october gnome: default WM and (very) old installation

[Uwe Koloska <koloska Rcs1 urz tu-dresden de>]

Hello,

my main desktop was/is kde, cause it is easy to install and complete.  I tried
gnome around 0.99 and it was not easy to install and gnome and the wm fight for
the desktop (enlightenment elements over gnome panel ...)  So I don't use it.

But because of the technical details gnome attracts me much more than kde and
so I download the october-gnome and give it a second try (oh, it's just the
third one, but 0.30 was unusable).  Now the installation is very easy (shure
there are too many packages) and because I install from the sources the
sequence matters a lot. (But that's okay)

All goes fine -- THANK you for the great work you all have done!!!

But then the moment of truth when I select "gnome" in my login window (still
kdm:-() and -- it starts.  But then there are two very annoying facts:

1. as I use kde for a long time mostly all other WM have slowly disappeared or
are very outdated (I used to not update anything I don't use).  So I was very
asthonished when I see a very old configuration of fvwm2 cames up.  That's not
worse at all, but (knowing nearly nothing about the practical aspects of gnome)
I searched the control center and there the WM is showd as "twm" -- uuh, what's
that?

Then after some investigation I found what gnome-wm does.  So I think it will
be better to name this default WM that is used when there is nothing configured
something like "default" or "automagically started WM" or like that.

And because gnome has no default WM for reasons I can understand.  There must
be a hint that you have to have a WM installed.

BTW: is there a default configuration for existing WMs? So that for example
pager and buttons of enlightenment don't appear over panel and gmc icons?

2. The documentation says, one has to clear ~/.gnome* to avoid outdated
informations from old installations confuse the fresh installation.  But no one
pointed me to the fact that there are many other outdated informations from my
very old installation.  Most important the configuration for control-center
changes a lot and so there are two desktop groups -- one with the nonexistent
e-conf ...


But besides this gnome looks very promising for daily work now :-)))
That's your merit!!!

Yours
Uwe Koloska

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