Understanding XDM

[Polytropon]

On Wed, 4 Jul 2012 10:40:05 +0200, uki wrote:
> 2012/7/4 Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de>:
> > On Tue, 3 Jul 2012 23:27:21 -0700 (PDT), sw2wolf wrote:
> >> I am using slim to login which can choose Window Manager by pressing F1 key.
> >> Can XDM choose Window Manager when loginning ?
> >
> > No, xdm cannot do this. But as far as I remember, wdm can -- it has
> > some look & feel of the original CDE display manager and it designed
> > to work well with WindowMaker, but it's a very nice replacement for
> > xdm if you need that specific functionality. It's quite lightweight
> > (compared to gdm or kdm) and easily configurable.
> 
> xdm is very simple, it just logs you in and runs a shell script.
> with default settings the shell script just executes your ~/.xinitrc

I always thouzght "startx" (so xinit) executes ~/.xinitrc,
and xdm executes ~/.xession. In fact, I have a "cascade"
for this, so I can use whatever I want.

This is .xsession:

	#!/bin/csh
	source ~/.cshrc
	exec ~/.xinitrc

It does simply obtain the settings for the dialog shell
(in this case, the C shell, the system's default dialog
shell) and continues executing as .xinitrc, just as if
it had been called vial "startx" (so xinit command).

And .xinitrc contains the usual stuff, ending in calling
the window manager desired:

	#!/bin/sh
	[ -f ~/.xmodmaprc ] && xmodmap ~/.xmodmaprc
	# ... other stuff ...
	xsetroot -solid rgb:3b/4c/7a
	xset b 100 1000 15 &
	xset r rate 250 30 &
	xset s off &
	xset -dpms &
	exec wmaker

This of course does not taking into account _changing_ the window
manager while logging in!



> here is an example how to add shutdown button to xdm
> http://neilt.org/computing/xdmshutdownbutton.php
> you can use it as an example to hack your own 'change wm' feature, or
> just use some xdm replacement that has that.

Interesting extension, thanks!



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...