Trouble installing fvwm2

[Mike Jeays]

On Wed, 2005-11-23 at 10:57 -0500, Louis LeBlanc wrote:
> On 11/23/05 10:36 AM, Mike Jeays sat at the `puter and typed:
> > On Wed, 2005-11-23 at 16:03 +0100, ivan.roth at free.fr wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I just compiled/installed fvwm2 from ports on my 6.0. But I don't know how to
> > > run it.
> > > 
> > > I have gdm launching gnome 2.12 by default and fvwm2 does not appear in the list
> > > in gdm.
> > > 
> > > I am such a newbie, that I can't imagine you don't know what's wrong :)
> > > 
> > > Thanks by advance.
> > > 
> > > Regards, Ivan.
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > 
> > FVWM2 is a different window manager, and can't, to the best of my
> > knowledge, be run from GDM, or from KDM for that matter.
> > 
> > The easy way to try it is to kill gdm, or stop it from starting up at
> > boot time, and then create a file called '.xinitrc' in your home
> > directory.  It should contain one line 'exec /usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm2'.
> > Then run "startx" from your home directory.
> 
> No Mike, this isn't true.  I just switched to kdm so I could play with
> KDE, but I still have the option (and am currently using it) of using
> my old Fvwm2 config.  You CAN also run Fvwm from gdm.
> 
> It should be noted that gdm is NOT a window manager, but a display
> manager, as is kdm and xdm.  They launch window managers for you.  Kdm
> and gdm are just designed to cater to their respective session
> managers (which is also different than the window managers).  Gdm
> gives you the option of using several window managers (like IceWM,
> enlightenment, etc) on top of the session manager.  Fvwm CAN run with
> the gnome session manager (and at one time could easily be built with
> the gnome session manager support build it IIRC).
> 
> It's been a long time since I even had gdm installed, much less run
> Fvwm off it, but I know for a fact it can be done.  You just have to
> read the docs to see how to specify your window manager.  It may even
> be possible to swith to Fvwm on the fly through the default WM menus.
> 
> Ivan, I do know that with kdm, I had to link my ~/.fvwm/fvwm2rc file
> to ~/.fvwm2rc in order to have it recognized when starting from kdm.
> Starting it from xdm didn't seem to require that, but for whatever
> reason, kdm did.  Perhaps this might be useful when setting up the
> ~/.xsession as suggested by Mike?  Fvwm2 has a -f parameter that lets
> you specify the config file explicitly, but remember that any files
> you read from there should include fully resolvable paths.
> 
> Good luck, and sorry I couldn't provide more detailed help on this.
> 
> Lou

Thanks for the correction - you obviously know more about it than I do!