Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

[John covici]

on Wednesday 02/21/2007 Etaoin Shrdlu(shrdlu@unlimitedmail.org) wrote
 > On Wednesday 21 February 2007 09:02, John covici wrote:
 > 
 > > Hi.  I was having major problems getting gnome to work at all when I
 > > discovered that it onlyy works if I login using gdm -- is there
 > > something about the gentoo distribution which has broken startx so
 > > gnome does not run or am I doing something wrong here?
 > 
 > I think that's what XSESSION in /etc/rc.con is for. At least, in my 
 > system I see that 'startx' honors that setting.

Yep, that does work, but I had no idea that functionality was even
there -- the line was commented out in the file.

-- 
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you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com
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Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

[John covici]

on Wednesday 02/21/2007 Alan McKinnon(alan@linuxholdings.co.za) wrote
 > On Wednesday 21 February 2007, John covici wrote:
 > > Hi.  I was having major problems getting gnome to work at all when I
 > > discovered that it onlyy works if I login using gdm -- is there
 > > something about the gentoo distribution which has broken startx so
 > > gnome does not run or am I doing something wrong here?
 > 
 > No-one can answer that question for you easily, as you haven't supplied 
 > any information at all beyond that you use startx. It's always a good 
 > idea on a mailing list to supply all relevant data up front
 > 
 > At a minimum we would at least need to know what's in your ~/.xinitrc
 > 
 > To start gnome, it should contain (usually as the last  line):
 > 
 > exec gnome-session

OK, but I had none of that -- I had just installed gnome and all its
packages, so I had no idea that I needed that file -- I figured the
default one would start gnome, if I had gnome installed.

But I have since found an rc.conf variable which takes care of things.

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com
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Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

[Bo Ørsted Andresen]

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On Wednesday 21 February 2007 09:02:59 John covici wrote:
> Hi.  I was having major problems getting gnome to work at all when I
> discovered that it onlyy works if I login using gdm -- is there
> something about the gentoo distribution which has broken startx so
> gnome does not run or am I doing something wrong here?

I'm surprised noone has pointed you to this and based on your replies you 
don't seem to have found it yourself either..

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gnome-config.xml

-- 
Bo Andresen

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Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

[Mrugesh Karnik]

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On Wednesday 21 Feb 2007 18:36:59 Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
> On Wednesday 21 February 2007 13:19, John covici wrote:
> > Yep, that does work, but I had no idea that functionality was even
> > there -- the line was commented out in the file.
>
> That sets a systemwide default. As others suggested, the file ~/.xinitrc
> might be used to choose on a per-user basis the X session to run (it has
> to be created by each user who wants it).

Actually, GDM uses Xsessions and startx uses xinitrc files.

If you look at the /etc/X11/xinitrc file, it looks for and uses the ~/.xinitrc 
file if present. Otherwise, it uses the system default 
of /etc/X11/chooser.sh, which uses the variable XSESSION.

If neither of the methods works, it starts a twm session.

Correct me if I'm wrong please.

HTH.

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Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Wednesday 21 February 2007 13:19, John covici wrote:

> Yep, that does work, but I had no idea that functionality was even
> there -- the line was commented out in the file.

That sets a systemwide default. As others suggested, the file ~/.xinitrc 
might be used to choose on a per-user basis the X session to run (it has 
to be created by each user who wants it).
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Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

[Bo Ørsted Andresen]

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On Wednesday 21 February 2007 13:23:40 John covici wrote:
> OK, but I had none of that -- I had just installed gnome and all its
> packages, so I had no idea that I needed that file -- I figured the
> default one would start gnome, if I had gnome installed.

Nothing prevents you from installing kde, gnome, xfce4, fluxbox and at least 5 
other window managers all at the same time (unless you have a small disk)... 
Hence you have to configure it.

The default is the most minimal of all (twm) which is so ugly that no sane 
person will use it for an extended period of time. That way the default will 
work even if only xorg-server (with the minimal use flag globally disabled) 
has been emerged...

-- 
Bo Andresen

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Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Wednesday 21 February 2007 13:59, Mrugesh Karnik wrote:

> Actually, GDM uses Xsessions and startx uses xinitrc files.
>
> If you look at the /etc/X11/xinitrc file, it looks for and uses the
> ~/.xinitrc file if present. Otherwise, it uses the system default
> of /etc/X11/chooser.sh, which uses the variable XSESSION.
>
> If neither of the methods works, it starts a twm session.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong please.

startx's behavior is explained here:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml#using_startx

If you want to use a display manager, you should set DISPLAYMANAGER 
in /etc/conf.d/xdm.
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Re: [gentoo-user] why does not startx or xinit start gnome?

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Wednesday 21 February 2007 14:41, Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:

> If you want to use a display manager, you should set DISPLAYMANAGER
> in /etc/conf.d/xdm.

and, of course, add xdm to your runlevel.

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