Re: Changing window managers The Debian Way (was Re: how NOT to work with debian)

[Erik Steffl <steffl@bigfoot.com>]

Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-08-10 at 21:11, Damien Solley wrote:
>
> > Looks like X is running fine. You just need a window manager other than
> > twm!
> > from a console, edit your ~/.xinitrc file. For simplicity, this file can
> > have just one line, reading: 
> > 	startkde
> > 	
> > That'll start kde (if it's installed correctly). Otherwise you can
> > specify: 
> > gnome-session #(To start gnome 2)
> > xterm	#(to start an xterm)
>
>
> Isn't it The Debian Way to do:
> # update-alternatives --config x-window-manager
>
> You may also have to do:
>
> # update-alternatives --config x-session-manager

  I had really BAD experience with this. Once you manually set it, 
theoretically it shouldn't be changed automatically. Unfortunately it 
is. In case of lot of other programs it is not a big deal, but if window 
manager is changed and you restart it the X goes down. Very unpleasant 
experience.

  You can check archives, I already asked about this and it looks like 
it's not really clear who is at fault (I filed bug against (IIRC) 
sawfish which was the offending WM at the time, maintainer closed it 
(instead of reassigning, which IMO would be a better choice), maybe I 
should open another one against update-alternatives?).

	erik