Folks,

I've installed several virtual machines using SuSE 9.3 and its minimal graphic configuration (i.e no KDE, no Gnome). So I get twm at startup. I have nothing against Bedrock City and other yabadabahoos but I'd prefer to use WindowMaker.

Now, I've made the WINDOWMANAGER=wmaker in both /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc and ~/.xinitrc (copied from the /etc/...) and it still starts with twm. WindowMaker is indeed installed on the system and I've run wmaker.inst successufully in order to install WindowMaker's config files in ~.

Does someone know what to do exactly in SuSE 9.3 to obtain WindowMaker in such a configuration ? It does not seems straightforward.

Thanks !

I haven't done this, but the following is from 9.1, and may work on 9.3:

YaST > System > /etc/sysconfig Editor > Desktop > Window manager > DEFAULT_WM

Or, look at /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager and edit directly. In 9.1, the string types mentioned at the top show "windowmaker", not "wmaker", but that may be a typo. You may have to try both !

Thanks, under 9.3 this work as predicted, which is what I needed.

I tried it under 10.0 and even though the windowmaker parameter is specified, saved, and otherwise persistently recorded and verified it's still there, the machine always reboots with KDE (that was a full install of KDE-Gnome and all).

Glad to hear that it worked for the minimal install !

On my system, which has the works installed, SuSE uses kdm as the default dm and kde (as shown in YaST, but actually kwin or kwm) as the default wm. A click (right I think) on the kde screen shows a menu which allows for a x-session change, among other things. When the session login screen comes up you can choose from the list of wms that SuSE has pre-installed, and even switch between the kde and gnome DE's. On my system, going to /opt/kde3/share/apps/kdm/sessions shows the list of the possible wms that kdm can use (.desktop files). In gnome, the list is in /opt/gnome/share/xsessions. If you use YaST to install another DE (like xfce), or wm, it should automagically show on the session list. Not sure if a reboot is required. I can't offer anything about "gdm" (commonly used with gnome), but kde/kdm will allow you to run gnome apps, and also allow for easy DE/wm switching. This session switching control may be the reason for your current problem. Undo any changes that you made and try the session switching system. When exiting any of these sessions you can save the current environment and return to find it the way that you left it (hopefully). How this is all accomplished is something that I haven't gotten around to. Maybe in another lifetime LOL. I have only one box (old laptop running solid ATM), and can't "play" as much as I would like. Next year i'll spring for a "V" bit box and try SuSE/10.3/11.0/xen.

BTW - Nautilus in Gnome may intrude upon your display. Not sure if they fixed this in later SuSE versions. If you don't use Gnome there is a "universal" fix which disables the behavior, but which may give adverse effects when using Gnome regularly (in Gnome - Applications > Configuration Editor > apps > nautilus > preferences > show_desktop). This link gives another approach - http://www.techtown.it/public/html/U...TILUS_TAKEOVER

For Window Maker themes (a lot)- http://themes.freshmeat.net/browse/918/

Hope the above helps - Best of luck !

Thanks for the idea. That's the kind of screen I easily overlook, only inputting the password (I've got several machines that do not boot to a window manager automatically). Works quite well to get WindowMaker. Some apps, such as Firefox seems to have some config saved somewhere which WM interprets as the window being in maximal (eg. occupies all screen) mode while in fact it is not. But that's not much of a problem, really.

Cheers.