Installed slackware 15, set window manager to fluxbox during the install.

When I login at runlevel 3 and run startx I always get fluxbox (both as root and as user), but when I change runlevel to 4 the system always starts kde. Why?

In /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc is a link to xinitrc.fluxbox. There is an .xinitrc and an .xsession in my /root directory that is a copy of xinitrc.fluxbox.

Also, I manually copied xinitrc.fluxbox to my home directory ~/.xintrc.

What could I be missing?

Are you using kdm, sddm or xdm ?

If xdm it will use ~/.xsession, if kdm or sddm I do not know how those work. My guess you are using kdm. Others here should be able to help wit kdm/ssdm.

See "/etc/rc.d/rc.4", you can create a /etc/rc.d/rc.4.local to change over to xdm, which is what did to use fvwm2.

Note, you should use 'xwmconfig' to copy the startup files, that also brings in .xsession

Maybe that was the issue(??)

HTH
John

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Thanks for the response.

How do I find out?

I think the installer uses xwmconfig, and I selected fluxbox when it ran during the install process. So, after I verified that I could login and use startx to get into fluxbox I set inittab to runlevel 4 and when I rebooted I expected it to start fluxbox, but it took me to the kde desktop instead. That's the way I've always done it in the past.

I ran xwmconfig again, again selecting fluxbox. But it doesnt work. The only way I can get into fluxbox is if I set runlevel to 3, then do startx after I login as user.

All I have on that system (fresh slackware 15 install) is /usr/bin/xdm and /usr/bin/sddm. Neither gdm or kdm are present, at least not in the locations that the rc.4 script is looking for them.

So I'd say Im using sddm, since that's the last one the rc.4 script looks for before defaulting to xdm.

I just tried to manually start sddm, from runlevel 3, and I do get a graphical login but I never see anything that looks like that when im in runlevel 4 and I boot. At runlevel 4 it goes straight to some kind of plasma login screen.

If you did not change anything you are using kdm. If you want to change over to xdm, copy this to
/etc/rc.d/rc.4.local
and do a chmod 755 on it.

then do a xwmconfig to copy the startup files. This assumes you are in run level 4.

To change to sddm, you would replace the above with a copy of the sddm logic in /etc/rc.d/rc.4

HTH

That login screen is sddm. runlevel 4 is useful if you want a graphical login screen which is what sddm provides. You can also use it to configure things like autologin so that when you boot the system it goes straight to the desktop. Not the most secure option in the world but it's useful sometimes.

There's usually no reason to start sddm manually. You can, but it tends to act funny when you do.

At this screen is there anything you can click that would bring up a list of DEs/WMs you can launch?

At the lower left side of the login screen there is a drop down menu. Select Xsession default and it should load whatever you chose with xwmconfig. I tested it and fluxbox works with it.

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Thanks.

Looks like xdm is the only display manager that starts fluxbox on my system, at least as the system is configured after a default install.


Sddm is installed, but it looks like sddm is Wayland's display manager and it always comes up with the plasma desktop. Does it replace kdm? Since i couldn't find kdm anywhere. Apparently sddm ignores the files that xwmconfig creates.

So apparently if you want to use fluxbox on Slack15 you basically have to use xdm or install some other display manager.

Is anyone else using fluxbox? How did you get it to start up in runlevel 4?

1 members found this post helpful.

Ok, that works. Don't need an rc.4.local. I didn't see the drop down menu at the bottom left of the login screen.

Thanks to everyone that responded.