Policy Weekly Issue #4/12: X Window Manager policy

[Christian Schwarz <schwarz@monet.m.isar.de>]

Topic 12: X Window Manager policy

STATE: INPUT

Joey Hess wrote on Mon, 30 Jun 1997 to debian-devel:

     I maintain KDE, which includes a window manager, and I've been
     wondering how
     other window managers handle registering themselves in
     /etc/X11/window-managers. So I took a look at all th window managers.

     Some window managers add themselves to the top of the file, so they
     become the
     default window manager. Others add themselves to the bottom of the
     file, so
     the sysadmin doesn't get a chance to use them as a default window
     manager
     without editing the file. And many window managers don't add
     themselves to the
     file at all.

     Here's a survey I did:

     window manager    adds itself to /etc/X11/window-managers how
     --------------    -------------------------------------------
     kde               adds to bottom
     afterstep         adds to bottom
     fvwm              doesn't do so
     fvwm2             doesn't seem to do so (complex postinst, I just
                       grepped it :-)
     fvwm95            adds to top
     gwm               doesn't do so
     9wm               doesn't do so
     ctwm              doesn't do so
     wm2               doesn't do so
     wmaker            doesn't do so
     olvwm             if olvwm entry not already present, prompt to make
                       default window manager or not, insert line in
                       appropriate place.

     I think olvwm's behavior is the best of the lot, since it gives the
     sysadmin
     a choice (and only asks once, not during upgrades, which is also very
     good
     behavior). I wonder if it'd be a good idea for one of the X packages
     to include a register-window-manager script that could be called from
     the postinst's to handle this, so all window managers functioned
     exactly alike?

Linh Dang suggested:

     Why not make /etc/X11/window-managers a directory which contains
     scripts for
     windows managers. Change /etc/X11/Xsession to start
     /etc/X11/window-managers/default (which is a symlink). A fvwm script
     should looks like:

     #!/bin/sh
     exec fvwm -F /etc/X11/fvwm/system.fvwmrc

I'd prefer Joey's solution: xbase should install a script `install-wm' (or
similar) which is called by all window manager's postinst scripts. The
`install-wm' script will ask the sysadmin where to place the new wm (top
or bottom of the file). 

Any other ideas?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

--          _,,     Christian Schwarz
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