Question about XDM

[Lowell Gilbert]

Antoine Kallab <antoine at kallab.com> writes:

> I am trying to set up XDM. I want it to drop me in to a minimal TWM session
> after I log in. Right now, it just flashes the screen and puts me back at
> the login window.
> From what I read in the handbook, there are a few configuration files in
> /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm that I need to change to get it to sing and dance in
> the way I want it to.

Not the best way for something as simple as what you want to do.

> If I remember correctly, it was Xsession that controlled what happened
> after a user logs in.
> Right now it is just an if/then loop that looks like it runs
> /usr/local/bin/xsm. Is that whole thing necessary? Can't I just tell it to
> run TWM?

Yes. If you look at that script some more, it only runs xsm if you don't
have a .xsession file in your home directory. Creating such a file with
contents as simple as "exec twm" will get you into a session with twm. 

As far as documentation, the FreeBSD Handbook covers this reasonably
well, although I don't think it covers twm specifically. See the section
on starting Gnome for an example.