New user, WM/DE help

caecusum · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 19

I've just got Gentoo (and *NIX for that matter) for the first time. My question now, obviously a simple one for most of you, is as follows:
What exactly do I need to do to have a working desktop? In the /etc/rc.conf file I see

DISPLAYMANAGER="xdm"

and

XSESSION="Gnome"

I haven't emerged either and so my system just boots to a prompt. Should I just emerge fluxbox and set XSESSION="Fluxbox" ? Do I need to install XDM as well? Thanks for helping a new user out.

P.S. If this is in the stickies or FAQs, I appologize. I tried searching to no avail.

whitesouls · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 6:59 am Post subject:

...have you decided what WM to choose or are you the person who can't stick to one WM and would like to change according to your mood?

decide this first..
_________________
whitesouls

Please insert the [SOLVED] tag if your problem is solved in your respective thread.

Given M. Sur · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:01 am Post subject:

You do not need a display manager, unless you want one. So you can leave that commented out, or you can emerge one (xdm, gdm, kdm, or entrance) and set it to that.

For the XSESSION, if your going to be using Fluxbox then you'll want it to be XSESSION="fluxbox" (note the lowercase 'f').

martoni · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:02 am Post subject:

First off "Welcome to Gentoo!"

Second off; according to many you already have a working desktop. The command line is extremely powerful and most (if not all) tasks can be done from the command line. I suppose that you want a comfortable windowed desktop.
First you need to

caecusum · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 19

Well, since I'm a brand-spankin' new Linux user I don't have the experience to make a solid decision of my own. I'm not terribly spastic about changing things around regularly and Fluxbox seems to be highly favored and even won the users choice award on linuxquestions.org.

Fluxbox is a WM, right?

If so, that's my choice.[/i]

Given M. Sur · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:04 am Post subject:

caecusum · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 19

Wow. Thanks for the easy-to-follow and extremely speedy responses. Here goes nothin'

I have a feeling I'm going to like this place.

Given M. Sur · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:09 am Post subject:

rush_ad · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:09 am Post subject:

yup, you will.

placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

I like a Openbox as a WM and then the Xfce4 taskbar and panel to polish it off.

Screenshot

Openbox is faster than Fluxbox and it renders fonts better so give it a shot.

caecusum · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2005 Posts: 19

In the interest of testing several WM/DEs: is it a painless process to "emerge --unmerge" the ones I've decided NOT to use?

@ Pwnz3r - So if I wanted to test a setup like yours I would set DISPLAY MANAGER="openbox" and XSESSION="xfce4" after emerging both?

placeholder · Advocate Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500

martoni · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:31 am Post subject:

It usually is, unless you emerge something like the monolithic KDE package, when you risk filling your disk with stuff you never use - there is kde-meta to be had, which just installs the basic stuff.
Using something like Kuroo or Porthole you can easily see what's installed and what you want to remove.

TanNewt · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:32 am Post subject:

Yes, pretty much. That will however leave any dependencies installed with the WM/DE. I'm not sure how-to get them all. Personally, I'm a fluxbox fan.