Window manager

Forum: Window Mangers
Topic: Window manager
started by: sankarv

Posted by sankarv on June 21 2006,10:46

For my user i installed ICEWM window manager through Mydsl. Currently it is in this WM only.Now how can i switch between window managers??

Posted by kerry on June 21 2006,11:08

Ohhh, the icewm in dsl repo is no good. I'm not understanding this "Currently it is in this WM only" do you mean your already in icewm or fluxbox or jwm? I beleave you can just choose exit which will take you out of gui, than type start (fluxbox,jwm,icewm) not sure though, i only use fluxbox.

Posted by mikshaw on June 21 2006,14:16

Please do not tangle the icewm uci extension into that mess by stating icewm in general is broken. I spent a good deal of time making sure it would work and continue to work in the future. =o)
The icewm2.dsl, icewm-full.dsl, and icewm-lite.tar.gz extensions are broken. They all overwrite .xinitrc, which is a very bad thing, and run from a fluxbox-specific restart menu item which doesn't work from jwm (the user is left to guess how to use the extension). The *.dsl versions also break desktop icons.
These extensions should be removed from the repository, please

Starting a different window manager in DSL typically requires editing /home/dsl/.xinitrc and /home/dsl/.desktop. The icewm.uci and evilwm.uci packages include a readme that explains how to do this:

Quote

In recent versions of DSL (since the addition of JWM)
1) Open up /home/dsl/.xinitrc in a text editor and scroll to the end
of the file, where the "case" statement chooses the desktop to use.
2) Add a case for "icewm". This must be done BEFORE the wildcard (*).
----------------------------------------
Here is part of the original:
jwm )
./.background
sleep 2
exec jwm 2>/dev/null
;;
* )
exec fluxbox 2>/dev/null
;;
esac
----------------------------------------
Here is what it would look like with icewm added:
jwm )
./.background
sleep 2
exec jwm 2>/dev/null
;;
icewm)
exec /opt/icewm/starticewm 2>/dev/null
;;
* )
exec fluxbox 2>/dev/null
;;
esac
----------------------------------------
3) Edit /home/dsl/.desktop, replacing the existing WM with "icewm".
4) Restart X.

In older versions of DSL (before the addition of JWM)
1) Open up /home/dsl/.xinitrc in a text editor and scroll to the end.
2) Replace "fluxbox" with "/opt/icewm/starticewm".
3) Restart X.

Posted by kerry on June 21 2006,14:30

Sorry mikshaw, i only meant the icewm-full. I haven't tried the rest. So the .uci one is the good one?

Posted by roberts on June 21 2006,14:30

icewm2.dsl, icewm-full.dsl, and icewm-lite.tar.gz have been removed.

Posted by mikshaw on June 21 2006,14:41

Thank you robert =o)

I didn't want to be a pain, but there have been several people who have broken their desktops after installing icewm.

Quote

So the .uci one is the good one?

It should be as safe as any other extension. It doesn't have a user.tar.gz, so the only writing of personal files other than the creation of an empty directory is done by the application itself.

Actually I'm not sure why i have that mkdir command in the wrapper at all....I'll have to test a little to refresh my memory.
EDIT: oh yeah...for the menu script. It won't work without the directory, and icewm doesn't make the dir until you change a setting. Maybe i should move the mkdir to the menu script...