Re: How many use eMacs and Gnus on daily basis?

[Tim X]

Joe Bush <bushj004@hawaii.rr.com> writes:

>>I don't even run a window manager.  I just start emacs from my .xsession
>>file.  I am not saying that this will work for everyone.  If you are
>>used to point-clicky interfaces you might not like emacs.  Manipulating
>>graphics files is, I believe, a no-go, but viewing them works.
>
> Can you explain how this is done, or provide a link that describes the
> steps?
>
> Thanks!
>

Speaking for Rob is not my intention, but if your asking how you can
run emacs instead of a window manager and then emacs, its pretty easy.
There are some variations between X setups according to what
distribution you are using, but essentially, the following is the
basic concept.

1. You have a display manager (e.g. xdm) running which provides the
   interface you use to login to X. 

2. As part of the standard login process, the system looks for an
   initiation file which starts up various applications for the user,
   including a window manager. It may also do other things, like set
   the background colour, mouse cursor, ssh key agent etc. This is
   usually handled by what are called Xsession scripts by convention.

3. Most Linux distros have their own scheme for this, but they all
   generally allow for a user specific .xsession script to override
   everything. No $HOME/.xsession, do the system default thing. 

4. Here is the key bit. The Users Xsession will exit once the scripts
   started by xdm exit. Normally what happens is that these xdm
   scripts call the system default or users xsession script and in
   those scripts the last thing called is the window manager. The
   window manager is usually called with an exec call, which will
   transfer execution of the script to the program called by exec
   (i.e. the window manager). So, when the window manager exits, the
   script exits and the uses X session exits.

To have no window manager and just emacs running, you can create your
own .xsession script and instead of doing an exec wm, you do an exec
emacs. In effect, emacs will be your window manager replacement and
when you exit emacs, your X session will exit. 

Is that as clear as mud?

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au