Although I??™m using Slackware as the reference distribution for describing how to change window
managers, the concept is the same on other Linux systems. In general, if no desktop environment
is running in Linux, you can start it by typing the following:
$ startx
This command starts up your desktop environment or window manager, depending on how your
system is configured. Although a variety of configuration files are read and commands are run,
essentially which desktop you get depends on the contents of two files:
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc??”If a user doesn??™t specifically request a particular desktop
environment or window manager, the default desktop settings will come from the contents
of this file. The xinitrc file is the system-wide X configuration file. Different Linux
systems use different xinitrc files.
$HOME/.xinitrc??”The .xinitrc file is used to let individual users set up their own desktop
startup information. Any user can add a .xinitrc file to his or her own home directory.
The result is that the contents of that file will override any system-wide settings. If you
do create your own .xinitrc file, it should have as its last line exec windowmanager,
where windowmanager is the name of your window manager; for example:
exec /usr/X1R6/bin/blackbox
Slackware has at least seven different window managers from which you can choose, making it a
good place to try out a few.
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