help: setting up windowmaker

[sh\fted!]

Hello,

First off, I must say I am very impressed with Gentoo's speed; it's astonishing!

However, I don't have the disk space to compile/install a pig of a window manager like kde or gnome, and instead I would like to use windowmaker.

The problem is configuring Gentoo to start it, or even read my ~/.xinitrc or ~/.xsession (neither work).

In /etc/rc.conf, I have

Code: Select all

DISPLAYMANAGER=xdm

since i don't have kde (for kdm) or gnome (for gdm) installed.

I don't wish to muck around with scripts too much, but using startx from a terminal before I ran the command

Code: Select all

rc-update add xdm default

worked fine.

Any suggestions?[/code]

[Poseidon]

I have a dual-P3 system with an 80GB drive and I still use WindowMaker over Gnome or KDE . I think it's much more sleek and user friendly. Furthermore, why download the fastest Linux distribution only to slow it down with a slow, resource hogging, window manager? Post your startx script and your /var/log/XFree86.0.log file and I'll take a look at it and get you rockin.

[sh\fted!]

I have a dual-P3 system with an 80GB drive and I still use WindowMaker over Gnome or KDE .

I can hardly blame you! I have a 1.4 ghz athlon + 80GB 7200 rpm hd, and Gentoo on the 1.25GB hd is faster than any os i have tried on here!

I am running in X right now, but i'm stuck in twm, which i abhore (whose was the walnut-skulled idiot that made this the default??)

My startx script is fine, but it's not called on startup :/ I think the problems lies in the custom Gentoo scripts. /var/log/XFree86.0.log doesn't provide any details about what scripts were used to call X. Plus, they're rather length and i wouldn't want to bloat my message, but i can provide if really necessary.

[Guest]

Alright, I think I may understand where you're coming from now. It's just starting up in twm instead of WindowMaker? It seems to me perhaps your .xinitrc is screwed up. It should be very simple. Copy this to BOTH your ~/.xinitrc AND /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc. The /etc one is the default in case you don't have one in your home directory (that way you don't have to ever see twm again). If this doesn't fix it, why don't you just send me the aforementioned files via email @ seb@latestlinux.com

######################################
PATH="$PATH:/usr/bin"

# If you login from xdm, uncomment this to make error messages appear
# in the console window.
# tail -f /root/.xsession-errors > /dev/console &

# I use this to turn off annoying console beeping in X windows (like whenever you hit tab in a bash console or if you ever hit backspace too many times...)
xset b 0

# This is the wm you want...
exec wmaker
#######################################

[sh\fted!]

i checked the /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc, and it has parameters that are not being executes, so one can assume it's not being called at all (such as multiple xterms).

i'm going to tinker with it some more, and report back if i find a solution

[mmessano]

There should be a shell script in your $PATH called wmaker.inst. It will set up your user files for WindowMaker to be used. Very handy.

i checked the /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc, and it has parameters that are not being executes, so one can assume it's not being called at all (such as multiple xterms).

i'm going to tinker with it some more, and report back if i find a solution

[pjp]

Alright, I think I may understand where you're coming from now. It's just starting up in twm instead of WindowMaker? It seems to me perhaps your .xinitrc is screwed up. It should be very simple. Copy this to BOTH your ~/.xinitrc AND /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc. The /etc one is the default in case you don't have one in your home directory (that way you don't have to ever see twm again). If this doesn't fix it, why don't you just send me the aforementioned files via email @ seb@latestlinux.com

######################################
PATH="$PATH:/usr/bin"

# If you login from xdm, uncomment this to make error messages appear
# in the console window.
# tail -f /root/.xsession-errors > /dev/console &

# I use this to turn off annoying console beeping in X windows (like whenever you hit tab in a bash console or if you ever hit backspace too many times...)
xset b 0

# This is the wm you want...
exec wmaker
#######################################

This is quite different from the default file. Is any of the default file needed?
I've not selected a final window manager yet, but am trying to get fluxbox working.
Will this script work for any manager? Obviously changing the exec wmaker line as needed?