On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 13:58:39 -0600 Kent West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Joe wrote: > > >Hi Kent I do not mean to bother you but I am confused. If I have X running > >it shows a GNOME desktop. Is this correct? X is the underlying "server" and > >GNOME is what I see? I was under the impression that X is a Desktop such as > >KDE or GNOME. > > > > > The X "server" is the underlying "graphical system"; it's generic in > that you can have all sorts of "clients" running on top of it. > > Clients such as Gnome, KDE, wmaker, icewm, fluxbox, xterm, firefox, > konqueror, etc run on top of X. > > Some clients, such as xterm and firefox, if run as the only clients on > top of X, would appear to be all there is to the computer. > > Other clients, called window managers, add such things as title bars and > the maximize/minimize buttons to the clients such as xterm and firefox. > > You can have a "desktop environment", such as Gnome or KDE, that > includes both the window manager and a collection of clients that work > well together. In the case of KDE (I'm not that familiar with Gnome), > KDE is composed of the window manager "kwm" and a host of other clients > such as the file manager / web browser client called "konqueror" and the > game ktux and the KDE Control Panel, etc etc etc, all running on top of X. > > It's possible to run X by itself without having any clients running; in > such as case, all you'll see is a grayish hatched background with a > mouse pointer. If you were then to start an xterm on top of that > instance of X, you'd see a terminal window on top of the grayish hatched > background. If you were to start a window manager also, such as fluxbox, > your xterm window would gain the title bar and max/min/close buttons, > etc., along with any other goodies provided by that particular window > manager. If you were to start an entire desktop environment such as KDE > or Gnome, you'd get all of the above plus menus and multiple desktops > and file managers and control panels and taskbars and clocks on the > taskbar and and and etc. > > To see how some of this might work, stop any login manager you have > running (like with the command "/etc/init.d/gdm stop", as root). > > Then, all as a normal user, create the file "~/.xinitrc", and put in it > the single line "xterm". Now start X manually with the command "startx". > You should see the single client "xterm" running on top of X. Notice it > does not have any window "decorations". Type "exit" within the xterm to > leave X. > > Now edit "~/.xinitrc", and add the line "icewm &" above the "xterm" > line, and restart X with "startx". Now you'll see the xterm has window > decorations, along with the other goodies provided by the icewm window > manager. (The "&" puts icewm "in the background", otherwise the xterm > would not run until the icewm was exitted.) > > Kill X, and edit your .xinitrc file, and take out the "xterm" line; if > you "startx" now, X will start, icewm will start, icewm will go into the > "background", and the system will read the next line in .xinitrc, which > doesn't exist, so the system will think it's finished, and X will die. > (You probably won't see icewm load; it'll all happen rather quickly.) > > So remove the "&" so that icewm doesn't go into the background, and try > again. This time X starts, and icewm starts, and you've got a functional > X instance with icewm as your window manager. > > You can use any other window manager (such as twm, or fluxbox, or > wmaker, etc) or client (such as firefox, or ktux, etc). > > When you've finished tinkering/experimenting, you can restart your > normal login manager with "/etc/init.d/gmd start". > > Hope this helps you understand things. Kent, that has to be one of the best down-and-dirty explanations I've ever seen. Certainly helped me a lot. A > > -- > Kent > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
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