what desktop am i running?

naijaguy · 08-18-2004, 06:11 PM

I'm on Red Hat 8, and I'm trying to figure out if I'm using GNOME or KDE. How do I determine that? Thanks!

bruno buys · 08-18-2004, 06:13 PM

The icon that launches the menu, lower left on the screen is a K or a foot?

naijaguy · 08-18-2004, 06:33 PM

Gotcha - it's a red hat. Shouldn't I be able to figure out what my desktop is from the command line?

jax8 · 08-18-2004, 06:40 PM

when you open the file manager is it Konqueror (KDE) or Nautaulis (GNOME)

naijaguy · 08-18-2004, 06:49 PM

Ahhhhh...Nautilus (so Gnome!).

Peacedog · 08-18-2004, 06:50 PM

have a look at .xinitrc, the last line should say one of two things, either

exec startkde

or

gnome session

that should tell the tale. this file will be hidden in your users home directory, so you'll have to either enable viewing hidden files in your file manager, or view it from the terminal

#cd /home/username
#cat .xinitrc

hope that helps.
good luck.

amosf · 08-18-2004, 06:54 PM

Does it look really cool and work well or look terrible and run like crap

ps ax will give a list of processes and if you see kdeinit processes it will give you a hint

also you can right click on the taskbar at the bottom in kde you get help -> about kde and get the kde version, etc...

naijaguy · 08-18-2004, 07:08 PM

So, KDE is that much nicer? I'm just wondering if it's worth installing to see when I've got work to do.

Ok, crazy thing is, there's no .xinitrc in /home/username/ so what's the best way to search all the files in my system to find it? I know I've already figured out the desktop, but it'd still be nice to know how to find this file!

amosf · 08-18-2004, 07:35 PM

Just a joke. KDE and gnome are much the same, just different

You just tend to find some people like one and hate the other. I don't mind either, but have been a KDE user since beta 1 and gnome wasn't arround then - so I prefer KDE just because it is more familiar. I prefer some of the gnome apps for some things tho.

jax8 · 08-18-2004, 10:16 PM

type

locate .xinitrc

naijaguy · 08-19-2004, 12:50 AM

Yeah, I know. It doesn't find anything. Doesn't locate just search a database of executables?

nuka_t · 08-19-2004, 01:46 AM

ya, it searches a database. you have to update the database as root before doing a locate command. to do this, type in su, then updatedb

naijaguy · 08-19-2004, 11:25 AM

Yeah, I updated it and still didn't find anything. First of all, if locate just searches executables, then it wouldn't find a plain text config file, right?

Anyway, mine is using /root/.vnc/xstartup and I finally read the comments and uncommented the 2 lines it wanted me to uncomment and it worked!!!

However, is there no way to see the desktop that the guy sitting in front of the machine is looking at?