Slackware 13 with KDE, can I add xfce without re-installing?
 

I installed almost the complete install. I left off Apache, MySQL and PHP since I wanted to do them myself (which I did and it went fine). I selected KDE as the window manager but now I want to try xfce. When I boot up, I'm left at the command prompt and have to login (probably does that for everybody) then I run startx. That brings up my KDE. Are the xfce components installed and can I use something else to bring up that desktop? Or can I install it and then bring it up at the command after login? As usual, any help will be appreciated (and I hope I'm being clear in my explanation). Thanks

If you only left out Apache, MySQL, and PHP when you installed Slackware 13 then XFce will be there. At the command prompt as root after your computer starts up issue the following command:

# xwmconfig

That will bring up a window where you can select another environment to use. Select xfce then press enter. Log in as your regular user after logging out of root. When you type startx this will launch XFce.

And read this: http://slackbook.org/html/x-window-s...xwmconfig.html

By the way, read the rest of the book too. You'll profit from that!

Eric

At the GUI login screen there should be a menu button allowing you to chose which DE you want to use. You can use different ones without changing the default. Also has a KDE (failsafe) setting, handy for when I mess up settings playing with the eye-candy.




edit: It doesn't behave like this with "startx". I use "sudo /sbin/init 4. It's of one of my favorite features, tho. My bad.

The advice is good, but not relevant for this question.

Eric

You can run xwmconfig as user without having to log in as root.

Yes. You can do that. But, when you issue the command as root the command will be system-wide for all users. I've found that when you issue the command as a user sometimes the system will revert back to the original DE/WM selected during installation. But, you can always change the DE/WM again with the xwmconfig command.

Running xwmconfig as the root user sets the "default".

If (as a user) you've never run xmwconfig then you'll end up with the default.

By running xwmconfig as a user you will get to override the default and your choice should stick (unless there is a bug somewhere).

Of course this all pertains to runlevel 3 and using the "startx" command.

The command basically just generates a ~/.xinitrc file for you.

Yes, I am, and was, aware of that.
:)

Yeah. I have encountered that bug on occasion. :)

Perhaps a bit off topic (More than a bit, actually), but if you did that, did you consider installing MariaDB instead of MySQL?

Thank you all for your help, and yes, it is off topic and no I did not consider MariaDB (and probably won't at this point and you can stop trying since I'm nobody important but cheers anyway). I will definitely go through the Slackware book. I was able to start the xFce desktop. When I was checking the differences between the two, it was said that xFce was faster and most development is done with GTK+. I suppose it doesn't really matter what desktop I'm using as long as if I want GTK+ in my programs, I use that library and if I want Qt, I use that. It seems that my "almost" complete install of Slackware has both. I love Linux and all of the choices. I installed Slackware because I'm now starting to learn the kernel so all of my configurations, etc., are being done through terminal commands rather than gui programs. Thanks again!

if you want it to boot into the graphical login, edit /etc/inittab and change the default runlevel from 3 to 4. if you need to do anything requiring you NOT have X running (such as a reinstall of X), you can change it back to 3.