Gdm not recognizing window manager

Gdm not recognizing window manager

[Patrick Pippen]

Greetings I just installed GUIX 1.4.0 over the weekend with XFCE. Then I installed Bspwm and sxhkd. Then I created a .xsession  file with only this content: exec bspwm 

Restarted laptop tried logging in and it only goes back to login screen. My question is with gdm how do I get gdm to allow me to choose between XFCE and Bspwm?

Sent from my iPhone

Re: GDM not recognizing window manager; ChooseWM

[James R. Haigh (+ML.GNU.Guix subaddress)]

Hi Patrick,

At Z-0500=2023-08-07Mon08:15:57, Patrick Pippen sent:
> […] My question is with gdm how do I get gdm to allow me to choose between XFCE and Bspwm?

I don't know about GDM since haven't used it in years, but you may find ChooseWM a useful alternative.  Very simple, simply starts X11 with a fullscreen window asking your choice of preferred window manager for this session, in my case I3WM, BSPWM, & XMonad, with I3WM being the default selection.

	Even seems to come back to ChooseWM upon a window manager crash, which is very useful, because you can just start your window manager again and no data is lost except for your window layouts, although such crashes are very rare for I3WM in my experience.

	I nolonger use GDM or Gnome due to bloat and poor performance on the ancient hardware that I like to keep going for as long as possible to avoid electronic waste.  Increasingly, I only use console software (CLI, TUI, or Linux framebuffer) wherever possible, but still use X11 and I3WM for applications that I have not yet found a console alternative.

Kind regards,
James.
-- 
Wealth doesn't bring happiness, but poverty brings sadness.
Sent from Debian with Claws Mail, using email subaddressing as an alternative to error-prone heuristical spam filtering.

Re: Gdm not recognizing window manager

[Mario Forzanini]

On 8/7/23 15:15, Patrick Pippen wrote:
> Greetings I just installed GUIX 1.4.0 over the weekend with XFCE. Then I installed Bspwm and sxhkd. Then I created a .xsession  file with only this content: exec bspwm
> 
> Restarted laptop tried logging in and it only goes back to login screen. My question is with gdm how do I get gdm to allow me to choose between XFCE and Bspwm?

Hi,
I think I had a similar problem some time ago, the trick that made it work for 
me was making sure that the .xsession file was executable, i.e.

$ chmod +x $HOME/.xsession

Anyway, if you install the window manager in the system config, an xsession file 
should be installed along with the package in a place where GDM can find it, at 
least this is what other window managers do. Once you've done that you should 
see BSPWM appear among the login options.

Hope this helps!
-- 
Mario

Re: Gdm not recognizing window manager

[Patrick Pippen]

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 9, 2023, at 7:05 PM, Mario Forzanini <mf@marioforzanini.com> wrote:
> 
> On 8/7/23 15:15, Patrick Pippen wrote:
>> Greetings I just installed GUIX 1.4.0 over the weekend with XFCE. Then I installed Bspwm and sxhkd. Then I created a .xsession  file with only this content: exec bspwm
>> Restarted laptop tried logging in and it only goes back to login screen. My question is with gdm how do I get gdm to allow me to choose between XFCE and Bspwm?
> 
> Hi,
> I think I had a similar problem some time ago, the trick that made it work for me was making sure that the .xsession file was executable, i.e.
Definitely that got things to work for me thanks.
> 
> $ chmod +x $HOME/.xsession
> 
> Anyway, if you install the window manager in the system config, an xsession file should be installed along with the package in a place where GDM can find it, at least this is what other window managers do. Once you've done that you should see BSPWM appear among the login options.
> 
> Hope this helps!
> -- 
> Mario
>