Re: What is the right way of starting session?

[Tom Tromey <tromey cygnus com>]

>      What is the proper way of starting GNOME?

Sergey> If I understand it right GNOME has sesion manager and it is
Sergey> gnome-session. Supposedly, there is a way to tell session
Sergey> manager which windows manager to run (just as it runs other
Sergey> programs). I though one can start gnome-session without
Sergey> windows manager and after logout gnome-sesion would remember
Sergey> that it should run you favorite windows manager. That does not
Sergey> work. I am either completely clue-less, or session manager
Sergey> does not work right yet.


Here's the story:

The session manager mostly works.  There is at least one known bug
left, but I'm hoping to look at it this weekend.

Whoever builds the session manager can specify a default window
manager at configure time.  If there is not a saved session to
restore, the session manager will run this default.  If no default is
configured in, then the session manager won't run any window manager.

A few days ago I changed the session manager to run "smproxy".  This
means that clients using the old ICCCM-style session management (i.e.,
WM_COMMAND and the like) will be saved in the current session.


As far as I know, no window manager works properly as a client of the
session manager.  This means that in the short term you'll always have
to start your window manager "by hand" (run it separately).  Bummer.


Sergey> The gnome related part:
Sergey>                 gnome-session &
Sergey>                 exec fvwm2
Sergey> Is it correct?

Not quite.  Instead run your window manager first, and then exec
gnome-session.

Then when you choose "Log out" from the panel, you will really be
logged out.

You can also run `save-session --kill' from the command line to log
out.


Note that a program must see the right setting for the SESSION_MANAGER
environment variable in order to contact the session manager.  This
means that as long as you start the wm and gnome-session separately,
programs run from the wm won't contact the session manager.  This is
losing.  The best fix is to fix a wm to be a session client.

Tom