Fishing for help - GDM...
 

Okay,

I will start with a disclaimer, I know this has been talked about before but in searching this site and google I have not found the information I am looking for....


Now on to the questions. I now have a fresh install of MDK9.1 (will be gentoo when I can afford DSL). As with any box, the first thing I do is download and compile XFce4 to use as my desktop environment. (It rocks and beta1 is out now) Now, I would like to add this to GDM. In the past, working with development CVS builds, I used run level 3 and started XFce4 with startxfce4. I would like to get away from this since it will be more permanent now.

What I have found out:
I did a little digging and found the /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions dir. From what I can tell, all the scripts in here simply pass the desktop to be use to the /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession file.

Back tracking to this file, the Xsession file in turn simply passes this back to the /etc/X11/Xsession file. (I don't understand why this run around) Anyway, browsing through the /etc/X11/Xsession file I find nothing that calls IceWM, Gnome, or any other. It reads it into the variable DESKTOP but then doesn't use it except to check if it is the default... Well, not that I can tell.

The file then goes on to look for browsers and whatnot and starts wm if nothing is found.

My question:
What is the correct way to add XFce4 to GDM? I check the gdm config program but that is just for look and feel (themes). A few versions back you could add choices with its config program. I guess they thought that was too easy.

I have thought about adding the XFce4 file to /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions and with the following:

instead of using the Xsession files. I guess I want to know how this thing works as much as I want to have the option to login to XFce4.

Okay, I realize this was a long explanation. I would greatly appreciate some help in getting this setup correctly and not just hacked to work. I have done too much of that in the past and would really like to start doing things right!


Thanks,

PhilD

Go with your intuition!

This is the way I learned to add window managers to gdm. I guess there are multiple ways to do a lot of things in Linux, but as an old teacher used to say, "What's the best way? The simplest way." and this way is certainly as good as any and better than most.

Disclaimer: I use Slackware, maybe Mandy does things differently, but it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to try it and revert if it doesn't work.

Thanks cpv204,

I guess I just always thought that there was a reason they did it they way they did. Assuming they know more about it thay I do (fairly safe), I thought I should do it the same way. Then again, maybe not. I agree with your teacher by the way!

If anyone knows reasons why I should not do it this way yell!

PhilD

Well, that's why I put in that little Slackware/Mandy disclaimer, if you're a stickler for correctness, uniformity, standards, etc. In Slack this is the standard way gdm sessions are set up, not by passing things through xdm.

Come to think of it, do you even know whether it's a gdm session or an xdm session that gets started up via your (Mandy's) method?

Both ways will work, but what is "standard" for my distro may not necessarily be "standard" for yours. Doesn't mean either is wrong, just that the people who put Mandy together had a different vision for how they wanted to handle window managers than the Slackware people did.

Yes, it is gdm. I realize the different distros were very, well... different. I still tend to assume, and maybe falsely, that programs (i.e. gdm) configure and operate the same on all distros.

One of these days I will have to give Slack a try. I use the wizzards in Mandy for as little as possible anyway. I went looking for Vector but the isos aren't around. Well, atleast the weren't last week.

Thanks for the help!!!

PhilD