I've installed FC9 with gnome and have downloaded kde. Is there a gui [session manager/editor] within gnome to switch to kde?

A search revealed this is a common question, but other posts seem to focus on other distros.

I realize that I should've grabbed the kde version of FC9, but I thought I'd try gnome and figured it would have some level of configuration utility. Perhaps not...

I think you meant "display manager". A session manager is the thing that saves window positions, states, open documents and such things. The display manager is the one that let's you make graphical logins, like gdm, kdm or xdm amongst several others.

From gdm (which is the display manager shipped with gnome) you should be able to choose whatever desktop or wm you have installed from a menu. That shouldn't be a problem. How to configure what display manager to use depends on the distro, I have no idea how to switch from gdm to kdm on fedora. However, there's no downside on continuing to use gdm to login into kde.

I thought that too. KDE login screen has a pull-down where the user can choose a variety of desktops. The FC9-gnome login is a bare-bones screen; you can only choose the user.

Maybe it's xdm?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Screenshot.png

It's the stock display manager that comes preinstalled with the X server. You can take a look at the xdm man page and see what the configuration files for it are. I think it was something like /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config, but I really haven't used a graphical login manager for ages, so I don't remember that very well.

Actually it's a Fedora login, which maybe a frontend for xdm[?]

Just curious, what do you use..? Is yours set to boot right into the desktop?

Thanks 4 the input...

My guess is that it's maybe xdm with a custom fedora logo. There are many others, so I can't be sure.

Just curious, what do you use..? Is yours set to boot right into the desktop?

I just login in text mode, and then I use startx. For me it's the most comfortable way, because I use many window managers and I have custom scripts to launch them.

Once upon a time I used to use kdm, but I grew bored of its many problems. I migrated to gdm, but at a given point, it started depending on the whole gnome desktop, due to integration with nautilus or whatever. I just can't understand why a login manager should be depending on a file explorer and, in turn, on a whole desktop.

There are many others, like entrance from the e17 project, slim (a minimalist but still good-looking login manager), or qingy (which works on framebuffer, outside X, a very interesting project indeed). However, I find no use for a graphical login manager nowadays that I have just become accustomed to the text login.