How do I get to choose my desktop manager?

velska · 01-23-2009, 02:06 PM

I have read through my Fedora 10 documents, and I can't seem to be able to figure out exactly where it picks the display manager. So I have two questions:

Can I give gdm a configuration file to show alternatives like KDE to start instead of Gnome?
How can I start kdm or xdm instead of gdm?

There was a time when I thought I knew how Linux systems start up, but now I am a bit lost. Could be that I'm just tired.

repo · 01-23-2009, 02:11 PM

gdm will give you a list of installed window managers.
just click on session

velska · 01-23-2009, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by repo

gdm will give you a list of installed window managers.
just click on session

The trouble is, I was expecting to see the "session" button there (I installed both Gnome and KDE), but I don't see it. And I've been trying to figure out how to either configure gdm or alternatively try out kdm or xdm.

digitelle · 01-23-2009, 08:32 PM

I installed Fedora 10 from the live CD with KDE desktop as default, I wanted to check out gnome as well so I installed it, but it didn't show up in my session switcher on my login screen and I didn't want to bother with that, so these are the steps I took, only opposite because your default is going to look like my edited one, so my default one will be yours after editing..... yeah.

As root edit /etc/sysconfig/desktop (create this file if it doesn't already exist), to contain:
DESKTOP="KDE"
DISPLAYMANAGER="KDM"

Assuming you have everything needed for KDE installed, this should be the manual solution.

Something you may want to look at is Fedora's system-switch-displaymanager and switchdesk if you are looking as switching often.

phantom_cyph · 01-23-2009, 08:35 PM

run xwmconfig in a terminal.

digitelle · 01-23-2009, 10:06 PM

Just so we all know a bit more, xwmconfig is not packaged with Fedora or available from these yum repositories:

fedora
rpmfusion-free-updates
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
rpmfusion-free
rpmfusion-nonfree

But could still be installed of course.

velska · 01-24-2009, 05:14 PM

I guess I got it figured out now. It looked like the prefdm script didn't even find /etc/sysconfig/desktop, so I edited prefdm with some violence. Now it seems to work the way it's supposed to.

this213 · 01-25-2009, 01:23 PM

"yum install switchdesk-gui" will give you a graphical method for doing this. However, I have it installed and don't see it in my menus so you may have to run "switchdesk" from a terminal (which is sort of stupid if you ask me).

velska · 01-25-2009, 03:34 PM

I have switchdesk, and switchdesk-gui. They do a crappy job of it.

As of now I am really wondering where all the configuration info is... prefdm still doesn't read /etc/sysconfig/desktop.

I wonder if there's a file format issue (some characters may be needed), but I haven't found the answer yet. Still looking

this213 · 01-25-2009, 04:21 PM

Yeah, I was just looking at it and it's apparently not quite what it used to be. Sorry I can't be of more help as I have absolutely no use for KDE, but this might help you:

Quote:

Originally Posted by http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/KDE

To make KDM the default display manager, use your favourite package management tool (yum, kpackagekit) to install system-switch-displaymanager and run the system-switch-displaymanager kdm command.

I would imagine KDM would have an easier time of switching to KDE. I should note though that this really shouldn't be necessary, but I've been finding quite a bit in F10 that I don't agree with (NetworkManger, spacial view, and so on).

digitelle · 01-25-2009, 06:07 PM

What does your prefdm look like?

velska · 01-26-2009, 05:04 AM

You asked what my prefdm script looks like. Here it is, it's not long:

Quote:

#!/bin/sh

PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin

# We need to source this so that the login screens get translated
[ -f /etc/sysconfig/i18n ] && . /etc/sysconfig/i18n

# Run preferred X display manager
quit_arg=
preferred=
if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/desktop ]; then
. /etc/sysconfig/desktop

if [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = GNOME ]; then
preferred=/usr/sbin/gdm
quit_arg="--retain-splash"
elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = KDE ]; then
preferred=/usr/bin/kdm
elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = WDM ]; then
preferred=/usr/bin/wdm
elif [ "$DISPLAYMANAGER" = XDM ]; then
preferred=/usr/bin/xdm
elif [ -n "$DISPLAYMANAGER" ]; then
preferred=$DISPLAYMANAGER
fi

else

quit_arg="--retain-splash"

fi

# shut down boot splash
/usr/bin/plymouth quit $quit_arg

shopt -s execfail

[ -n "$preferred" ] && exec $preferred "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null

# Fallbacks, in order
exec gdm "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null
exec kdm "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null
exec wdm "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null
exec xdm "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null
# catch all exit error
exit 1

Anyway what I did was just edit it to force kdm by commenting out everything from the "Run preferred X display manager" routine except the line that has the statement

preferred=/usr/bin/kdm

and that worked. The desktop switcher doesn't work.

velska · 01-28-2009, 02:42 AM

I found the tool that I refer to in the title (system-switch-displaymanager). It worked. I didn't find out how it performed its magic, but at least I'm working with kdm now, which gives me some options.