Re: [tlug] Running without Gnome/KDE/xfce/whatever. (was: Ubuntu 16.04-LTS Japanese Text Input)

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2016-04-28 03:11 +0900 (Thu), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> Well, no, not on Debian; the system provides default scripts that do
> fine for most users with a bit of customization (ie, setting
> appropriate alternatives for /usr/bin/x-window-manager and
> /usr/bin/x-session-manager).  *If* you provide your own .xinitrc or
> .Xsession, that will completely replace the corresponding system
> script, but that's rarely necessary.

Ok, that's good to know. But this raises two points:

1. What does one use for a session manager? My approach to date has been
to use the session manager, button bar and Lord Knows What Else from a
popular environment (Gnome, for a while, until the changes overwhelmed
me, lately Xfce), replacing the window manager with fvwm2 (Yes! I
finally upgraded to 2!) and killing the file manager and the "desktop"
programs completely.

Given that I can start up everything I need in fvwm, I'm not sure I
really need a session manager, but it sounds like if I'm going to go
this route, I have to have one. I could be extremely happy with systemd
(it's a very well done piece of software); is anybody using that for
user sessions, yet?

2. I notice that my /etc/alternatives/x-window-manager is linked to
fvwm2. I'd not thought about this, or how it happened, but I wonder what
that means if I'm on a system I share with others who do not also share
my...predilication...for certain types of user interfaces.


On 2016-04-27 21:14 +0200 (Wed), Attila Kinali wrote:

> Instead authors make many assumptions about
> how your system looks like and lable it as user error when it those
> assumptions do not hold. :-(

When did the majority of software developers _ever_ work without these
sorts of assumptions? The standard model of software development
includes (in part due to great pressure from managers) the idea that if
you can think of any circumstance underwhich your program would work,
you're done and need to move on to the next feature. Most software
developers and their managers, like most humans, are inherently hugely
optimistic, and so thinking about failure modes is not something that
they do well.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson         <cjs@example.com>         +81 90 7737 2974

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.
    - L Peter Deutsch