default desktop environment

[jamesiniceland]

How does one change the default desktop environment from the command line?

Thanks in advance

--James.

current distro: Linspire (debian)

[techieMoe]

I'm not sure if Linspire fully supports anything other than KDE, but provided you have something like GNOME installed already, you should be able to launch it by modifying your .xinitrc file (which is in your user's /home/ directory) to say something like this:

exec gnome-session

If you want to go back to the default KDE session, change it to this:

exec startkde

If there's already something in your .xinitrc, I'd recommend not deleting it; just comment it out by putting a # sign at the beginning of the line.

[jamesiniceland]

Hi, my system doesnt appear to have individual xinitrc files but my global Xinitrc file reads:

#!/bin/sh
# $Xorg: xinitrc.cpp,v 1.3 2000/08/17 19:54:30 cpqbld Exp $

# /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
#
# global xinitrc file, used by all X sessions started by xinit (startx)

# invoke global X session script
. /etc/X11/Xsession

so should i just add the extra "exec enlightenment-session" after the last line???

Thanks again.

[eraker]

Actually, what comes up when you run the command:

ls -l /etc/X11/Xsession

...because it should just be a symbolic link to your default window manager/gui, and you can change it this way too.

[jamesiniceland]

I get:

-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 3976 2005-03-09 13:48 /etc/X11/Xsession

I know im using X, but apart from that?

thanks for your help.

[eraker]

You know what? I made a mistake and answered off the top of my head. I thought I changed it that way with debian awhile ago, but I apparently don't know what I'm talking about. I think I actually changed the default-display-manager symbolic link.

[jamesiniceland]

dont worry about it. thanks for your help anyways

[eraker]

I remember now!

I changed it in debian/sarge by deleting the x-window-manager symbolic link in /etc/alternatives that was pointing to /usr/bin/blackbox and making a new symbolic link that pointed to /usr/bin/fluxbox (kde, in your case):
x-window-manger --> /usr/bin/fluxbox

I also changed the x-window-manager.1.gz link to point to the right one too: /usr/share/man/man1/fluxbox.tar.gz (agian, kde in your case; verify the file is there first).

Would this work for your situation?