KDE vs Gnome

[Mark Ovens]

Chris wrote:
> Sandbox Video Productions wrote:
>> IF i install both gnome & kde. how do i choose which
>> one i want to start up. It seem that it only starts
>> the GUI that was installed last.
>> 
>> 
>> 		
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> 
> Depends.
> 
> 1. Are you using KDM? If so, you make your choice at the login menu.
> 2. If not above, edit .xinitrc and comment out one IE:
> 
> exec startkde
> #gnome-session
> #exec startxfce4
> #exec startfluxbox
> 
> In the above example, KDE starts after entering startx
> 
> #exec startkde
> gnome-session
> #exec startxfce4
> #exec startfluxbox
> 
> In the above example, Gnome starts ater entering startx
> 

Even easier, if you want to avoid editing ~/.xinitrc everytime you want 
to change between the two, you could add a case statement in ~/.xinitrc 
to handle args to startx(1):

case "$1" in
	-k)	exec startkde
		;;
	-g)	gnome-session
		;;
	*)	exec startkde
		;;
esac

The '*' case being the default if there are no args.

For this to work you have to hack /usr/X11R6/bin/startx and change the line

defaultclient=/usr/X11R6/bin/xterm

to

defaultclient=""

because if you specify any (client) args then startx(1) just starts X 
and an xterm - no window manager.

The last time I used multiple WMs was in XFree86 3.x and I'm certain I 
didn't have to hack startx so it looks like the behaviour has changed, 
or it maybe that it was just so long ago that I've forgotten :-)

See startx(1) and xinit(1) for details of the default startup behaviour.

HTH

Regards,

Mark