Subject: FVWM: problem installing fvwm

From: Ayan Mahalanobis <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 15:38:53 -0400

Hello,
I recently upgrades to red hat Linux 9.0. THe best FVWN i got was for 
red hat 7.3. I did the rpm and all that. Which command says thar FVWM2 
is installed. But I can't swith from Gnome to FVWM2. I deleted .xinitrc 
and .xsession and ammended it to contain FVWM2. Nothing seems to help.

Is FVWM not supported by red hat 9? Any one had anyluck?

Ayan

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From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 10:38:48 +0000

On 10 Apr 2003 15:38:53 -0400, Ayan Mahalanobis wrote:
> red hat 7.3.

You may use rpms linked on fvwm.org. Should work on RedHat 7, 8, 9.

> I did the rpm and all that. Which command says thar FVWM2 

Do you boot your machine immediatelly into X?
If no (i.e. you use startx or xinit to run X), you may create ~/.xinitrc
script and chmod +x it, and it will be called.

There are other ways. Try to run switchdesk, it has "FVWM" as an option
if you have the old RH rpm installed, this should create ~/.Xclients with
a call to fvwm2.

The XFree86 setup is not principally different on different distributions.
You may always start FVWM.

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:01:42 +0000

On 11 Apr 2003 07:39:07 -0400, Ayan Mahalanobis wrote:
> Mikhael Goikhman wrote:
> > > I recently upgrades to red hat Linux 9.0. THe best FVWN i got was
> > > for red hat 7.3.
> >
> I got it from rpmfind.net. I think it is the latest. I will check!
> 
> > > I did the rpm and all that. Which command says thar FVWM2 is
> > > installed. But I can't swith from Gnome to FVWM2. I deleted
> > > .xinitrc and .xsession and ammended it to contain FVWM2. Nothing
> > > seems to help.
> >
> Yes I do. I tried switchdesk, which has a icon for fvwm. It just won't 
> switch. When I login back, it takes me to gnome.
> I tries to change .xinitrc and .xsession and chmod them. Didn't work!

I don't know why it does not work for you.

The following should work.

Change /etc/inittab to include:

  id:3:initdefault:

Then reboot, login into a virtual terminal and start X yourself using
startx or xinit command. This will surely call your ~/.xinitrc. There
will be no chance GNOME is started unless you do this in your ~/.xinitrc.

Of course there are other ways to achieve this, even in init level 5.

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: Alex Wallis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 22:09:36 +0930

> Of course there are other ways to achieve this, even in init level 5.

Firstly make sure what version of fvwm you have installed on your system
with "fvwm -version" command and use "which fvwm" to find it's path.

>From my experiences with recent redhat releases, the easiest way to get
fvwm running happily on redhat 8.0 is to do something similar to what
Mikhael suggested above, but with the following diferences.

Boot to run level 3 console mode and use startx to start gnome normally.
Then open an xterm and using "ps aux" to find the pid of the current
gnome winow manager and kill -9 <pid> to kill it. For some reason
metacity doesn't play nice and I suspect fails to comply with ICCCM
specs. Then You can issue into the xterm a command to start fvwm such
as....

fvwm -replace -f <your-config>

Then using the gnome panel which should still be running you can find
and use the session manager gui to save the session. Log out of X and
change /etc/inttab back to boot to run level 5, reboot, and it should
immediately start fvwm once you have logged in.

Of course you can also use the telinit command (as root of course) to
change run levels instead of editing inittab. Redhat seems to complicate
the startup files unecessarily and confuse new users with an
.Xclients-$HOSTNAME$DISPLAY file and can often ignore standard files
like .xinitrc but I'm not sure why.

Unfortunately the method I just outlined doesn't allow you to use the
switchdesk tool normally so you may have to fiddle a bit to switch back
and forth between fvwm and other window managers.

HTH

Alex
--
There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore
good."
And one says, "This is new, and therefore better"
                -- John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider"
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From: Ayan Mahalanobis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 09:42:02 -0400

>Of course there are other ways to achieve this, even in init level 5.
I did all you said and reached fvwm2. It was the usual default, with
fvwmpager, clock, xbiff etc on the lower right hand corner. But then if
I click the mouse left or right I get no menue, there is a small window
coming but nothing written in it. Is it some problem with fonts? I had
the same problem with redhat 8.0 using Xwin32.

