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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
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 Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2004 7:36 pm Post subject: Configuring optional WM in KDE/Gnome?? |
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First off, I have spent the whole day trying to educate myself in the arts of window managers, destop environments and eterms. However, I fear that my knowledge is still severly lacking at best. When I first got my Gentoo box up and running, I blindly emerged KDE without contemplating the numerous possibilities other DEs or WMs have to offer. Today was the day I decided to try some of these possibilities. But before I can start, I was hoping someone could answer my questions:
1) Is it possible to use a different WM in KDE other than the default one? (I've read several threads about this topic and it seems like it should work, but I'm not sure so I decided to ask.)
2) I have both KDE and Gnome emerged. How can I tell the DE to use the new WM I installed. Example: How can I tell KDE to start using Enlightenment as the default WM.
I had expected that these questions had already been asked and answered before, but I couldn't anything. In general, I must say that there is very little documentation (that I could find) for switching WMs in Gnome or KDE. The KDE homepage mentioned it, but recommended not to switch WMs. Is there really a lack of documentation, or did I just miss it? It would be nice if there was a guide on how switch WM in KDE/Gnome similar to the "Desktop Configuration Guide".
Thank you very much for your patience!  |
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plasmagunman
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Joined: 07 Jun 2002
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Location: berlin
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| Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2004 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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gnome has a variable called "default_windowmanager" or something like that, but it does not work. i changed the wm by
*starting gnome
*starting a terminal
*killing the actual wm, metacity, i think. the funny thing is, when you're killing the wm, all programs stay on the desktop where they are. so you can still use the terminal.
*using the terminal to start your preferred wm with a trailing "&" in the commandline.
that's it. from now on gnome will use the new wm.
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please, feel free to correct my english. - por favor, corrige mi español.
Last edited by plasmagunman on Mon Jan 19, 2004 4:34 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 450
Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 2:12 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you for that information. But what about KDE? I'm surprised that very few people posted in this thread. I thought it would be a no-brainer that everyone can answer...  |
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mondauge
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Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 603
Location: Schwetzingen, Germany
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 3:24 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I would also like to know how that is accomplished cause Enlightenment rockz... I do not dare to dream how awesome it would be in connection with KDE  |
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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 3:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, I hope someone will be able to answer our questions. Like I said before, why is there no documentation for such matters? |
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mctop
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Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 38
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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Hi,
kdm can handle different windowmanagers. Normally u don't have to change anything, perhaps u have to restart kdm.
To let fluxbox run with kdm, u have to make a startscript in /etc/X11/Sessions.
Thats all! |
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plasmagunman
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Joined: 07 Jun 2002
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Location: berlin
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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they don't want to start any wm out of kdm, but start kde with another wm than the deafult one (which is called "kwm", btw).
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please, feel free to correct my english. - por favor, corrige mi español. |
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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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Once again thank you for your help, but I still don't quite understand how I should go about this. So I'll make my questions more specific so you guys can give me specific answers. I have both KDE and Gnome emerged. I really like the Gnome WM (Metacity), but as a DE I prefer KDE. So how can I use Metacity with KDE?  |
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plasmagunman
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Joined: 07 Jun 2002
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Location: berlin
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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okay, i thougt (<- is that the correct form of that word?) you were interested in optional wms for kde and gnome, like the title of the thread said...
did you try to google for "kde alternative windowmanager"? the second link i get is http://kdemyths.urbanlizard.com/viewMyth.php?mythID=32:
| Quote: | Any window manager may be run within the KDE environment. By default KDE uses kwin, the native KDE window manager, but it is possible to replace it with an alternative.
In the days of KDE1, a window manager was required to support KDE's proprietary window manager hints to work well within KDE. This changed in the KDE2 release and now KDE uses the standard NETWM hints for window manager compatibility. Any window manager that supports NETWM can not only be run within KDE but can do so well.
Some window managers that include NETWM support either by default or as an option include KWin, Metacity, Sawfish, FVWM and IceWM. Enlightenment and Blackbox will also support NETWM in upcoming releases.
To make a different window manager the default in your KDE session you can either edit the startkde script or, while in a KDE session, you can kill kwin and start the window manager of your choice. After logging out, if the window manager is session management aware it will automatically start up the next time you start KDE. |
i didn't test that, but it seems like it works like i described above for gnome:
*start kde
*open terminal
*kill default wm (kwm):
*start new wm
*and hope it works.
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please, feel free to correct my english. - por favor, corrige mi español. |
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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 450
Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:54 pm Post subject: |
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Hehe, since you asked for it, I will give you a little English lesson! 
The correct one would be "thought" (I think you meant that anyways, but made a small spelling mistake!)
Anyways, back to Gentoo!
Thank you for your little guide and the Google search. With my head bowed in shame, I admit that I totally forgot to use Google before asking the question on this forum. I will try the method you used and report back my findings! Thanks again! |
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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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Unfortunately that did not work. I did the following and got the error message displayed below:
| Code: | tommy > killall kwm
kwm: no process killed
tommy > metacity &
[1] 1818
tommy > Window manager warning: Failed to a open connection to a session manager, so window positions will not be saved: SESSION_MANAGER environment variable not defined
Window manager warning: Screen 0 on display ":0.0" already has a window manager |
Any other ideas or suggestions how I could make this work? |
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Kesereti
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Joined: 07 Nov 2002
Posts: 520
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Isn't KDE's windowmanager actually called 'kwin'? Notice how no processes were killed when you tried to kill 'kwm' -- so of course it would complain about a windowmanager already running when you tried to start the new one...do a 'ps aux' to see all the processes running, and try to pick the most likely one to be KDE's wm ^_^ |
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LaserJock
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Joined: 17 Jul 2003
Posts: 32
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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OK, here is how I would do it in KDE:
In my case this gives | Quote: | | /usr/kde/3.2/bin/startkde |
so I edit that startkde file and I see: | Quote: | # finally, give the session control to the session manager
# if the KDEWM environment variable has been set, then it will be used as KDE's
# window manager instead of kwin.
# if KDEWM is not set, ksmserver will ensure kwin is started.
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Now I can go to the top (or wherever you want) of the startkde script and put in KDEWM=metacity (or whatever wm you want) and resart KDE.
