OT: changing window managers (was: Re: [Pan-users] newbie)

[Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom]

On Sat, May 18, 2002 at 03:16:25PM +0100, sam ende wrote:
> i do actually like pan, mozilla i haven't tried. i loathe netscape; it
> is worse than OE imo.
        netscape 4.x has some definite failings; but keep it around, because
some websites don't recognize mozilla as being an acceptable browser.
        instead of mozilla, try galeon. it's mozilla with a GTK interface
(instead of mozilla's custom widgets); and as such it runs notably faster.
mozilla was unusable on my p166; but galeon ran almost as fast as Netscape.
        if you're a KDE user; Konqeror is a good browser as well. 

> this is lovely, thank you. can i change from kde to gnome easily and
> without losing stuff ?
        absolutely. they're just different ways of managing your desktop.
the windows themselves, and the underlying content, are all the same; it's
just a different way of wrapping things.

if you only have a p166 with 64MB, tho; I'd advise against using the full
GNOME or KDE environments. just use a simple window manager; without the
extra panels and daemons that the desktop environments will start on you.
IceWM is pretty good, if you want something Windows-ish. try a bunch of
them, tho. FVWM, blackbox, windowmaker... and keep in mind that they can be
customized to varying degrees. I use FVWM because I can make it behave
*exactly* as I think it should.

here's how to change your window manager (my way, at least).
1. log in at the console (don't use the GUI login)
2. edit your .xinitrc file (man xinit for more info) and put a line in to exec
your window manager, like so:
/usr/bin/X11/fvwm
(or whatever the path to your preferred WM is).
3. save & exit that file, then type 'startx'

Carl Soderstrom.
-- 
Network Engineer
Real-Time Enterprises
www.real-time.com