Setting default WIndow Manager

[hem852]

Can someone please please tell me how I change the default Window manager/desktop enviroment in Redhat 7....Tried everthing I can think of but as I'm a 'Linux Virgin' that wasn't much!

Thanks in advance for any help!

[tallulah]

There is a file in /etc/sysconfig called desktop. It lists one word in all caps. You can change your default with that file. Mine was KDE, for example, and I changed it to BLACKBOX. Now whenever I startx, I get BlackBox and no more KDE. Hope this works for you with Red Hat, too.

[hem852]

Thanks for that....

Tried it, my file says KDE but I'm not getting KDE by default.

Any other ideas? I'd like to set the machine to boot to the gui, use a graphical login and then start KDE.

At the moment, if I set it to boot to run level 5 I get all the graphical login but I cant seem to get it to run KDE as the desktop enviroment.

Cheers
John

[dvdnut]

cool but is there a way to run from cli a different manager without editing a file

such as
startx kde
or startx gnome

or something similar?

[tallulah]

If you can get to the "Mandrake Control Center," which might have once been called "Linuxconf," there is an option for booting. You just check the radio button for your preferred method of logging in (graphical or CLi) and preferred desktop manager. I do not know which file(s) to modify to add more choices to the graphical login menu. Sorry, I saw it once but forgot.
:(

[Pras]

You can edit your ~/.xinitrc file and add something like 'exec kde' to it. If the kde binary isn't in your path, add the full location.

[slayer17]

vi .xinitrc
exec /usr/bin/enlightenment
:wq

[Rob 'Feztaa' Park]

Originally posted by Pras:
<STRONG>You can edit your ~/.xinitrc file and add something like 'exec kde' to it. If the kde binary isn't in your path, add the full location.</STRONG>

That's what I did when I switched to blackbox and changed default runlevel to 3...

However, this has two problems:

1. This has no effect on the wm listed as 'default' in the graphical login menu's drop down wm selection.

2. This only actually works if your default runlevel is 3, and you're using startx (runlevel 5 doesn't care about your .xinitrc file)

[UltraMagnus]

Someone may have already mentioned this and if it doesn't work, it was worth a try but try this. Type in:

xwmconfig

This way you can select your default window manager for X. Just trying to throw in my two cents.