[Solved] Choosing Window Manager from Boot Menu

[Montserrat]

Hi all,

I am so pleased to see this new release, and HUGE thanks to the developers for all their hard work.

I am a noob, so apologies if I use the wrong terms etc. until I get a little more edjumacated. Anyway, the problem I am having is choosing a window manager from the initial boot menu of v15.

I've tried re-downloading the ISO, checking the sums etc. but still can't get all the window managers to load (mind you, I prefer Tom's Window Manager that I can install from the 'Apps' downloader but that's another story ...). The ones that I can get to work are FLWM Topside, Fluxbox, Hackedbox and FLWM Classic.

Sadly, I can't get Joe's Window Manager, ICE, or Openbox to load.

What I mean is, when TCL boots, I choose the WM I want, then those that don't load just give me the 'X' cursor I would expect from X with no window manager, and no window decorations etc.

Does anyone else have a similar issue, and what am I doing wrong?

I've tried dumping 'dmsg' to see whether there are any clues in there, but nothing jumps out at me. I've tried to capture the output of 'startx' to a text file also but to no avail. I've also searched the forums to see whether this has been previously reported but couldn't find anything.

All help, suggestions, flames for being so daft are appreciated.

Montserrat.

[Rich]

Hi Montserrat
Welcome to the forum.

Which CD are you using? x86 (32 bit) or x86_64 (64 bit)?

[Montserrat]

Hi Rich,

Thank you for the welcome. I'm looking forward to being around a while...

Anyway, I am using the x86_64 of CorePlus burnt to a USB (sorry, should have stated that in my original post).

[Rich]

Hi Montserrat
CorePlus is 32 bit, and that makes sense since that's the only one
that includes all of those window managers.

I burnt a CD was able to reproduce the problem. Likely some extension
is missing. I'll see what I can find.

[Rich]

Hi Montserrat
Here's is what I found missing:
jwm, openbox, and gdk-pixbuf2 need libEGL.tcz and libGLESv2.tcz.

icewm needs libgdk_pixbuf_xlib-2.0.so which used to be provided by gdk-pixbuf2.tcz.

I'll wait for Juanito to weigh in on this.

[vinceASPECT]

Hello,

Yes, there are some great window managers.  The minimal (but well designed)  are nice.  i believe Open Box  is very functional and popular.

Thx
C.

[Montserrat]

Thanks so far, Rich.

Waiting for Juanito, too, then.

Are those libraries available somewhere for me to source and, if so, where should I put them?

As an aside, it reminds me of years ago (read 35 or so ...) when we switched from static to dynamically linked libraries and all the fun that brought, until we all got used to it. Ahem.

[patrikg]

As the title says, choosing wm in boot menu, i think can be done with you supplying the extension list file in the grub/syslinux kernel command line arguments.

Code: [Select]

lst=openbox.lst
lst=jwm.lst


[Montserrat]

Hi Patrik,

I am reading through Lauri's fabulous book in an attempt to find out how to do that but, in the meantime, will doing so obviate the problem of there being missing libraries or are the necessary libraries loaded correctly when the options you mention are supplied, or as is probable, am I confusing myself?

[Rich]

Hi Montserrat
After a little more poking around I found something else.
It appears dependencies on libEGL.tcz and libGLESv2.tcz were
removed from cairo and added to gtk2. The CD appears to
have an old gtk2.tcz.dep without libEGL.tcz and libGLESv2.tcz.

Are those libraries available somewhere for me to source and, if so, where should I put them? ...

These extensions all exist here:
http://tinycorelinux.net/15.x/x86/tcz/

The simplest solution for now is:
Boot to the FLWM_topside entry.
Click the  tc-install  icon to start  tc-install-GUI.tcz.
Use the tc-install program to install Tinycore to a second USB stick.
This may be of some help:
http://tinycorelinux.net/install.html

Then run

Code: [Select]

tce-audit builddb
tce-audit updatedeps
tce-audit fetchmissing
tce-update
exitcheck.sh reboot
After it reboots, you will have a proper install. You can then change
to the window manager of your choice.

[Montserrat]

Thanks, Rich.

I'm doing that all now, and am patiently waiting at the 'Formatting /dev/sdc1' message in the installer window.

I'll update on progress when that completes .... zzz...

[GNUser]

icewm needs libgdk_pixbuf_xlib-2.0.so which used to be provided by gdk-pixbuf2.tcz.

The Gnome folks split that library into a separate source package, breaking many applications. See here.

I contributed gdk-pixbuf2-xlib for TCL15 x86_64, and gdk-pixbuf2 depends on it as to avoid breakage. It seems TCL15 x86 needs someone to contribute gdk-pixbuf2-xlib.tcz to the repo. I'd do it but I have a son in the hospital, so no time for extension submissions at the moment.

[Montserrat]

Thank you for the information, GNUser, not that I could do much with it as yet but I just wanted to say my thoughts are with you and your family and thank you so much for taking the time to post that message at what is surely a difficult and worrying time. Eventually I might get to a point where I'm useful to the community, as opposed to a burden, but for now huge thanks and my very best wishes.

[GNUser]

Thanks, Montserrat. Finding and reporting problems is very useful to the community and not a burden to anyone I hope you're up and running soon. Welcome to TCL.

[Montserrat]

Yes, there are some great window managers.  The minimal (but well designed)  are nice.  i believe Open Box  is very functional and popular.

Hi C,

Yes, I agree, the simple ones are what I like best. It, to me at least, seems to all tie in with the TCL ethos of small and lightning fast.

I love the idea of a small, fast OS that I can configure to my exact needs as opposed to having a machine with the latest 'bells and whistles' that I'll only use 1% of.

That's exactly why I'm here, and loving every minute of it.