[SOLVED] Change Startx Default on Slackware?

haziz · 01-01-2012, 01:40 PM

I installed Slackware as a VM within Virtual Box. The host OS is Windows 7, if it matters. I have successfully installed guest additions and XFCE starts and runs cleanly with or without the guest additions. KDE however (which was set as the default for startx) starts well giving me the appropriate desktop at the appropriate resolution but crashes halfway during the splashscreen animation. I am not sure it is worth wrestling with it.

How do I change the default for startx to xfce? I realize that I can always start it at the command line with startxfce4, but I may like to change the inittab run level to 5 which would trigger KDE with it's crashes.

Thanks.

dive · 01-01-2012, 01:42 PM

xwmconfig works for startx

for runlevel 4 (not 5) then kdm would run and give you the choice of which DE to start

haziz · 01-01-2012, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dive

xwmconfig works for startx

for runlevel 4 (not 5) then kdm would run and give you the choice of which DE to start

Can you elaborate on using xwmconfig? How do I go about changing the startx default?

I am pretty sure that inittab uses level 5 for X11 unless Slackware has opted to be very atypical. In Unix and Linux (except for the distros that have opted to drop /etc/innitab altogether) if I am not mistaken the run levels go:

0 Halt
1 Single user mode
2 Multiuser no NFS
3 Multiuser
4 Usually unused
5 X11
6 Reboot

Does Slackware have a special use for inittab level 4?

Thanks.

onebuck · 01-01-2012, 01:56 PM

Hi,

Quote:

excerpt from 'man xwmconfig';
NAME
xwmconfig - choose a default window manager for X.

SYNOPSIS
xwmconfig

DESCRIPTION
xwmconfig provides a menu of the window managers available on the machine so that you may choose
one of them to use when X is started with "startx".

When run by root, it sets the symbolic link /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc, which selected the default
system-wide window manager to use for X, and also creates a /root/.xinitrc file with the same
window manager selected (perhaps suitable to move into /etc/skel/).

When run by a non-root user, xwmconfig writes out a $HOME/.xinitrc file, allowing the user to
choose their own default window manager (possibly overriding the one chosen as a system default).

AUTHOR
Patrick J. Volkerding <volkerdi@slackware.com>

Run 'xwmconfig' from the console and make your selection.

mrclisdue · 01-01-2012, 02:01 PM

As Dive has stated, Slackware uses runlevel 4 for display manager:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runlevel#Slackware_Linux

As a user, run xwmconfig from a terminal, and select your default wm.

If you run xwmconfig as root, the default changes for the entire system.

edit: apologies for redundancy...onebuck beat me to it.

cheers,

haziz · 01-01-2012, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrclisdue

As Dive has stated, Slackware uses runlevel 4 for display manager:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runlevel#Slackware_Linux

As a user, run xwmconfig from a terminal, and select your default wm.

If you run xwmconfig as root, the default changes for the entire system.

edit: apologies for redundancy...onebuck beat me to it.

cheers,

Thanks. Very interesting. I looked at the quoted Wikipedia article. I thought that most Unix and Linux ran the innittab levels similarly. My desire to load Slackware has already paid off with greater knowlege. I am also running Debian, Fedora, BSD and Solaris (have not explored Solaris much) as VMs on the same machine. And have Linux Mint and Ubuntu running natively on other machines. I guess I have gone a bit extreme with my explorations but the VM setup within Virtual Box has made it fairly painless to explore more widely.

calpepez · 01-06-2012, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haziz

Thanks. Very interesting. I looked at the quoted Wikipedia article. I thought that most Unix and Linux ran the innittab levels similarly. My desire to load Slackware has already paid off with greater knowlege. I am also running Debian, Fedora, BSD and Solaris (have not explored Solaris much) as VMs on the same machine. And have Linux Mint and Ubuntu running natively on other machines. I guess I have gone a bit extreme with my explorations but the VM setup within Virtual Box has made it fairly painless to explore more widely.

I appreciate what you've said. I, too, am exploring different distros. I'd like to understand how they work, and possibly why so many have been devised. I've been told that slackware is particularly good for exploring software development. I've been looking to get something with a Gui, & KDE which has the only calendering/planning/logging software that seems reasonable. There are other choices, but I want something that retains what I've done as a record, as well as allowing me to express plans in whatever detail I need to do it. To me, it seems that once you've put information in, it should be retrievable for any purpose.

The KDE Kontact module fulfills that purpose quite well.

I also want to be able to develop software for the LINUX platform. Like you, I'm exploring different distros using Oracle's Virtual Box. My variety of distros pretty much matches yours.

I just haven't yet determined how to make some GUI work with some of these distros so that I can get going.

Richard Cranium · 01-06-2012, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haziz

Can you elaborate on using xwmconfig? How do I go about changing the startx default?

I am pretty sure that inittab uses level 5 for X11 unless Slackware has opted to be very atypical. In Unix and Linux (except for the distros that have opted to drop /etc/innitab altogether) if I am not mistaken the run levels go:

0 Halt
1 Single user mode
2 Multiuser no NFS
3 Multiuser
4 Usually unused
5 X11
6 Reboot

Does Slackware have a special use for inittab level 4?

You might be surprised if you were to look at the contents of /etc/inittab...

Code:

#
# inittab       This file describes how the INIT process should set up
#               the system in a certain run-level.
#
# Version:      @(#)inittab             2.04    17/05/93        MvS
#                                       2.10    02/10/95        PV
#                                       3.00    02/06/1999      PV
#                                       4.00    04/10/2002      PV
#                                      13.37    2011-03-25      PJV
#
# Author:       Miquel van Smoorenburg, <miquels@drinkel.nl.mugnet.org>
# Modified by:  Patrick J. Volkerding, <volkerdi@slackware.com>
#

# These are the default runlevels in Slackware:
#   0 = halt
#   1 = single user mode
#   2 = unused (but configured the same as runlevel 3)
#   3 = multiuser mode (default Slackware runlevel)
#   4 = X11 with KDM/GDM/XDM (session managers)
#   5 = unused (but configured the same as runlevel 3)
#   6 = reboot

stephenpi · 05-08-2012, 08:01 PM

If you ever want to get KDE working, you could try this. Create a file

Quote:

/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/composite.conf

(or .../whatever.conf), containing just the text:

Quote:

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

Worked for me! Though switching to XFCE is fine too.