8.15   Using a Non-supported X Manager (becoming an "xexpert")

From Ray Lindsey, Sun Sep 21 13:21:09 2003

Caveat : These instructions may not work for you. They were developed when we moved from Slackware to Redhat 9.0. Recent releases of Fedora may have changed the mechanisms these steps are supposed to affect.

Here are some more precise steps to (hopefully) get your fvwm2 setup going again:

1.   RedHat creates a .gnome2 directory in your account. Nuke it.
2.   touch .xexpert.tcc   This way RedHat won't whine about your X setup.
3.   .xinitrc is no longer used. Your startup script now has to be called .xsession. It has to be executable. I don't know if a symlink to .xinitrc will work or not.
4.   (optional) touch .hushxlogin This gets rid of the "motd/quota" popup window when you login.

Other issues of concern regarding RedHat:

1. fvwm2 has to be in your path. I know I just stated the obvious, but RedHat seems to be a bit gimpy in setting your default path. For some people that have had their TCC accounts for a long time, all or some parts of their X setup might not be in their path.
2. Keep an eye on your quota. Under Slackware, if you were over quota and you tried to login, a nice window would come up and say

   You are over quota. Contact a UC.

   Under RedHat, no such luxury. Instead, you'll just be immediately logged out. And sometimes you'll get a popup window that says something like

   your login lasted less than 10 seconds ... would you like to see your .xsession-errors file?

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Ray Lindsey            (cthulhu@nmt.edu)
User Consultant -- Tech Computing Center