On Tue, 2017-05-02 at 14:54 -0700, Andrew Komornicki wrote: > Hi, > > as a long time user of Scientific Linux I would like to explore using > desktops other than Gnome. Am currently running Gnome on SL 6.9. > I found that Xfce is already installed on my system; i also did a > yum groupinstall of KDE desktop and all went well. > > In the preferences menu we can chose which desktop to use, so I checked > off KDE, rebooted my system and I still get the usual Gnome desktop. > Why does this option make no difference ?? > > that sent me to check various postings and i find several possibilities. > the first that I found on line is to create a file > /etc/sysconfig/desktop enter the line DESKTOP="KDE", or DESKTOP="XFCE" > and things should work. Have also found suggestions that I should create > a file .xinitrc in my home directory and things might also work. Am > still not clear what to put in the .xinitrc file. > > May I ask is there a preferred way to do this, if so what do people > suggest. I would also like to easily change desktops. Ultimately, > am hoping to migrate to SL 7.x. However the thought of using Gnome3 > is more than i can bear, so am trying to explore my options.
Hi Andrew, Assuming you are using the GDM login screen then a list of available desktops should appear in a widget at the bottom of the screen *AFTER* entering your username. You should select one of these. As far as I know, this list is generated from the list of *.desktop files which reside in /usr/share/xsessions so if they don't appear to match then something is possibly wrong on your system. I hope this helps. (BTW, I tried replying privately but it bounced.) -- Mark Whidby System Administrator/Operations IT Services
