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echipbk 02-12-2013 03:53 AM
Fedora 18-How to change desktop environment using terminal (manually)
 
- For Fedora 18, we can change the display manager by changing the soft link to display-manager.service:

ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/kdm.service /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

- We can also customize ~/.Xclients (or ~/.Xclients-default) to choose a specific "desktop environment" for a particular user when we run the command startx

- And globally, we can change the desktop environment by choosing our session at the login display manager


- Previous Fedora releases used /etc/sysconfig/desktop to change both display manager and desktop environment. What about Fedora 18? What configuration file do I need to edit to change the desktop environment manually? (without choosing a session at the login display manager).

Thanks for any help. I have searched a lot without any results so far.

PTrenholme 02-13-2013 02:37 PM
The /etc/sysconfig/desktop file is still used by the scripts in /etc/X11/xinit/. vis:
Code:
$ grep -r sysconfig /etc/X11/*
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/50-xinput.sh:      elif [ -f "/etc/sysconfig/desktop" ]; then
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/50-xinput.sh:          GUESS_DESKTOP=" /etc/sysconfig/desktop"
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/50-xinput.sh:          . /etc/sysconfig/desktop
/etc/X11/xinit/Xclients:if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/desktop ]; then
/etc/X11/xinit/Xclients:    . /etc/sysconfig/desktop

echipbk 02-13-2013 04:13 PM
Yes, but those scripts in /etc/X11/xinit/* run only when you run the command startx. For normal login procedure where you are presented with a login display by a login display manager, it doesn't leverage those scripts. I have tested out already :)

PTrenholme 02-15-2013 07:16 PM
Really? Those are the scripts that are started when the X-server is run, which AFAIK occurs when the initial RAM file system is loaded. Anyhow, that's what I've done to switch my display manager from gdm to kdm, and it seems to have worked without a hitch.
Code:
$ cat /etc/sysconfig/desktop
DISPLAYMANAGER=KDM
DESKTOP=KDE

$ pgrep -lP1 dm$
746 mdadm
770 kdm

$ pstree -a 770
kdm vt1
  ├─X :0 vt1 -background none -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/kdm/A:0-qWXhHa
  └─kdm           
      └─startkde /usr/bin/startkde
          ├─kwrapper4 ksmserver
          └─ssh-agent /bin/sh -c exec -l /bin/bash -c "/usr/bin/startkde"


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