Arch Linux

rubend

Member

Registered: 2008-04-20

Posts: 47

[SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

Hi everyone,
enjoying archlinux and using fluxbox as my main desktop.
I wanted to try awesome wm but it just won't start.
Here is the error i'm getting when typing awesome in cli:
E: awesome: main:237: cannot open display

Can anybody help?
thx in advance,
Ruben

Last edited by rubend (2008-06-20 12:39:54)

rubend

Member

Registered: 2008-04-20

Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

oh yeah and my the version of awesome that is installed is 2.3

ghostHack

Member

From: Bristol UK

Registered: 2008-02-29

Posts: 261

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

put

exec awesome

into your .xinitrc, then run startx.

rubend

Member

Registered: 2008-04-20

Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

yeah okay that works.
Any reason why it doesn't work when just typing awesome in cli?

burk

Member

From: Norway

Registered: 2007-06-17

Posts: 46

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

Because awesome is a program that needs a running x-server

rubend

Member

Registered: 2008-04-20

Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

so everytime i wanna change wm i have to change .xinitrc,
bummer

iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

so everytime i wanna change wm i have to change .xinitrc,
bummer

Why is this a bummer? All you have to do is comment out the current WM line and add a new one. You could easily make a list of many WMs and just keep all but the current one commented (with #) out in the config file. Also, fluxbox must have some sort of wrapper script that does this for you if you didn't have to do this before with fluxbox.

ghostHack

Member

From: Bristol UK

Registered: 2008-02-29

Posts: 261

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

You don't even need to do that.  If you are starting the X session from the command line you can use 'xinit' instead of 'startx'.  This takes an argument so you can set up your .xinitrc to run different sessions, here's mine (I've been trying out a few WMs as you can see:lol: ):

#!/bin/sh

#
# ~/.xinitrc
#
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)
#

erresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

case "$1" in
    openbox) exec openbox-session ;;
    fluxbox) exec startfluxbox ;;
    xfce4) exec startxfce4 ;;
    KDE3|kde3) exec startkde ;;
    gnome) exec gnome-session ;;
    e17) exec /usr/bin/enlightenment_start ;;
    pekwm) exec /usr/bin/pekwm ;;
    ratpoison) exec ratpoison ;;
    awesome) exec $HOME/bin/run_awesome ;;
    dwm) exec $HOME/bin/dwm_run ;;
    wmii) exec wmii ;;
    *) exec openbox-session ;;
esac

Then you can just run, e.g.

xinit fluxbox

or

xinit awesome

My .xinitrc is like this because I use slim as my login manager and that uses xinit.

rubend

Member

Registered: 2008-04-20

Posts: 47

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

whoo
thanks that's just what I needed

iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

You don't even need to do that.  If you are starting the X session from the command line you can use 'xinit' instead of 'startx'.  This takes an argument so you can set up your .xinitrc to run different sessions, here's mine (I've been trying out a few WMs as you can see:lol: ):

#!/bin/sh

#
# ~/.xinitrc
#
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)
#

erresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

case "$1" in
    openbox) exec openbox-session ;;
    fluxbox) exec startfluxbox ;;
    xfce4) exec startxfce4 ;;
    KDE3|kde3) exec startkde ;;
    gnome) exec gnome-session ;;
    e17) exec /usr/bin/enlightenment_start ;;
    pekwm) exec /usr/bin/pekwm ;;
    ratpoison) exec ratpoison ;;
    awesome) exec $HOME/bin/run_awesome ;;
    dwm) exec $HOME/bin/dwm_run ;;
    wmii) exec wmii ;;
    *) exec openbox-session ;;
esac

Then you can just run, e.g.

xinit fluxbox

or

xinit awesome

My .xinitrc is like this because I use slim as my login manager and that uses xinit.

This is very nice! I never knew you could setup .xinitrc like that!

ghostHack

Member

From: Bristol UK

Registered: 2008-02-29

Posts: 261

Re: [SOLVED]awesome wm won't start

yeah , took me a while to figure out I could do it and it only works with xinit, not startx