Re: Gnome and Debian

["B . L . Jilek" <bljilek bigfoot com>]

Hi Steve!

On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Steve Dondley wrote:

> I'm a Linux newbie and I am pretty much baffled by all the different window managers.  I'm running
> Debian 2.2rev3.
> 
> Problem #1:  When I run "xstart", I'm always thrown into the iceWM desktop manager.  How do I change
> this?
>

You need to create a '.xsession' file in your home dir.  In this file
put:
exec gnome-session 
or
exec enlightenment
or 
exec wmaker
etc.

Just one of those lines depending on which one you want.  If
you have imwheel installed and you want gnome then your ~/.xsession
should look like this.

imwheel -k
exec gnome-session

That's it.

> Problem #2:  When in iceWM I only have a few window managers to choose from and change to...none of
> them are sawmill.
> 

You will be able to choose sawmill when in gnome as the windowmanager.

> Problem #3:  I do have the choice of running enlightenment from iceWM.  When I switch to
> enlightenment, I have a chance to choose from a whole bunch of other window managers that I couldn't
> when in iceWM.  Why is that?
> 

This all depends on how the windowmanager is configured.


> Problem #4:  I can choose sawmill from enlightenment.  But when I do, the screen blanks out and I'm
> thrown back to the command line.  WTF?
>

You may not have sawmill installed.  Or just the sawmill-gnome for use
with gnome only.

> Problem #5: When I type "xstart sawmill" from the command line, a butt ugly background (black and
> white dots) comes up.  There is absolutely nothing else on the desktop.  I can only do a middle
> mouse click to view the menu.
> 

I think this is twm.  Because you don't have sawmill installed maybe.

> In short, nothing I'm experiencing jives with anything I've seen from screen shots or from what I've
> read.  Frustrating to say the least.  Can someone give me some insight into what's happening?
> 

One thing you need to know.  Gnome is an environment.  With gnome
you have to run a windowmanager.  It will give you the choice of 
Enlightenment, icewm, wmaker and sawmill if you have them installed.
This will be in the gnome configuration tool.

-- 
B. L. Jilek <bljilek bigfoot com>  | Linux user: 163800
PGP: RSA-0x64183EA1 DSS-0x66FF0BC1 | ICQ: 83785391 
GPG: 0x8ABA0CE6 (Preferred)        | http://wwww.geocities.com/bljilek  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------