How to change the window manager for GNOME? (default is sawfish?)
 

Hello,

Does anyone know how to change the window manager used by GNOME?

It seems that the default is sawfish; I uninstalled sawfish and now another window manager must be used, but I don't know which one,

and I want to use WindowMaker instead.

Any ideas?

Sylvain.

N.B: Example: because I want to be able to resize/move the windows without having them refreshed all the time. I can configure this in Window Maker, but I don't know how to do this in other window managers. And I like WindowMaker.

I always though GNOME was the window manager...and WindowMaker was another separate one...

sorry, I don't have an answer to your question, I was just confused...

Hi,

No problem.

That's right, people often make the confusion between the window manager and the 'desktop'.
I used to be confused with this myself.

Here is the way I see it today:
- window manager: the application that enables windows to be displayed and react to events (mouse clicks, refresh, etc.)
- 'desktop': the application that displays menus and allows the user to launch applications on the top

Cheers,
Sylvain.

P.S: Hey guys, any solution for my question?
How to change the window manager used by GNOME?

oh okay, thanks for the clarification! hope you get your question answered! cheers!

This is documented on the web (http://www.docs.cs.huji.ac.il/RedHat...ktop.htm#GCCWM), but I think the screenshots are old, as my brother couldn't find the option.

Some suggest changing the WINDOW_MANAGER system variable thing (WINDOW_MANAGER=wmaker; export WINDOW_MANAGER), but I don't know if this will work.

You might also look for a file in ~/.gnome/session, but I don't know about that either. gnome-session is the thing that loads your window manager, so there might be configuration files in /usr/share/gnome-session or something like that.

Just some suggestions, I've never tried it myself.

Please do not post the same thread in more than one forum. Picking the most relevant forum and posting it once there makes it easier for other members to help you and keeps the discussion all in one place.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/rules.php

Ok.
 

Ok XavierP,
Sorry for the inconvenience.
I won't do that again.
Sylvain.

>>>
surprise u hv sawfish as default in Debian?. My problem in RH9 is -my default is gnome-session and I hv just installed sawfish but cannot use it..I start my linux to failsafe, then i issue #sawfish, it says "no display" and also "only one window mgr can run at one time". How do i get sawfish to run as non-default?. Funny, my sawfish rpm pkg din come with man..pages.. why?? I dunno. pls help..

gdm, RH, Fedora, Debian...
 

Hi sawadeekap2233,

This thread is quite old by now. Anyway, welcome, since you just posted here.
Since then, I installed Xfce as a replacement to Gnome. I'm quite happy with Xfce. I appreciate that it is lightweight, highly configurable, and nice.

You could try to re-configure your X server login manager (gdm, or xdm, or kdm), or install gdm if you don't have any at the moment.

Check if you have gdm or xdm or kdm installed. If not, I suggest you install gdm, using "yum" (install "yum" if you don't have it yet)... but I'm not much using RH myself. Good luck!
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tools/yum

Instead, if you have the possibility, upgrade to a recent Fedora instead of RH9.
Even better, try out Debian GNU/Linux and apt-get install everything! What else?

Cheers,
--
GNU/Sylvain.
http://sylvain.vedrenne.free.fr/

thank Sylvain, i go get xfce to try ..