login window thing

[cant_think_of_a_name]

no, i typed kdm [enter] and it came up, so i have kdm, i hope im not overlooking something obvious.

[Dapper Dan]

So if you have KDM, you should see a tab with "menu." Open it and "session type" should be a choice. In there you should see fluxbox as a sessions choice. I may have misled you earlier about "sessions" being near the bottom, that's in GDM, sorry...

[calum]

i also have this issue.

the problem at hand hasn't actually been addressed yet and it is this:

when using SuSE personal 9.1, the default window manager is kdm (it is not gdm, or xdm). The version of kdm that comes with SuSE personal 9.1 does *not* have a menu to choose which window manager you want. this is different to any other distro i have used kdm with.

you would think there'd be some way of sorting this using kcontrol (for example by running kcontrol and going to System Administration->Login Manager->Administrator Mode) but there isn't.

Clearly a non-crippled version of kdm needs to be installed. either that or some config file needs to be edited to enable the menu to be shown.

This has nothing to do with runlevels, or any other login managers other than kdm, neither is it about not knowing which button to click.

now.

any ideas?

[Dapper Dan]

That's really strange because I have SuSE Pro 9.1 and am fairly certain KDM gives menu choices. I'm in Slackware right now, but first change I get, I'll boot into SuSE 9.1 to see if that is correct..

[calum]

ok, here's the solution, use gdm as your login manager.

here it is step by step, applying only to suse by the way.

firstly, install apt - here it is:
ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/apt...MS.suser-rbos/

at the moment, the file you want is called: apt-0.5.15cnc6-0.suse091.rb.5.i586.rpm but of course the version number will change in time.

here's a howto if you need one:
http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/

now you've installed the apt rpm using rpm -Uvh aptblahblahblah.rpm and you now need to install gdm.

to do this you need to do "apt-get update" as root to update your local list of available packages, then do "apt-get install gdm" to install gdm automatically over the 'net.

ok, now gdm is installed we need to open an xterm and do "sux -" to become root. note, if you already did an su to install the apt rpm and to install gdm, exit before you sux, so that root will have access to X for the next step.

ok, now run yast2

now follow the instructions here: http://www.rubberturnip.org.uk/susegnome.php

basically:
in yast2, under System, select /etc/sysconfig Editor
now use the left-hand tree heirarchy to select Desktop > Display Manager
Set the DISPLAYMANAGER value to gdm

now that this is done, gdm will run instead of kdm when you next boot. if you want to use gdm immediately then do the following:

do "init 3" - then do "killall kdm && killall kdm_greet" now do init 5 and watch the magic happen. gdm will appear WITH a menu to select a windowmanager. you haven't yet installed gnome, and gnome is the default windowmanager for gdm so either you will get an error about this when each user logs in, or you can log in as each user and change the default as you do it for each user, or you could just install gnome using apt.

[calum]

That's really strange because I have SuSE Pro 9.1 and am fairly certain KDM gives menu choices. I'm in Slackware right now, but first change I get, I'll boot into SuSE 9.1 to see if that is correct..

we've got suse personal, there might be a bit of a difference (especially since personal is free as in beer)

[calum]

jeez, one part of my reply is wrong.

gdm will now try to use gnome as default every time and i haven't figured out where to change this yet. any ideas?

i turned this up though, which looks like a good little read: http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/...rs_KDM_GDM.pdf

in the interim i have done "apt-get install gnome-session" which installs a bare bones gnome on the system (28MB though!) so that it at least has something to log into for an unsuspecting user who doesn't have me around to tell them what's going on

happily the default configuration of this gnome uses the same variable for the desktop as kde does (/home/<username>/Desktop) so i don't have to tediously recreate all the desktop icons again.

[calum]

looks like i have my answer here:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/post-188952.html

[jaboua]

But anyway, there are useally some hidden config-files you can edit to edit which X-client to use. On the most systems this is either ~/.xinitrc or ~/.Xclients-default

Change "exec startkde" to "exec fluxbox" and you will be done, next time you log in you start fluxbox