Re: stand-alone Gnome

[Mario Vukelic <mario vukelic chello at>]

On Sun, 2002-02-24 at 14:13, Dominic Wellington wrote:
> Sorry if this has been covered before elsewhere, but persistent googling 
> hasn't located the necessary info.
> 
> I don't want Gnome to handle the login process, but to be bootable by 
> using e.g. startx or xinit. I have tried removing gdm from the startup 
> scripts, but that completely disables Gnome, leaving me with straight 
> IceWM. Starting Gnome from the command line, however, means that it asks 
> me to log in again, and I can't quit Gnome without rebooting the whole 
> machine!
> 
> Can someone point me at a howto that explains how to do this? If it 
> makes any difference I'm running Debian-potato, but with 2.4.9 kernel.

You have gdm installed (the Gnome Display Manager) and it handles logins
in X. A similar (X) prog that does the same is xdm. Karsten M. Self has
written a HOWTO to disable xdm
http://kmself.home.netcom.com/Linux/FAQs/xdm-disable.html
You can simply replace "xdm" with "gdm" if you're dealing with gdm.

The file $HOME/.xsession handles the apps to be started with X if X is
started with startx script. .xsession must be executable by the user.
Simply edit this file (or create it) and put this in it: 'exec
/usr/bin/gnome-session' (without quotes). This will start Gnome.
Alternatively you can put there other window managers. exec
/usr/bin/wmaker would start X with WindowMaker. The windowmanager must
be the last command in the file and not run in the background (not
ampersand '&' appended) So if you exit the wm you exit X. If you want to
start other apps in the script you must put them before the wm and put
them in background. E.g.,

sonic:~# cat .xsession
xterm&
other-app&
exec /usr/bin/icewm
sonic:~#

If you run "startx" you will start X, run a xterm, other-app and IceWM.
If you exit IceWM you return to the console

-- 

I did not vote for the Austrian government