Somebody Pleeeeeaaaaase help. I am running slackware 8.0. When I startx as root, it always starts Window Maker. I would like to use kde. I have edited the xinitrc file (i forget the location right now and i'm not at my computer), as I thought that is the file where you set it. It has kde in there, but it still starts window maker. I also ran the utility xwmconfig that comes with slackware and sets the default window manager, but that did not fix it either. Can anyone point me to somewhere else I can change it to the proper setting? Thanks in advance.

check the rc.conf file - most times there's an option in there to change the default window manager.

but, to start kde manually :

#WINDOWMANAGER = "/usr/X11R6/bin/kde"
#startx

that should get things working.

The default Window manager (for all users) is controller by /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc which is a symlink to one of the other files in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/ Have a look in that Dir.

cheers

Jamie...

Thanks for the help guys, but unfotunately my problem is still not fixed.

Typing #WINDOWMANAGER = "/usr/X11R6/bin/kde"
#startx

still caused window maker to come up.

I also determined that there's no rc.conf file on my system by doing:

updatedb (to make sure all files were in the database)
locate rc.conf

and getting no results. Tell me if I came to the wrong conclusion about this file not being there.

As far as the symlink, jharris, i changed xinitrc so it pointed to xinitrc.kde which has the line "exec startkde" in it, meaning that it should start kde. Window maker still comes up though. It doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm doing this all as root. Is there a place where root settings would be stored that somehow override the default settings? Let me know if there's any more suggestions. Thanks again.

ok... my apologies... that should have been rc.config... the full path name should be /etc/rc.config

also... are you sure that you have kde installed? make sure the binary kde file is somewhere on your box.

Well, I did a little sleuthing and I figured out what the problem was. I made a new temp user and logged on and that user. I ran startx and... KDE!!!!! I dug around for a while and found that /root/.xinitrc (which if i remember right was a symlink to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc.wm) was causing X to start up in window maker when I ran it as root. I deleted this file and it started KDE. Thanks for helping me learn how all this stuff works, I appreciate it.

i think that's how the majority of the advice we dish out here goes... you end up having to figure out most of it for yourself anyway. ain't linux great?