Confused about x's and wm's

Daniel_2 · n00b Joined: 11 Sep 2004 Posts: 55

I just finished installing. As the guide doesn't really guide after this point, I decided Graphical User Interface is my next goal.
I've read some documentation, but the very very base still confuses me.
I know KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox etc.. are Window Managers, but I do not understand
1. What x is? Is it a window manager also? I think not, so what exactly is its role?
2. what are the differences between x,xorg,xfree86 etc..?
3. If it is necessary, what actually do I need to do? Just emerge X/xorg/whatever, and then emerge Gnome for example?

Thanks.

Raoul_Duke · Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 7:44 pm Post subject:

You need X (graphical server), so emerge xorg.

Then choose KDE, Gnome etc.

Enjoy
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richk449 · Guru Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 345

Quick answers (not complete, just simple):

1., 2. What is x? X is the "backend" that allows you to run anything graphical. There are two programs that can provide this: xfree86 and x.org. x.org is now considered the standard, so you should use it. All X does is provide the ability to run graphical stuff - you need to choose a windowmanager (or desktop environment - a desktop environment is just a windowmanager with all kinds of extras thrown in) to actually interact with.

3. What do you need to do?

a) You need to first choose an X implementation (i just suggested you choose x.org above), and follow these instructions: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xorg-config.xml
b) Then you need to choose a windowmanager. If you are not sure, choose either KDE or Gnome. DONT start a thread asking which one to use - there are already 39548934 of them. Just pick one, and try it. If you are really torn, just choose based on whether K or G is closest to the first letter in your last name.
The Gnome install guide is:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gnome-config.xml
and the KDE instal guide is:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/kde-config.xml

In general, you will want to follow many of the docs listed here:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/desktop.xml
in order to set up your desktop.

OK?

codergeek42 · Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 7:49 pm Post subject:

This site may help (though a littl outdated, the information on it about how X and WM/DE's work is still true.):

http://www.xwinman.org/
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Daniel_2 · n00b Joined: 11 Sep 2004 Posts: 55

Thank you.
I emerged xorg, now going to config it and later emerge gnome.
BTW, I did emerge -pv gnome, and few strange thing came up:
1. It said that the total of all packages it will merge is 200+ MB. There were alot of packages, most of them around 500k to 5mb, but there's no way they could make it to 200mb. The problem is that it didn't show how much the last package, gnome itself weights, I think it threw an error. Why?
2. I noticed the Mozilla for example, was also in the packages. why? I don't need it, why would it emerge in order to install gnome?

mercurator · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:06 am Post subject:

Welcome to portage! Mozilla is a dependency for gnome. A dependency is a program which is needed in order for annother program to run properly. So you could say "gnome depends on mozilla", in annother words, mozilla is a dependency of gnome. Therefore, unless you emerge mozilla, gnome won't work as it should ( or at least parts of it won't ). Don't worry about those 200MBytes, you'll get there. Kde also consists of a bunch of programs which aren't larger that 10MBytes, but there's allot of them and so KDE gets about 250M large. However, all must be emerged without errors, so if you get some report them.

Good luck!
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VisionD · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 10:18 am Post subject:

Hi Daniel_2,

there is a way to emerge a pretty basic gnome without some dependencies with the gnome-light ebuild. Maybe you would prefer that one (i think it even lacks the dependency of good old mozilla).

Greetz
VisionD
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1. Athlon XP 2,4 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 9700 Pro GraCa
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Daniel_2 · n00b Joined: 11 Sep 2004 Posts: 55

Thanks all, but unfortunately, I need to get xorg working before gnome :\
It just wouldn't work.
The automatic way didn't, and also xorgconfig. mouse doesn't work at all (although it's optical and the light is on), and the keyboard, all the keys *but* the letter ones and some others, work.
I tried misc configurations with xorgconfig.
What can I do? :\

VisionD · Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 11:08 am Post subject:

First you should give us a little more information about your hardware or no one will be able to help you :wink:

Search the forum for qusetion about X.Org. There are very many good config files out there and maybe you can find some usable information there.

Otherwise hit back and give us some more infos about your errors (Error Logs, ...) and your hardware.

Greetz
VisionD
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My systems:

1. Athlon XP 2,4 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 9700 Pro GraCa
2. Dell Inspiron 8600, 1.5GHz Centrino, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 9600 Mobile GraCa

Naib · Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 11:31 am Post subject:

hi, the ebuild GNOMe itself has no size, it doesnt d/l anything. Concider it a sanity ebuild. it can only be emerged when every little bit to do with GNOME is emerged.

REmember this isnt windows that has 1 big file that when it is fooked all of it is fooked. The UNIX philosophy is lots of little programs that do their job very well. Hence why there are alot of components to GNOME.

As the X and WM. concider this. Treat Xorg/Xfree as a driver. It provides all window managers with instructions on how to draw to the monitor (X then passes this info the GFX driver via kernel to do the actual drawing).

It would be a pain in the arse if KDE/GNOME/Windowmanager/... had to as well as write code to do all the pretty stuff, also the code to do the basic stuff

Daniel_2 · n00b Joined: 11 Sep 2004 Posts: 55

Thanks naib for the explanation.
Vision-D, I did, there were all sort of problems, not like mine :\.
My mouse and keyboard are microsoft's (I don't like them, but dad got them for free.. :\). On thing to note is that they're usb, and that they're connected to a pci usb controller, and not directly to to mobo's usb connetcions, since they stopped working a while ago.
Screen is iiyama vision master pro 454, gpu is nvidia geforce 4 4400.

VisionD · Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2004 11:13 am Post subject:

Hi,

i don't really know how experienced with Linux you are.

So are i am starting with some ideas. Are you sure you have USB support in your kernel??

Did you emerge the nvidia stuff? I have an ATI card and don't reallly know how to configure X for NVidia cards. Maybe you can search for that.

Greetz
VisionD
_________________
My systems:

1. Athlon XP 2,4 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 9700 Pro GraCa
2. Dell Inspiron 8600, 1.5GHz Centrino, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 9600 Mobile GraCa