I appreciate all your help.
Thanks
Ayan

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 16:36:23 +0000

> the same problem with redhat 8.0 using Xwin32.

We may only support our rpms, not the ones packaged by RedHat 7.3.
You may ask RedHat for a support.

You may also install the rpms from http://fvwm-themes.sf.net/rpm/ .
If you are new to FVWM and do not have any good .fvwm2rc, install
fvwm-themes too and start fvwm-themes-start instead of fvwm.

If you have problems with fonts in your other applications, try to
change your locale, for example change /etc/sysconfig/i18n to contain
LANG="en_US". If you have problems in fonts used by FVWM, try to install
2.5.x instead of 2.4.x.

In any case, always visit your console where you get the X output and
copy all releant error messages that you see when reporting problems.
And report the version you have by running "fvwm-config --version".
Do not yield.

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: Ayan Mahalanobis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 17:42:31 -0400

>>And report the version you have by running "fvwm-config --version".
The amazing thing! After installing FVWM from the web site you mentioned 
with fvwm-themes, it works fine from run level 3. I switched back to run 
level 5 and it pushed me back to GNOME. What could be the reson. The 
.xinitrc file is the same and of course it doesn't read it ar is getting 
over written by some thing. Does that mean that I got to stay in run 
level 3.

Ayan

---

From: szonyi calin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 16:58:14 +0200 (CEST)

--- Ayan Mahalanobis <[email-masked]> a écrit > The amazing
thing! After installing FVWM from the web site you
> mentioned 

Usually in runlevel 5 (X) .xinitrc file from home
directory is ignored (at least that's the behaviour on my
machine) and instead the contents of .xsession is executed.
The .xsession file _must_ be executable

So:
-- create a file .xsession
 echo fvwm2 >$HOME/.xsession
-- make it executable
 chmod 755 $HOME/.xsession

And it should work.(Works for me :-))
If it doesn't work you must figure out the X startup sequence 
in runlevel 5 (see files in /etc/X11/xdm) which is not an easy
 task _or_ keep looking for an answer to your problem _or_
enjoy runlevel 3 :-)

Bye
Calin

=====
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the xterm you want to type in.
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From: Ayan Mahalanobis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 13:01:28 -0400

szonyi calin wrote:

> task _or_ keep looking for an answer to your problem _or_
Tried that, doesn't work. Redhat won't read .xsession or .xinitrc or is 
getting over written. How does one knows what it is doing just after it 
starts X?

--Ayan

---

From: Ayan Mahalanobis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 13:05:48 -0400

> task _or_ keep looking for an answer to your problem _or_
This might be something. I tried switchdesk and it complains that FVWM 
is not installed.
I know FVWM is installed and was running a moment ago in run level 3.

Ayan

---

From: Marcus Lundblad <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 19:15:48 +0200 (CEST)

> getting over written. How does one knows what it is doing just after it 
Do you use gdm (Gnome's display manager) to login? (Redhat does by
default).
You need to choose "xsession" from the menu where you select session typ.
Then you should be able to just login in the future without problem
(atlest it works for me, RH 7.3).

Or you could change to use XDM (if you're root...)
It's at the end of /etc/inittab (there's something like "prefdm", change
that to xdm, but do it your own risk, I guess a backup of that file is 
good idea...)

//Marcus

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From: Ayan Mahalanobis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 14:14:47 -0400

Great it works.
The switchdesk only knows fvwm, I have fvwm2 and want to start from 
fvwm-themes-start.
How do I teach switch desk to do that?
Another thing, how can I play with the clock?
In good old days it was in the .fvwm2rc :) where it asks some thing to 
swallow the clock. Where is it said these days??

Ayan

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 19:12:25 +0000

> How do I teach switch desk to do that?

The only thing switchdesk does is creates a file ~/.Xclients that
contains one line, it does nothing else (maybe backups the old one).

Just create this file yourself:

  % echo exec fvwm >~/.Xclients
  % chmod a+x ~/.Xclients

Or:

  % echo exec fvwm-themes-start >~/.Xclients

> swallow the clock. Where is it said these days??

Decide whether you use .fvwm2rc (start fvwm), or learn how fvwm-themes
works. There is a documentation and mailing lists for fvwm-themes.

Regards,
Mikhael.