login window thing

[cant_think_of_a_name]

in fedora core 3 in the login window i was able to choose the window manager i wanted to use, is there any way i can do this in suse 9.1 personal?

[Dapper Dan]

The "sign-in thingy" in Fedora is gdm. In SuSE it's kdm. kdm also gives you the same options for choosing a desktop environment.

[cant_think_of_a_name]

i couldnt find the window manager thing, is there something i have to configure?

[Dapper Dan]

What DO you have? Just a black screen with a blinking curser? ath the bottom?

[copycon]

I believe the personal version only installs KDE you can remedy this if you have a fast internet connection by changing your installation source in YAST to the SUSE FTP servers or one of thier mirrors and installing whatever window manager or desktop environment that you want

[cant_think_of_a_name]

What DO you have? Just a black screen with a blinking curser? ath the bottom?

well i do boot into runlevel 3 (bad experiences with nvidia drivers) but i want to be able to select my desktop environment at login screen (i have already installed fluxbox) what do i need to install/configure so that when i type init 5 and go to the login screen i can select the window manager/desktop environment. i still dont know much about linux so thanks for the help.

[Dapper Dan]

At the prompt, sign in as root. Then type:

kdm [enter]

That should bring up kdm. Then sign in under your regular user name and password and choose fluxbox from the sessions manager at the bottom.

If kde won't come up for you, you can install kdm from the command line using Yast. Just go as root:

/sbin/yast [enter]

And go to Install and Remove Software, and do a search for kdm.

Are you wanting to start off with runlevel 3? If so fine, but you can edit /etc/inittab and change the runlevel from 3 to 5 and that *should* take you straight to kdm.

[Dapper Dan]

what do i need to install/configure so that when i type init 5 and go to the login screen i can select the window manager/desktop environment.

open /etc/inittab with your favourite editor and look for a section tha looks like this:

# The default runlevel is defined here
id:3:initdefault:

Change the "3" to a "5", save and exit. Now log out and reboot. You should now get booted straight into kdm.

[cant_think_of_a_name]

Are you wanting to start off with runlevel 3? If so fine, but you can edit /etc/inittab and change the runlevel from 3 to 5 and that *should* take you straight to kdm.

i boot into runlevel 3 on perpose because i have had problems with x in the past and found that, with my lack of knowledge in linux, if something were to go wrong at least i could have the command line.

well i do boot into runlevel 3 (bad experiences with nvidia drivers) but i want to be able to select my desktop environment at login screen (i have already installed fluxbox) what do i need to install/configure so that when i type init 5 and go to the login screen i can select the window manager/desktop environment. i still dont know much about linux so thanks for the help.

sorry, i didnt type that clearly. i have kdm and it works fine, but in the menu i only have restart x server and shutdown, no way of choosing my desktop environment. could it be some sort of suse skin thing?

[Dapper Dan]

kdm gives you a sessions choice. Sounds to me that you have xdm. That's the default sign in when kdm nor gdm, (Gnome) are present. After signing in as root and you do:

kdm [enter]

And nothing happens, then you have xdm.

Did you go into Yast to see if kdm was installed? if not, install it. Then the next time you reboot and sign in as root type:

kdm [enter]

And it should come up. Then under sessions, choose fluxbox.