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From the command like you can start things like xine and mozilla like this:
startx /usr/bin/mozilla (you have to give the full path to the executable)
this will start X and mozilla without starting a desktop environment. Maybe it's to your liking. You can start a second program with
startx /usr/bin/xine -- :1
xine, in this case, will be on ctrl+alt+F8 (mozilla on F7)
by changing the number, you can have up to 6 (F7 thru F12) different programs running using X but no desktop env.
Originally posted by deepsix thats a great help......I can just make some scripts to run the programs I normally use....I should have thought of this.....thanks.......
........but...........
even though this is one way of doing it ......I still have to login every time I switch virtual consoles.....Maybe I should be more specific.......lets say I only want to run 1 terminal......and that terminal requires X ok......so at this point X is running because the terminal is running.........now.........any command I give launches the program wich will run along side other programs but without the bloat...ie; background, toolbars, panels etc....
do I need to create my own invisible gui......to do this ? or is there something already out there.......... and if anyone has pointers or ideas on how to do this .......please let me know..........
If you want to stay away from GUI just because of all the clutter, resource hogging, etc., why not just use a super light WM like fluxbox? You could even start up some term fullscreen with it, so its almost like the WM isnt there. I bet it wouldnt be too hard even to hack out FB's already minimalistic toolbar, leaving you with nothing but a mouse pointer and right-click menu.
you don't need to login for each virtual console. You go to runlevel 3 (or just disable X from starting automatically). You login to a text console and from there you can run X programs with
startx /path-to-executable --:n (where n is the vt you want it to be)
you only have to log in once so long as you start all the instances of X from that one text terminal you logged into.
You can run multiple programs inside one instance of X with the above method. E.g. you can call a script like
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/mozilla &
/usr/bin/xine &
/usr/bin/oowriter
this will have all three on one virtual terminal. Trouble is that you don't have a window manager so that you cannot move the windows nor can you raise, lower or resize them. This makes it basically impossible to run more than one application inside one X session.
maybe you should get one of those super primitive window managers like fvwm. That has virtually no bloat and kind of fun to mess with. I'm sure there's an rpm for redhat.
If you start a gnome terminal on top of it you can't tell the differance between that and the normal console. There are no window decorations or menus. Switching windows is done by using user changeable keyboard commands such at Control and Right key.
All windows are fully maximised all the time but if you want there are two comands for splitting the window horizontaly or verticaly, this is very usefull if you want to copy things out into a text editor or read a how-to while editing a file in VI.
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