TWM in openSUSE 12.1

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I found several oddities in openSUSE 12.1. I must be doing something wrong.

I tried to switch from Gnome to TWM for a session, but GDM fails to start TWM and just restarts the X server. Switcing to IceWM worked, however.

I figured maybe TWM wasn’t installed and tried to find it in Yast software manager, but couldn’t find any package that had the term “twm” anywhere in its name or description or file list.

However, when I typed “twm” into a terminal, it appeared to exist and announced that another window manager was already running.

In the system config editor I then made TWM the default window manager, but that resulted in a restarting X server again.

Why am I confused?

#2

On 2012-05-27 04:16, ajbrehm wrote:

> I figured maybe TWM wasn’t installed and tried to find it in Yast
> software manager, but couldn’t find any package that had the term “twm”
> anywhere in its name or description or file list.

It is part of the xorg-x11 rpm. It should be found in the file list.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#3

Waow! Switching from Gnome to TWM. Do you want to explore the past of Unix operating systems? A single desktop, black and white bitmaps (see the icons on the right). It’s interesting though, but I don’t know anyonme on Earth who would uses TWM rather than Gnome (even Carlos, who doesn’t like Gnome). I set it up and so I use it occasionally. But I’m not on Earth. Thus it doesn’t count.

It is there. It was there in the first version of SuSE (Well, I started with the second version actually, but I’m quite sure it was in the first version too). It should be the standard window manager for X on all Linux and Unix - except openBSD which uses fvwm (not fvwm2!) by default, but it’s just to be fancy, I guess. But twm is installed there too, since it is part of X.

On my system (I don’t know yours). it starts from startx, xdm, gdm, kdm and lightdm. There is a session .desktop file in /usr/share/xsessions, which allows you to select it from the login screen of the session manager. The value of the Exec key in this file (twm) is passed as argument to Xsession. On this screenshot, I started it from startx. That’s why it uses xinitrc instead.

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg338/scaled.php?server=338&filename=twm02.png&res=crop](http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1008/twm02.png)

#4

On 2012-05-27 06:16, please try again wrote:
>
> Waow! Switching from Gnome to TWM. Do you want to explore the past of
> Unix operating systems? A single desktop, black and white bitmaps (see
> the icons on the right). It’s interesting though, but I don’t know
> anyonme on Earth who would uses TWM rather than Gnome (even Carlos, who
> doesn’t like Gnome). I set it up and so I use it occasionally. But I’m
> not on Earth. Thus it doesn’t count.

I like gnome 2 :slight_smile:

I had forgotten it was like that.

I tried to start it as a second session, using a method that previously
worked, but not now. I also tried kde.


startx kde -- :1

but this outputs an endless flow of text errors. Has to be killed from
another console, ^C does not work.


> cp: cannot stat `/etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config.SuSEconfig': No such file or directory
> rm: cannot remove `/var/adm/SuSEconfig/md5//etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config': Permission denied
> /lib/YaST/SuSEconfig.functions: line 75: /var/adm/SuSEconfig/md5//etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config: Permission denied
> sed: couldn't open temporary file /etc/sysconfig/sed19ahAn: Permission denied
> Warning! MD5DIR is not set: you probably called this script outside SuSEconfig...!
> Using MD5DIR="/var/adm/SuSEconfig/md5"...
> cp: cannot create regular file `/etc/X11/xdm/Xservers.SuSEconfig': Permission denied
> sed: can't read /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers.SuSEconfig: No such file or directory
> sed: can't read /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers.SuSEconfig: No such file or directory
> cat: /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers.SuSEconfig: No such file or directory
> Installing new /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers
> cp: cannot stat `/etc/X11/xdm/Xservers.SuSEconfig': No such file or directory
> rm: cannot remove `/var/adm/SuSEconfig/md5//etc/X11/xdm/Xservers': Permission denied
> /lib/YaST/SuSEconfig.functions: line 75: /var/adm/SuSEconfig/md5//etc/X11/xdm/Xservers: Permission denied
> ln: cannot remove `/var/lib/X11/X': Permission denied
> cp: cannot create regular file `/etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config.SuSEconfig': Permission denied
> sed: can't read /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config.SuSEconfig: No such file or directory
> cat: /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config.SuSEconfig: No such file or directory
> Installing new /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config
> cp: cannot stat `/etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config.SuSEconfig': No such file or directory

So I could not try twm. Something wrong in my system with startx, but I
have not investigated.

No idea why it calls susecondifg :-?

