Installation of Multiple Window Managers

[smittyvanilli]

I heard great details about MX-Linux and I'm kind of tired of getting things like unexpected boot up errors in Archlinux. I like it better when something works out of the box! At least I tried, I suppose!

Anyway, that was to explain my background. Additionally, I've tried several other distributions, but never "a home" I completely enjoyed. I love the community I've heard about and the documentation. This, I believe, tells a lot about the distro in hand. Stablity is a must!

My question is, does MX-Linux allow to install multiple window managers for me to install, such as Openbox, i3, and Awesome? I would love to have all of those three installed! As you may tell, I enjoy minimalism.

[Jerry3904]

There are users running those here. Just install, then select up at the top on the login screen.

[gimcrack]

There are users running those here. Just install, then select up at the top on the login screen.

Some don't automatically show up on your login screen(Display Manager). These three might, I haven't check them out, if they do or not. But if they don't show up after logging out, I always add them to my xsession. So they all will appear on my Display Manager.

[smittyvanilli]

That is confirmation I needed.

I could be wrong, however perhaps it was installing the latest KDE Plasma that was at fault, as I've read it has great ability for customization and part of me wanted me to see if I could install it! I also have read about KWin, which is a seperate, but installable window manager within the KDE Desktop Environment.

For new users, I would say Archlinux really is best for those who know a lot more about Linux, in my personal view. I still have much in Linux to learn!

Also, having experienced the many DEs out there, I have the most liking for XFCE and enjoy Openbox, as well as learning the others I mentioned out there, such as i3, and AwesomeWM.

[Paul..]

We all have extraordinary respect for Arch here. The Arch Wiki is a fantastic, deep technical resource.

[smittyvanilli]

Yes, I agree the Arch Wiki and also the Gentoo Wiki are great resources to learn from and are great distros. One can learn even by installing Archlinux in a VM (Virtual Machine for new users) , which I will be doing in the future. Perhaps I can replicate what I did wrong if it was my own doing, however I'm strung for time in the process!

This is the beauty of Linux, in my opinion. The education never ceases! And I haven't even mentioned the Linux From Scratch project, as well as Nutyx distro, which is based on LFS. At some point, for education, I would love to learn from the LFS project.

[gimcrack]

Yes, I agree the Arch Wiki and also the Gentoo Wiki are great resources to learn from and are great distros. One can learn even by installing Archlinux in a VM (Virtual Machine for new users) , which I will be doing in the future. Perhaps I can replicate what I did wrong if it was my own doing, however I'm strung for time in the process!

This is the beauty of Linux, in my opinion. The education never ceases! And I haven't even mentioned the Linux From Scratch project, as well as Nutyx distro, which is based on LFS. At some point, for education, I would love to learn from the LFS project.

Install the three Window Managers and tell us if they appear in your Display Manager after you log out. If not, we can tell you how to make them appear in your Display Manager. Or you can just have Arch WiKi tell you. Arch WiKi ain't just for Arch users you know.

Session configuration

Many display managers read available sessions from /usr/share/xsessions/ directory. It contains standard desktop entry files for each DM/WM.

To add/remove entries to your display manager's session list; create/remove the .desktop files in /usr/share/xsessions/ as desired. A typical .desktop file will look something like:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Openbox
Comment=Log in using the Openbox window manager (without a session manager)
Exec=/usr/bin/openbox-session
TryExec=/usr/bin/openbox-session
Icon=openbox.png
Type=Application

Which you also can created ~/.Xsession in $HOME so you don't have to worry about permissions. There is also your Debian WiKi as well.
https://wiki.debian.org/Xsession

[smittyvanilli]

I am so thankful that I've went to this distro, as I learned something I didn't even know, including about what was going on with my experience in Archlinux. I thought I'd share it with the community.

If I'm not mistaken, I might have tried to install the latest video drivers, which I made the same exact mistake here! I've found the solution to this related problem in MX-Linux:
https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=43509

However, I new something was wrong when upon installing the MX Test NVidia proprietary graphics driver install went with flaw, as when I rebooted, all kinds of messages were coming up in a different resolution and I knew that was a "red flag" about something. Why did I install this? I thought there were prior bugs fixed and enhancements in the drivers made.

This was the command on that post that fixed the issue:

Code: Select all

sudo ddm-mx -p nvidia

Having said that, today, I just happened to glance on page 20/182 of the MX-18.3 Users Manual, under "The Black Screen" section where it states something about getting the blinking cursor. This was my exact situation in ArchLinux 2019! To paraphrase from the manual:

This represents a failure to start X, the windows system used by Linux, and is most often due to problems with the graphics driver being used

If I had simply used the Failsafe Mode, I would have been saved! However, I did do that as well as a last resort in Archlinux 2019, however my resolution changed when that happened and I didn't know how to get my graphics driver back to the original state, which I believe used the latest kernel drivers on a default Arch install. It uses open source nvidia drivers, if my understanding is correct. I tried to look for the solution, based on the wrong keywords to use on a Arch / Google search at the time, of course.

My graphics card is an NVidia Geforce GTX-1050 (i.e. btw, it is not considered a legacy video card yet, as far as I know, based on documentation from using other distros).

I am so thankful that there was a solution for this and it means I was meant to learn from MX-Linux. My journey of learning still continues. For reference, I actually started with Linux Mint distro, however I wanted to learn more from other distros, at the time.

Any thoughts or experiences about this will be appreciated. Some may say I may have been in the wrong mind for going head on with a distro that I was just not ready for yet and I will say based on this experience, it's true. I thought I was ready! Also, based on this MX-Linux experience, I learned to never use test versions for graphic drivers. *smiles*

I will be updating about installing the 3 WMs mentioned in this or another post. My question also is, should I install that on separate accounts due to unique configurations?

[gimcrack]

>My question also is, should I install that on separate accounts due to unique configurations?

No need to with Window Managers. I never recommend more then one DE on one account. But Window Managers are pretty much separated from each other.

[smittyvanilli]

Now that makes me wonder. I installed Gnome and KDE desktop environments on Arch and I wonder if that conflicted with some things. I always kept the default GDM as the DM, though. That what you speak of I didn't know, though!