Setting which DE to start?

tkarkkainen · 03-17-2004, 08:30 AM

How do I set which desktop environment starts up when I do startx? Currently startx starts twm, startxfce starts xfce, but nothing starts kde. How do I set startx to start KDE, for instance? The distro we're talking about is Gentoo.

rootyard · 03-17-2004, 08:55 AM

In your home dir, create a file called .xinitrc. In this file put:

exec /path/to/your/DesktopEnvironment

KDE = kde or startkde (not sure which)
Gnome = gnome-session

tkarkkainen · 03-21-2004, 10:22 AM

Thank you, this was very helpful.

Now, I have the following line in my /home/name/.xinitrc file:

exec startkde

When I type startx, it tries to start KDE up, but it fails. I see a blue background, a mouse cursor, and a window with the following text:

Could not start kdeinit. Check your installation.

How could I fix that? I installed KDE using 'emerge --usepkg kde', and I've also tried emerging it again but it didn't help. What can I do to fix that?

rootyard · 03-22-2004, 12:31 AM

hehe I don't support Gentoo. Seriously, though, are you getting any error messages beyond the above?

Pwnz3r · 03-22-2004, 01:28 AM

Gentoo's great. In fact, why are you here? The Gentoo doc on this very thing is much easier to follow since it tells you how to set GNOME, KDE, or whatever up very easily. That's why I never came here for help when setting up Gentoo the first time.

I only come here now to help people that use a distro like Mandrake or Suse that has a lot of problems and is without forums or good docs.