> ‘[image:
> http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg338/scaled.php?server=338&filename=twm02.png&res=crop]’
> (http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1008/twm02.png)

It doesn’t look that bad :slight_smile:

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#5

Hummm … That startx does not work without tweaking is normal. It is supposed to be deprecated. We’ve discussed that before and it must be mentioned in the release notes of some previous release (maybe 11.4). I have no problem starting another X session using my own startx (which I named startX to distinguish it from the system one). I don’t even need to specify a screen number, because it’s kind of obvious that if one would run startx within X, it would only make sense on another screen. But I don’t want to post this script here. Not that I don’t want to share it, but I’m not sure it would be wise. Further I’m not sure it would be sufficient, because startx is not the only thing I modified. All the xinitrc, Xsession, etc on my systems have not much in common with the default ones.

When i type “startX twm” in a terminal in a Gnome session, it just start another X session with twm on the next available screen. I can switch between the two with ALT-CTRL-F2 and ALT-CTRL-F3. I’m not sure why this keys. I first had thougth, it woul be ALT-CTRL-F7 and ALT-CTRL-F8.

But I don’t know why you could not log out from Gnome (or whatever) and re-log in in twm from any session manager. It has always worked and I do it kind of on a daily basis, whenever I need to check if everything which works under Gnome (well, let’s say “most things”) will also work under twm,ctwm (it’s in my repo), mwm, fvwm2, icewm, etc. Thus I don’t see where is the problem in fact. If there is a bug in twm, I might have fixed it without even knowing how. lol!

No idea either. But this file not found message with SuSEconfig rings a bell. I’ll pay attention next time I see it.

The default twm never looked like that. :slight_smile:

#6

Looking at the .desktop files provided with the different packages (I mean not added by myself) in /usr/share/xsessions, I see there is one for twm, which means that it is intended to be started from any session manager. The file /usr/share/xsessions/twm.desktop is included in xorg-x11 package too.

#7

On 2012-05-28 01:36, please try again wrote:

> Hummm … That startx does not work without tweaking is normal. It is
> supposed to be deprecated. We’ve discussed that before and it must be
> mentioned in the release notes of some previous release (maybe 11.4).

It worked before, and the published notes only talk about the permissions
of Xorg. Mine is a different problem which I haven’t bothered to
investigate and today the bite.

>
> When i type “startX twm” in a terminal in a Gnome session, it just
> start another X session with twm on the next available screen. I can
> switch between the two with ALT-CTRL-F2 and ALT-CTRL-F3. I’m not sure
> why this keys. I first had thougth, it woul be ALT-CTRL-F7 and
> ALT-CTRL-F8.

Mine worked with …F7 …8, but not if called inside the gnome session.

>
> But I don’t know why you could not log out from Gnome (or whatever) and
> re-log in in twm from any session manager.

Ha! Because I use 4*3 desktops, half of them filled with things. many
terminals with things inside, and it takes me about 10 minutes to restart
them all, or more.

For that reason I use hibernation in my desktop, and it is a nuisance when
it fails.

>> No idea why it calls susecondifg :-?
>>
>
> No idea either. But this file not found message with SuSEconfig rings a
> bell. I’ll pay attention next time I see it.

It was running as user, so it had to fail somehow. As root in a terminal
SuSEconfig works fine.

>> It doesn’t look that bad :slight_smile:
>>
>
> The default twm never looked like that. :slight_smile:

Ah! :slight_smile:

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#8

On 2012-05-28 01:46, please try again wrote:
>
> Looking at the .desktop files provided with the different packages (I
> mean not added by myself) in /usr/share/xsessions, I see there is one
> for twm, which means that it is intended to be started from any session
> manager. The file /usr/share/xsessions/twm.desktop is included in
> xorg-x11 package too.

Weird.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

#9

Maybe the difference is that icewm is “sessioned” and “sessionable” while twm is not. There are indeed two binaries icewm and icewm-session. /usr/share/desktop/icewm.desktop launches icewm-session. /usr/share/desktop/twm.desktop launches twm. There is no twm-session. Just a thought. Obviously advanced desktops like KDE, Gnome and XFCE are always run as sessions.

#10

Just for the heck of it, I selected “TWM” on the GDM menu. And it loaded up GDM. All I saw was a plain blue background, with nothing on it (a bare desktop). But a left click of the mouse gave me a menu, from which I could open some programs.

I don’t have a $HOME/.xinitrc on that computer.

I wouldn’t normally use twm. I do sometimes use icewm.

#11

Which means that it just works as expected.