I hope this is what you are looking for.
-LaserJock |
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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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@LaserJock
Ok, I am in the process of trying to method you suggested. One more question: Will this method also work if I wanna try Enlightment or some other window mangers? Why isn't there any documentation available for this! |
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LaserJock
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Joined: 17 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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tommy_fila
Yes it should work on most wm's. I have seen forum threads where people were using fluxbox, openbox, enlightenment, etc. I think that the WM should be NETWM compliant (I'm not entirely sure what that means) if you want to replace kwin but many wm's are.
-LaserJock |
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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Ok, thanks again for your info! You really helped me! |
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tommy_fila
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Unfortunately it is still not working. I changed my startkde file and metacity is running (I did a ps aux check to verify that). However, KDE still loads kwin as the default window manager and when I try to "killall kwin" it tells me that there are no processes to be killed. What is going wrong here? Why isn't KDE using Metacity as the default WM? |
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tommy_fila
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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Never mind me! It worked in the first place, I just missed! Thanks again for all your help! It was really really really great!
ONE LAST QUESTION!
So I have metacity as my window manager now, but if I want to change anything, all the KDE configuration programs refer to Kwin. So how can I configure my metacity window manager using KDE??? Thank you all for your help again! |
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green sun
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Joined: 04 Nov 2002
Posts: 325
Location: Wista, MA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| tommy_fila wrote: | | Unfortunately it is still not working. I changed my startkde file and metacity is running (I did a ps aux check to verify that). However, KDE still loads kwin as the default window manager and when I try to "killall kwin" it tells me that there are no processes to be killed. What is going wrong here? Why isn't KDE using Metacity as the default WM? |
Ok, to kill kwin:
ps xa | grep kwin
On my box, I get:
2280 ? S 0:19 kdeinit: kwin -session 117f0<snip>
(see, the kdeinit process started kwin...)
so, to kill kwin:
kill -9 2280
& then start the wm of your choice.
If you have it enabled, just go to the KDE menu & click 'Save Session' & see if the wm setting is saved on your next login... (assuming you have kde to load a saved session...) |
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plasmagunman
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Joined: 07 Jun 2002
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Location: berlin
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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1: the default-wm should be called "kwin", at least that's what the script tells us. "pgrep" doesn't seem to find it, but "ps x" does: (btw: why does "ps x" find it, but "ps -A" does not?)
| Code: | ps x | grep kwin
4810 ? S 0:00 kdeinit: kwin
4923 pts/4 S 0:00 grep kwin
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the first numbers are the ids of the jobs. with its number you can kill every job 
| Code: | | kill [insert first number of the line of the job called "kdeinit: kwin"] |
now you can start metacity and you're done. unfortunately on next login kde starts with kwin again...
EDIT: seems i forgot the "save session"-part of the previous post.
2: in a console i did
| Code: | export KDEWM="fvwm"
startx |
and it started kde with fvwm as wm. i didn't test it, but it should work also with metacity.
if that works you have to find a place where to set the KDEWM-variable, since you surely don't want to make these console-hacking every day. you could try to put this 'export KDEWM="fvwm"' in /etc/profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login or ~/.profile. i'm no shell-expert and i always get confused with all these config-files...
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please, feel free to correct my english. - por favor, corrige mi español.
Last edited by plasmagunman on Mon Jan 19, 2004 10:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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plasmagunman
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Joined: 07 Jun 2002
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Location: berlin
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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| tommy_fila wrote: | | Never mind me! It worked in the first place, I just missed! |
grrrr...
| tommy_fila wrote: | | So how can I configure my metacity window manager using KDE??? Thank you all for your help again! |
you cannot. you have to configure it using gnome, or you can directly edit its configuration files.
_________________
please, feel free to correct my english. - por favor, corrige mi español.
Last edited by plasmagunman on Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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LaserJock
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Joined: 17 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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tommy_fila,
I would use to mess around with the metacity settings. I went into apps --> metacity and found the settings I wanted. I might not be as user freindly as KDE's Control Center but I like it. 
-LaserJock |
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tommy_fila
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Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 450
Location: Phoenix, AZ
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| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Ok, it seems like I finally figure it out! Now it's time to play around with gconf-editor to perfect my settings! THANK YOU VERY MUCH EVERYONE FOR THE GREAT SUPPORT! Without you guys I could have never gotten all this stuff to work! Thanks again! |
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Sipi
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Joined: 03 Apr 2003
Posts: 406
Location: Hungary
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| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 10:06 am Post subject: |
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For KDE: it should be easier to set the environment variable KDEWM the new WM name to start. This way you do not need to always edit startkde script. You should put export KDEWM="metacity" in /etc/conf.d/local.start.
Sipi |
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corrosif
Apprentice
Joined: 21 Dec 2003
Posts: 199
Location: France
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| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 11:38 am Post subject: Can't kill metacity |
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I would like to use E16.6 with Gnome 2.4.
I have tried to kill metacity with the following command:
killall metacity
But as soon as it gets killed, it reloads itself and I can't get rid of it... and Enlightenment can't start because he is aware that there is already another window manager running.
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S'il n'y a pas de solution, alors il n'y a pas de problème (logique Shadok). |
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