[mythtv-users] Ratpoison overscan

[papenfuss at juneau.me.vt.edu]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Josh Burks wrote:

> I'd like to run my myth box without a WM. Can anyone provide a quick 
> rundown how?
> 
> Does "Window Manager" = Xfree86, X.org, xdm, gdm, etc.
> 
> OR
> 
> Does "Window Manager" = Gnome, KDE, XFCE4, Fluxbox, etc.
> 
> Josh Burks

	Actually, a mixture of the above.  I think fluxbox and xfce4 are wm's, 
but don't know for sure... the "mainstream" window managers are kdm, sawfish, 
windowmaker, and for the older-timers, wmaker, afterstep, fvwm, twm.

	XFree86, X.org are sources for the X *server* (the "application" 
responsible for drawing graphics when other programs "connect" to them).  If 
you boot up your machine without X running and login, you should be able to run 
'X' and you'll get a black screen with a mouse cursor... that's it.  If you 
want, you can then run applications that use that Xserver (by using the DISPLAY 
environment variable such as the default first one of :0).  It gets complicated 
when you factor in the permissions of who's supposed to be able to connect to 
that X server.

	The "window manager" does nothing but "manage windows."  It 
allows running multiple applications on the same X server (e.g. xterm, xmms, 
mythfrontend) to be moved around, minimized, etc, etc.  They usually draw 
decorations like title bars with close boxes, provide menus, etc.  As pointed 
out by a number of people, you don't really need a window manager for mythtv, 
but it makes it difficult to run any other applications (in my case, 
mythfrontend and an xterm).

	Finally, the "desktop manager" would be the xdm, kdm, gdm.  They run as 
an application on the existing X server and provide graphical authentication 
for the user.  This typically also involves starting up things that the user 
would want (like the window manager, and more recently toolbars, file managers, 
and .autorun stuff)

	A *very* crude script that would theoretically run mythtv without a WM 
would be

#!/bin/sh
/usr/X11R6/bin/X & 
mythfrontend &


-Cory

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