Bug#838777: Policy 11.8.4 for x-window-manager needs update for freedesktop menus
Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> writes:
> Based on some conversations on #debian-devel on the purpose of
> x-window-manager (as launched by
> /etc/X11/Xsession.d/50x11-common_determine-startup), it seems like a
> window manager that just manages windows, and expects a separately
> launched menu/taskbar program or desktop environment to provide the
> ability for the user to launch programs or otherwise do anything useful,
> shouldn't register an x-window-manager alternative at all. Otherwise,
> the user might end up staring at a desktop they can't interact with at
> all.
Er, this seems to imply that twm shouldn't register as x-window-manager,
which sounds wrong and isn't how Debian has ever worked. Or am I
misunderstanding what you mean by "just manages windows"?
I realize that nearly everyone uses a desktop environment these days, but
it used to be very common to just launch a windows manager and then use
~/.xsession to launch some xterms, and I don't think we want to break that
functionality unless something is actually broken now. I'm sure someone
is still doing this. Last time I checked, startx relies on the
x-window-manager alternative to figure out what to start, so removing that
alternative would break such a setup.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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