Re: Windowmanager in session.wm

[Jan Gentsch <gentsch ifm uni-hamburg de>]

It does not make it easier on packagers (I am the packager of the SuSE
rpms)!

A user should never end up without a windowmanager. In two of the three
cases you describe the user ends up with no windowmanager and has to
find out how to get one (if he knows about the concept of a
windowmanager, otherwise he is just annoyed). In the third case chances
are not all that bad he ends up with a windowmanager he didnīt want and
again has to find out where to change this. In addition he propably has
now some "extra" directories he never intended to have.

If you start up gnome for the first time you should be prompted first
thing to choose a windowmanager from the ones available on your
particular system. If the user chooses not to choose (cancels or
whatever might happen) he still gets a windowmanager, just any one which
is available on the system (and this still canīt be decided at compile
time). If on a multiuser system admin decides to remove a particular
(for whatever reasons) once more you should prompt the user to choose a
new windowmanager.
A user should never be without a windowmanager.

It is a silly thing to do because one can't make a proper decision at
compile time about the windowmanager, so itīs pointless to do so. For
the SuSE packages we have been using a starter script which works around
the problem in just the way I describe (it has been orignally thrown out
by SuSE themselves and it also integrates nicely into the SuSEs way of
starting windowmanagers which does away with editing any .xinitrc
files). It basically works, though itīs not the ultimate solution, as
well as that it isnīt a solution for everyone and it requires some
external components. 

Let the user decide at the stage a decision can be made, that is once
gnome is being started. Not any earlier, nor later.

Jan

"Jesse D . Sightler" wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 20 Mar 1999 12:35:03 Jan Gentsch wrote:
> > Read my previous post and once more:
> > It is a bad as anything. A default windowmanager should not be decided
> > at compile time!
> > You donīt know which windowmanagers will be available on the system the
> > packages will eventually be installed on(I am talking about package
> > making).
> > Jan
> 
> Why is this silly?  What other option is there?  If it isn't decided at compile
> time, then the first time you run it, it won't know what WM to use.  So it will
> display a blank screen and you will have to choose your WM at runtime.  If it does
> have a default chosen at compile time, and the default doesn't exist on your machine,
> you get a blank screen and then have to choose your WM at runtime again.  If it does
> have a default chosen at compile time, and the default does exist, then all should
> come up fine, and once again, you will have to choose your preferred WM at runtime.
> 
> There is no way around the issue of having this decided somewhere.  A default just makes
> it easier on packagers, etc.  :-)
> 
> ---------------
> Jesse D. Sightler
> http://www3.pair.com/jsight/
> 
> "An honest answer can get you into a lot of trouble."
>          - Anonymous