Hi, I actually do not read this list, but the below messages was forwarded to me to bring a bit of light ;-)

From: Michael Perry <mperry@mperry.basin.com> Reply-To: suse-linux-e@suse.com To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: Running SuSE Linux

On Sun, Feb 01, 1998 at 10:29:51PM -0500, Wayne Topa stated:

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Subject: Re: [S.u.S.E. Linux] Running SuSE Linux Date: Fri, Jan 30, 1998 at 12:37:14PM -0800

In reply to:Bodo Bauer

Quoting Bodo Bauer (bb@suse.de):

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Eric L. Green wrote:

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I don't see any way to start up a different window manager other than the SuSE-offered ones, without modifying the actual "startx" script. Most installations' "startx" respects the .Xclients file and sources its contents prior to doing whatever other stuff is desired. I didn't see anything in SuSE's "startx" that did that.

and Bodo replied

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Yust set environment variable WINDOWMANAGER to the wm you like...

Well I tried that. As a user, I did, export WINDOWMAKER=/usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm95 and then startx. Nope still fvwm2. So I exited and logged in again. Same thing. So I then modified /etc/profile and changed IT to fvwm95. Logged in the user again and STILL fvwm2. Checked WINDOWMANAGER and it was still fvwm2. So rebooted the system ( This really should NOT be necessary!!!) and YES WINDOWMANAGER is now /usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm95. Logged in the used and did startx, again. Windowmanager is STILL fvwm2.

For those that might write and so SO WHAT, the user can change it to what ever he wants. NO SO /etc/profile is common to all users. If the change HAS to be made there it will be the same for ALL USERS.

I still don't know why I have to reboot the system to get changes logged in. There MUST be a better way but I have not found it yet.

I still have not finished RTFM yet tho. Who ever told me that this was just like Slackware must have never run Slackware!

In playing(!) around in X with the window managers (switching back & forth checking them out) I had something happen that I have never seen on Linux before. I had finally had enough and Hit the button to exit fvwm2 & X. Windows did not exit, just closed a couple of xterms and HUNG. So I hit ctrl/alr/BS and at that point the system HUNG. By HUNG I mean, I could switch to other consoles but nothing was accepted from the keyboard on ANY console. The hard disk was clicking away but ALL users were locked out. After 15 minutes of this I shut down the power to the computer. Rebooting went normal (all partitions had to be fsck'ed of course) but the system came up fine. With WINDOWMANAGER pointing to fvwm95 but X coming up in fvwm2.

This is starting NOT to be fun, guys!

Another interesting thing with kde and SuSE 5.1 here. If I edit .xinitrc in my home directory to reflect exec kde I get kde but not the actual guts of kde. I get the windowmanager only but no functionality, if you know what I mean. I can only change windowmanagers by changing it in /etc/profile, logging out, and letting my profile be read again. I would like it if someone would explain how /etc/profile sets the windowmanager and why it cannot dynamically be changed. It seems to change the windowmanager one must edit /etc/profile, change it there, then logout and enter the console again. Is this correct, in essence?

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Wayne

So, let me say something about the principles. Since 5.1 we have minor changes to reflect needs of KDE. In /etc/profile you'll find a line like that: WINDOWMANAGER=/usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm2 export WINDOWMANAGER For convenience and compatibility to KDE you should change that to test -z "$WINDOWMANAGER" && WINDOWMANAGER=/usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm2 export WINDOWMANAGER This is needed since KDM sets WINDOWMANAGER explicitely. Otherwise the WINDOWMANAGER set by KDM would be overwritten by /etc/profile /etc/profile sets that for all users in the system If one wants to modify the WINDOWMANAGER setting for one user, the change should be done in ~/.bashrc there also, should be a test for the WINDOWMANAGER (if you want to use it flexibly from KDM): test -z "$WINDOWMANAGER" && WINDOWMANAGER=mywindowmanager export WINDOWMANAGER If you explicitely want to use a specific window manager, place that in ~/.bashrc: WINDOWMANAGER=mywindowmanager export WINDOWMANAGER NB: you do not need to specify the full path to the window manager binary if it is in PATH! The described problem with having to reboot is not known yet. If you do changes to /etc/profile, you have to logout, at least. This could not work, if you use xdm oder kdm since they use a shell themselves. WINDOWMANAGER is set then to default fvwm2. You could shutdown xdm then and restart it (init 2; init 3). Then, the changes in /etc/profile are valid for xdm logins, too. One should not place WINDOWMANAGER in ~/.xinitrc directly, but in ~/.bashrc as described above. OK, I hope I could bring a bit of light in the discussion. Martin Scherbaum, S.u.S.E. Supportteam ########################################################################### # Martin Scherbaum, M.A. S.u.S.E. GmbH phone +49-911-3247130 # # maddin@suse.de Gebhardtstrasse 2 fax +49-911-3206727 # # <A HREF="http://www.suse.de"><A HREF="http://www.suse.de</A">http://www.suse.de</A</A>> 90762 Fuerth, Germany mailbox +49-911-3247122 # ########################################################################### -- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e