| Stephen Gran on 2 Nov 2006 00:23:59 -0000 |
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On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 07:04:46PM -0500, Jeff Abrahamson said: > I'm trying to change my window manager. It's not working. I'm trying > to do it the right way, whatever that is, by using (debian testing) > update-alternatives. But despite the below, when I authenticate to > gdm, or when I run startx from the non-X command line, up comes my old > wm, sawfish. On another machine where I tried this, the default wm is > metacity, and the same problem presents. > > Google presents lots of articles on wm choice, but I haven't found any > that address how to choose. > > I can fix the problem with a sludge hammer, putting the name of my > preferred wm in ~/.Xsession. This all seems wrong, though, even > update-alternatives. WM choice should be easily configured by the > individual user. Anyone know how? > > krypton:/home/jeff# update-alternatives --config x-window-manager > > There are 2 alternatives which provide `x-window-manager'. > > Selection Alternative > ----------------------------------------------- > + 1 /usr/bin/sawfish > * 2 /usr/bin/ratpoison > > Press enter to keep the default[*], or type selection number: 2 > Using `/usr/bin/ratpoison' to provide `x-window-manager'. > krypton:/home/jeff# update-alternatives --display x-window-manager > x-window-manager - status is manual. > link currently points to /usr/bin/ratpoison > /usr/bin/sawfish - priority 70 > slave x-window-manager.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/sawfish.1.gz > /usr/bin/ratpoison - priority 20 > slave x-window-manager.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/ratpoison.1.gz > Current `best' version is /usr/bin/sawfish. > krypton:/home/jeff# The alternatives system is just a symlink farm, and it looks like you've got it configured correctly (use readlink -e /usr/bin/x-window-manager to make sure). For the alternatives to work, something has to try to exec a program named x-window-manager. I am not sure anything actually ever calls x-window-manager, though, so that may be where this plan is falling apart. Are you running gnome-session? If so, there really is no choice at all but to (kill $(pidof $current_wm) && exec $new_wm). I could grumble about gnome's decision to use gconf and the similarity to windows registry, but I'll stop there. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Stephen Gran | A subversive is anyone who can out- | | steve@lobefin.net | argue their government. | | http://www.lobefin.net/~steve | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attachment:
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