is:
(1) init executes mingetty with "-autologin live".
(2) the "live" login rc file runs startx in an endless loop, but only on
the first invocation. Subsequent invocations get a shell.
(3) the X rc file runs ratpoison in the background and mythfrontend in
the foreground.
(4) ratpoison binds a key sequence to launch an additional xterm.
In normal operation, the machine boots automatically all the way to the
MythTV menu. If X fails then init relaunches. If MythTV faults or
exits then X exits and init relaunches. The only "normal" way out of
MythTV is via the shutdown command. But since I have a minimal WM
running in the background, if I see something on TV and want to check
IMDB or send an email, I can launch xterm and ssh into the backend box
without having to get up off the couch. When I exit the xterm, MythTV
pops back into the foreground. For system maintenance I still prefer to
go to the desktop and ssh into the XBox so that my session doesn't get
killed if (for example) apt-get needs to restart X.
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
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