[SOLVED] Trying to get Lightdm to run desktop-session icewm

[Moderator BobC]

I installed from core and trying to duplicate the functionality of my normal full installs. The reason for trying to run from core is so I can suspend, hibernate and resume. I have that working correctly. I haven’t had much luck getting those to work with antiX full, but had no problem with them on core.

I would like to use lightdm instead of slim because I have 2 machines with weird video that need 35 mb for slim, but a console login which does work and avoids slim is pretty ugly. I am just trying to get lightdm to run desktop-session to start a normal antiX icewm session, including running ~/.desktop-session/startup and ~/.icewm/startup so that my system is setup as normally as possible.

I have lightdm with either icewm or xfce working now, but it doesn’t run the desktop-session system ( which includes ~/.desktop-session/startup). It does run icewm, but not ~/.icewm/startup. The system is somewhat usable, but not good as a result.

I have tried modifying /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf but can’t seem to get anything to try to execute at all.

The lightdm screen has options for default session, icewm and xfce. Nothing seems able to change that. I can’t see where the list comes from. Lightdm doesn’t have a man entry and the website isn’t any help. I don’t know what the .conf file options are supposed to do.

Maybe I should just give up on lightdm and just login manually?

• This topic was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by BobC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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See [SOLVED] Install from core question on IceWM Menus.

Is anything else missing once this is done correctly?

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Brian Masinick

[Member Xecure]

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About icewm not using .icewm/startup, I have no experience with this. It should do it out of the box when loging in to icewm. First make sure the file is executable. If this continues to not respond, you could use the “bad” solution, that is editing the /usr/share/icewm/startup file and adding the launch commands there. It is a very bas solution, but it will keep you out of trouble for some time.

About lightdm. It has been a miss and miss experience for me with lightdm and default-session. I tried and tried but I gave up and went back to SLiM. The farthest I got editing /etc/lightdm/Xsession. I didn’t do it correctly as it never worked for me.
aledosim opened a thread trying to do the same with lxdm, and seems to have it work properly.

aledosim wrote:

…
Replaced this line on /etc/lxdm/Xsession:

# mandriva, debian, ubuntu
	exec /etc/X11/Xsession "$LXSESSION"

with this one:

# mandriva, debian, ubuntu
        exec /usr/local/bin/desktop-session "$LXSESSION"

I will try returning someday to lightdm and following aledosim’s example, but I really am not looking forward to it right now.

If you get it to work properly for you, BobC, please come back and report how you got it to work. I am sure I’m not the only one interested in this.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Xecure. Reason: wording

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Moderator BobC]

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No, no other issues. I am only missing the programs that I didn’t load, for example LuckyBackup or LxAppearance are ones I didn’t load, so those don’t appear on the menu or Control Centre. I actually maintain lists of what packages my normal full system has, vs stock antiX full, vs the core based system, for example, if you want to see what I didn’t load.

[Moderator BobC]

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I was hoping Dave would chime in, as I found some posts which I tried to follow on how to do it. BTW, lightdm is different I think, than lxdm.

I think this is really related to how lightdm decides to put up is session list and what it calls based on which you select. My optimal solution is to add desktop-session icewm to that list, and just select it 🙂 But I am very simple minded…

[Moderator BobC]

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So on my respin, without slim or lightdm, here is what I do…

in ~/.bashrc

xrunning=$(ps -ef | grep "/usr/lib/xorg/Xorg" | wc -l)
if [[ "$xrunning" -lt 2 ]]; then  
  # x not running
  echo ""
  echo "Starting X-Windows for antixbc..."
  antixbc
fi

and antixbc is

#!/bin/bash

. $HOME/.desktop-session/desktop-session.conf
. /usr/local/bin/desktop-session icewm
startx

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by BobC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I think that you may be able to get away with running the desktop-session script.
If you are using different environments, perhaps you can send them in as an argument and then pass that argument to the script.

Alternatively,

exec /usr/local/bin/desktop-session “$LXSESSION”
seems to do the same thing.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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Ok, thanks for the support… I figured it out.

in /usr/share/xsessions there are a bunch of .desktop files. I went into the one called icewm.desktop and changed the two exec lines from icewm to icewm-session and changed the name also to IceWM-Session and it changed on the prompt as well. This does leave me not having any of the desktop-default stuff working, so it means all my toolbar and scripts that use any to run things in terminals and such don’t work anymore, but at least the ~/.icewm/startup runs.

I would still like to know what the best way to do this is, if there is a better way and someone really knowledgeable happens to see this…

[Desktop Entry]
Name=IceWM-Session
Comment=lightweight X11 window manager
Exec=icewm-session
Terminal=false
TryExec=icewm-session
Type=Application

[X-Window Manager]
SessionManaged=true

[Moderator BobC]

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I may try running the desktop-session stuff from ~/.icewm/startup.

Sometimes its like flailing the sails in the wind and random winds push you home.

It does seem like a lot of effort just to be able to get it to hibernate and come back to the same things tomorrow without leaving it running, but I just like having that work for me.

PS: Yup, that fixed it. I added code to the beginning of ~/.icewm/startup as follows:

# run desktop-session startup. 
if [ -x "$HOME/.desktop-session/startup" ] ; then
	. $HOME/.desktop-session/desktop-session.conf
	. $HOME/.desktop-session/startup
fi

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by BobC.

[Forum Admin Dave]

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I am not sure anymore; it has been a while since I looked. I say this as lightdm is supposed to do session management in a way, which is what desktop-session is trying to do as well.
Perhaps the quickest and easiest way is to make a bunch of files in /usr/share/xsessions similar to what is there but one for each antiX session. In the newly made files you could put on the exec line desktop-session rox-icewm. For example using above.

[code]

[Desktop Entry]
Name=DS Rox-IceWM
Comment=Rox and Icewm with desktop-session
Exec=desktop-session rox-icewm
Terminal=false
TryExec=desktop-session rox-icewm
Type=Application

[X-Window Manager]
SessionManaged=true
[/code]

Computers are like air conditioners. They work fine until you start opening Windows. ~Author Unknown

[Moderator BobC]

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Thanks for checking, Dave. I see there is already a rox-icewm.desktop file there, but it doesn’t show up on the selection pulldown on the login screen.

But its all working now that I added the desktop-session stuff to my ~/.icewm/startup

At this point I actually think I’m ok. Not sure but I think I should keep testing, trying options and such and see if/what I find problems with it. I still don’t understand why my suspend and hibernate work, but if it’s easy to maintain, its running pretty well now that the menu and toolbar options are working…

[Moderator BobC]

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On the same machine that has been having troubles I installed a fresh copy of antiX 19.2.1 x64 Full, and did update, and then the setup to suspend and hibernate, and lo and behold both suspend and hibernate both now work. So its back to square #1 for me, and I’ll work my way forward and after each group of steps will retest the suspend and hibernate functions as I go to be able to identify what breaks them if that does happen.

I’ve also now learned how to replace slim with lightdm to save memory, and still have the antiX IceWM platform working well on the high res video machines.

I’ve marked the thread as solved. Thanks for everyone’s help.

[Moderator BobC]

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I found that it was that I installed core and lightdm, and THEN antiX packages that caused troubles.

I tried again, but this time with my x64 full based respin. I reinstalled slim to get it back to more normal, and THEN installed lightdm. And on reboot, I just found a few minor issues with the select list, but fixed the directory entries in /usr/share/xsessions, and rebooted again, and that fixed it.

Then I got matched the kernel version to the one where suspend and hibernate worked, and got those working on my normal setup as well.

Next I make an .iso and try it on the other machines… I think its going to work this time…

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