[OpenIndiana-discuss] after Installation, no X11?

[Rolf M. Dietze]

Quoting Tim Mooney via openindiana-discuss  
<openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>:

> In regard to: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] after Installation, no X11?, Rolf...:
>
>> Hi,
>> yes, got it running. xdm login, twm as window manager. Fast and
>> smart:)
>>
>> As I started up with a text console only, Andreas and Carsten
>> on this list told me to do a pkg install mate_install and start
>> the SMF-service for lightdm. With a little nvidia driver update
>> all worked fine. Since I like fast minimalistik desktops that do
>> not consume the compute power for windows decorations, I did:
>> pkg install twm
>> pkg install xdm
>> copied th svc-lightdm method to svc-xdm, set it up for xdm, reseted
>> the xdm-fmri as was installed alongside by pkg install xdm, pointed
>> it to the freshly createt login-xdm. (guess I could have used the
>> default anyway, it just starts xdm so:)
>
> I'm glad you found a solution that works, but I think there might
> have been an easier way that didn't involve messing with SMF at all.
>
> Lightdm is capable of launching any "session" it knows about.  What
> exactly a "session" is depends on the desktop environment, but for
> the "xterm" failsafe, it's just an xterm.
>
> Sessions are defined in a .desktop text file in /usr/share/xsessions/
> The .desktop file format is documented here:
>
> 	https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/
>
> Using the 'mate.desktop' and 'xterm.desktop' as examples, someone
> that knows TWM well could probably create a twm.desktop, drop it into
> /usr/share/xesssions/, and then continue to use lightdm as the login
> (rather than XDM), but get it to launch your twm session.
>
> I know that Ubuntu and some other Linux distros that use lightdm have
> a twm.desktop configured for their distro.  That might also serve as
> a useful example.
>
> Either way, if you know how to get twm to "launch" after X is already
> running, it's probably a lot easier to just make it a selectable choice
> from Lightdm than it is to create a different SMF.
>
> Hope this helps,
[..]
well yes and no. I do not really like the look and feel of lightdm as so
with the gdm-login, which specially denied me using cde once gnome was
tried out and judged to be to performanceconsuming. Same goes with the
unity stuff and debian as well. I normally use cde-login as I am still
supporting sunray at some places, I love CDE so....
With FreeBSD I came back to xdm as a login manager and configured it to
look as desired, with some scripting around one can dynamically select
the windows manager to start with xdm as well. With that and having an
identical login manager look and feel around FreeBSD-, ubuntu-, debian-
and now the first OI-boxes. It is simply far simpler to just change SMF
than to have a bunch full of differnt login managers on whatever boxes.
For the OI testbox that I set up, OI feels simply great, thanks for all
the work and time put in OI. Next step is bhyve, Stephan Althaus just
posted his experience with that.

Right now I am fiddling with CDE. In fact, sunray on OI works? If, please
give me a pointer, I'd love to put that on an OI box. Is there a newer
firefox than  60.9.0? Firefox could be a show stopper for OI as a desktop
replacement because of the old certificates. Yes sure, I could fence a
more recent version of that power consuming firefox in some newer linux
branded zone. That goes for me, assumingly for most of the readers of that
list, but not for all users I have to support.

Rolf