Topic 12: X Window Manager policy
STATE: INPUT
Joey Hess wrote on Mon, 30 Jun 1997 to debian-devel:
I maintain KDE, which includes a window manager, and I've been
wondering how
other window managers handle registering themselves in
/etc/X11/window-managers. So I took a look at all th window managers.
Some window managers add themselves to the top of the file, so they
become the
default window manager. Others add themselves to the bottom of the
file, so
the sysadmin doesn't get a chance to use them as a default window
manager
without editing the file. And many window managers don't add
themselves to the
file at all.
Here's a survey I did:
window manager adds itself to /etc/X11/window-managers how
-------------- -------------------------------------------
kde adds to bottom
afterstep adds to bottom
fvwm doesn't do so
fvwm2 doesn't seem to do so (complex postinst, I just
grepped it :-)
fvwm95 adds to top
gwm doesn't do so
9wm doesn't do so
ctwm doesn't do so
wm2 doesn't do so
wmaker doesn't do so
olvwm if olvwm entry not already present, prompt to make
default window manager or not, insert line in
appropriate place.
I think olvwm's behavior is the best of the lot, since it gives the
sysadmin
a choice (and only asks once, not during upgrades, which is also very
good
behavior). I wonder if it'd be a good idea for one of the X packages
to include a register-window-manager script that could be called from
the postinst's to handle this, so all window managers functioned
exactly alike?
Linh Dang suggested:
Why not make /etc/X11/window-managers a directory which contains
scripts for
windows managers. Change /etc/X11/Xsession to start
/etc/X11/window-managers/default (which is a symlink). A fvwm script
should looks like:
#!/bin/sh
exec fvwm -F /etc/X11/fvwm/system.fvwmrc
I'd prefer Joey's solution: xbase should install a script `install-wm' (or
similar) which is called by all window manager's postinst scripts. The
`install-wm' script will ask the sysadmin where to place the new wm (top
or bottom of the file).
Any other ideas?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- _,, Christian Schwarz
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