Re: Is gnome built on top of twm?
On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 16:10, Tony Baldwin <photodharma@gmail.com> wrote:
> Foss User wrote:
>>
>> Please see the following output I generated from Squeeze.
>>
>> $ aptitude why twm
>> i gnome Depends gnome-desktop-environment (=
>> 1:2.24.3~2)
>> i A gnome-desktop-environment Depends gdm (>= 2.20.9)
>> i A gdm Depends gnome-session |
>> x-session-manager | x-window-manager | x-terminal-emulator
>> i twm Provides x-window-manager
>>
>> 1. It shows that twm was installed because gdm needs a window manager
>> and twm is one such window manager. Does it mean that gnome is
>> dependent on twm?
>>
>> 2. Is it possible to run gnome with some other window manager?
>>
>> 3. I am unable to see any twm process in the ps listing. Why?
>>
>> 4. Can someone share the equivalent 'aptitude why' output from a
>> system running KDE?
>>
>>
>
> I've been kind of wondering, myself, why twm was installed on my system.
> I haven't used twm in a looong time, and that was on a PCLinuxOS install,
> iirc, and not since moving to Lenny.
> Oh, and I don't even have gnome.
> Now, somehow, gnome did get briefly installed...dunno why, and I removed it
> shortly thereafter. I didn't see anything that I wanted get removed by
> removing it, either...
>
> Btw, to my knowledge, gnome uses metacity for wm, as default, but, yes, can
> be used with other wms.
> You can, for instance, run gnome with openbox for the wm.
>
> Okay, back to twm...
>
> I did this:
> deathstar:/home/tony# apt-cache showpkg twm
> Package: twm
> Versions:
> 1:1.0.4-2
> (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-i386_Packages)
> (/var/lib/dpkg/status)
> Description Language:
> File:
> /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-i386_Packages
> MD5: 68a4936c620d35f590b904c66528006f
>
>
> Reverse Depends:
> x11-common,twm 7.0
> Dependencies:
> 1:1.0.4-2 - menu (2 2.1.26) libc6 (2 2.7-1) libice6 (2 1:1.0.0) libsm6 (0
> (null)) libx11-6 (0 (null)) libxext6 (0 (null)) libxmu6 (0 (null)) libxt6 (0
> (null)) x11-common (2 1:7.0.0)
> Provides:
> 1:1.0.4-2 - x-window-manager
> Reverse Provides:
>
>
> I tried aptitude remove twm, just see what happens, and it wanted to remove
> libconfuse0{u} as well...So, I was wondering what else might need this lib.
>
> deathstar:/home/tony# apt-cache showpkg libconfuse
> W: Unable to locate package libconfuse
> deathstar:/home/tony# apt-cache showpkg libconfuse0
> Package: libconfuse0
> Versions:
> 2.6-2
> (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-i386_Packages)
> (/var/lib/dpkg/status)
> Description Language:
> File:
> /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-i386_Packages
> MD5: 1e6976bd8fbc79bd2f585940f4297cfa
>
>
> Reverse Depends:
> tilda,libconfuse0 2.5-1
> somaplayer,libconfuse0 2.5
> pommed,libconfuse0 2.5-1
> openser-carrierroute-module,libconfuse0 2.5-1
> libsomaplayer0,libconfuse0 2.5
> libsds0,libconfuse0 2.5
> libconfuse-dev,libconfuse0 2.6-2
> gpomme,libconfuse0 2.5-1
> ftdi-eeprom,libconfuse0 2.5-1
> awesome,libconfuse0 2.5-1
> Dependencies:
> 2.6-2 - libc6 (2 2.7-1)
> Provides:
> 2.6-2 -
> Reverse Provides:
>
>
> Looks like awesome (awm) needs libconfuse, but I had only installed that and
> tested it briefly, and removed it, and, iirc, twm was on my system before I
> tried awm.
> I'm not sure, but I supposed, after all that, that it looks like it maybe
> would be safe for me to remove it (both twm and libconfuse0{u}.
> The couple of things that still make me wonder are that
> twm provides x-window-manager, but I have other window managers, clearly,
> since I'm not using twm (using Ion3 at the moment), and that
> twm provide menu.
> So I looked at
> apt-cache showpkg x-window-manager...
> Hmmm...Looks like LXDE depends on that, and I do use LXDE/Openbox,
> sometimes. Also ion2 depends on that, but I'm using ion3...maybe that does,
> too.
>
> Oh no...wait...twm depends on menu, not the other way around.
>
> All in all, I'm confused. I may be misunderstanding the information
> apt-cache showpkg is giving me.
> It seems that if i remove twm, I lose use of any other wm, because
> x-window-manager depends on it....but that makes no sense to me at all,
> because I've run window managers without twm...at least on other systems
> (fedora, pclinuxos and ubuntu).
> Then again, I can't figure out why I had to install the entire dwm just to
> get slock, either. Makes no sense.
> The only way to get slock without installing dwm appears to be to download
> and install from source. Of course, that takes all of about 3 minutes...but
> I do prefer to use official Debian approved packages.
> It just seems there are some oddly/arbitrarily imposed dependencies going on
> here...because I know I can run slock without dwm...
>
> Likewise, I can run openbox and should be able to run LXDE without
> xscreensaver (and use slock to the lock the screen), but if I attempt to
> aptitude remove xscreensaver, it wants to remove all of LXDE, too.
> So why does x-window-manager need twm? I don't know.
> Just weird...
Just run Aptitude in interactive mode, remove twm/anything else you
do not want, and then see what else aptitude then wants to remove.
In interactive mode it is easy to go through many revisions and sort
out what you don't want and what you actually need.
Cheers,
Kelly Clowers
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