kde & update-alternatives
>From scanning the archives of this list, this seems to be a problem that other people have had in the past, but the *right*
way to solve this still isn't clear to me.
First, I'm using Potato (2.2r5).
I already had XDM & WinowMaker installed & working (if you can call it that). I got the kde packages from kde.debian.net.
After a seemingly succesful install with dselect, I come up in kdm at boot/login but I still go into WindowMaker after login.
When I run:
update-alternatives --config x-window-manager
I have no choice there for anything related to KDE. Reading /usr/doc/kdebase/README.Debian suggests that there
should be something there.
Now, the discussion on this list in the past has seemed to suggest there may just be some inherent incompatabilities
between the way kde treets it's environment and the assumptions about X made by the update-alternatives system, at least
in potato anyway, and the only way to deal with it is to hack around it. (Is that right?)
Hack or not, here's the options that I see. Some from this list some from my own pondering...
1) edit file /etc/kde2/kdrmc, an add kde2 to line saying
SessionTypes=default,failsafe, so that it looks like
SessionTypes=kde2,default,failsafe
or similar but through kcontrol
This seems to bypass the update alternatives mechanism and connect the KDE session into KDM.
2) either
cd /etc/alternatives
ln -s /usr/bin/startkde x-window-manager
(ouch)
or
update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-window-manager x-window-manager /usr/bin/startkde <high priority>
or
update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-window-manager x-window-manager /usr/bin/kde2 <high priority>
Will either of these even work?
3)
update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-session-manager x-session-manager /usr/bin/startkde <high priority>
I belive that KDM is showing up as x-session-manager & it seems to me that this is what I want.
4)
~/.xsession == exec startkde
or
~/.xsession == exec kde2
(Do either of these work? If so are there any drawbacks to this approach?)
5)
Use woody instead.
It's not clear that this solves the problem though. It sounds like it's not exactly airtight in woody either.
So... I just want to know if there is an accepted "best", or *safest*, or at least *conventional* way to solve this problem. I'm
sure that there's varying opinions about whats the "best" way to do anything. I can live with "This is how *most* people
solve this problem..."
I don't think, realistically, that I will ever really upgrade this system($20 garage sale 486 laptop) to woody. Philisophically, I
would like to do things in the *cleanest* possible way. As a professional software engineer, I know that sometimes the
cleanest way to do something is just a big hack.
Any takers?
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