> Thanks for the info. Ideally i would like to log-in on the console and
> then go into X manually by running the X command. I am sure when X was
> set-up the configurator (which I was not aware) set-up the system to run
> on X on successful boot-up or start of the system. is there a way i can
> achieve this?? by editing a config file??
The init scripts are surely set up to run one of the display managers -
look in /etc/rc2.d/ for a symlink named S99xdm, S99kdm, S99gdm... something
like that :) Hopefully only one of those, in fact. Anyways get rid of
the symlink and ir won't create a GUI based login anymore, you'll just normally
arrive at a console.
I like to set up runlevel 2 so it behaves the way the .deb's set things up,
runlevel 3 so it behaves like *I* have set things to be.
> and then when I log-into X I
> need some xterms (atleast!!) to work with. right now the X screen is just
> blank!!
By the way, I wouldn't run just
X
to launch the windowing system,
startx
actually is the script which does useful things like invoke a window manager,
run the clients you've selected in (your home directory/.xinitrc, etc.
Okay, let me correct that. I *often* run just X - to test that a given
server is addressing the screen correctly - but once a system is happy with
that, I run startx.
Also worth mentioning: there a wide variety of window managers available for
X. WIndow managers are important because they are the program that manages
which other apps get the input focus, paints scrollbars and titlebars, all
those things that really make it a GUI.
I dunno what your own preferences for how things look, versus how much
CPU you're willing to spend on making things look cool instead of getting
real work done. In order of lighti to heavy CPU usage I
dislike wm (a bit toooo light on feature!)
like flwm ("fast light window manager")
like blackbox
dislike gwm (blame this on limited exp. tho)
like fvwm (my everyday wm)
like icewm
like enlightenment (but average themes are heavy, I
replaced that with a custom theme)
like sawfish (used to be called sawmill)
...and heartily enjoy having installed the "menu" package so menus are
auto generated to be aware of stuff I have installed.
There are other wm's I have not tried personally. It's possible to run
without one but impossible to switch windows easily, which makes using a
GUI no fun. Sawfish and enlightenment are about even in my book, but many
have claimed sawfish is lighter. I think that's the default theme talking.
If you want to make your desk do something really strange and wonderful it
will suck up a lot of CPU power for such themes, and this is true for all
the themeable window managers. However Helix Gnome definitely behaves better
with sawfish, and most other gnome bits I've tried were ... um, fragile.
> any suggestion on where I can get more info on setting this up or any
> suggestions from any one are welcome.
I know it's amazing to believe but there is a great deal of documentation
available on a debian system under /usr/doc and /usr/share/doc. If you
have a bunch of room you could even install several wm's (if you do this,
install the one you want to use most, last, so that it will make itself the
default for you). Then you can look at all their docs and compare notes.
Well, I hope that my comments have been useful; enjoy your new system!
* Heather Stern * star@ many places...
