Greetings,

In a never ending quest to create problems for myself by exploring the limits of curiosity and stupidity...

...I found the "Desktop Switching" Tool and switched my desktop from GNOME to TWM to "see what it looks like."

Well, I certainly found out.

I have absolutely no idea how to do anything with it. And no way to change it back on that login...which, of course, is root!

I can login and su from a teminal on a regular user login. The question now...where is and what is the file that I can alter to change this back to the default, GNOME desktop?

Thanks!

try xwmconf or xwmconfig on the command line

Try looking in /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients (back up Xclients before you edit it, though; you've already learned the hard way about changing your configuration without backing up your default).

Red Hat should also have a utility for switching window managers, although I'm not familiar enough with it to know.

I think you can run switchdesk in red hat 9 to get back to gnome or kde.

Are you sure you're not describing ME? I do something along those lines just about every day...

Sorry you had this experience, but at least it doesn't hurt anything, it's just an inconvenience. I hope the good advice already given here will get you back and running in your favored environment!

And it could be that someday--like me--you'll tire of the clutter of the Gnome desktop and decide to experiment with a more spare (and FAR faster!) solution. I went from Gnome desktop to the Blackbox window manager and then to IceWM which I love. I experiment with different window managers including TWM (it's really not so bad once you get used to its minimalism) and so far am most impressed with IceWM (by far) followed by Blackbox (great but a little more minimal than I usually like...), fvwm2, Afterstep, Windowmaker. The last two are really too fancy for my taste. But I could live with any of those.

One of the many advantages of using Linux as compared to the most popular "operating system" is that we get to customize virtually every aspect of our desktop and workspace to our heart's content. This may seem a trivial advantage, but it isn't, because what you stare at and manipulate for hours every day makes a big difference in your ability to work with pleasure and efficiency.

Have you tried hitting ctrl-alt-backspace. This should send you back to the login screen where you can select from Sessions a different window manager.

rberry88

Actually...

There were a few other problems with the install, so I just went out and did it over again. Ctrl-Alt-Del will take you out and in but the GUI (if you could call it that!) is still there as the default for that login.

Anyway, it's all back to normal...until the next adventure!!!

Cheers, everyone and thank you!

When you get to the login screen, at the bottom is "session" which you can change the default gui. Hope this helps next time.

NOW, you tell me! LOL! ;-)