getting rid of gnome

[Reid Rivenburgh]

On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 4:46 PM, Andras Simon <szajmi at gmail.com> wrote:
> What is the official way to get rid of either gnome, or just its
> default WM (metacity?) (I'm not sure where one ends and the other
> begins) and replace it (or just the WM) with another, lightweight WM?

I'm not sure if it's exactly what you want, but I scrapped metacity
for fvwm.  Fvwm is the window manager I used throughout most of the
'90s, so it was a sentimental moment to fire it up again, as you can
imagine.  Fvwm can be a bit challenging to configure, but it's very
flexible and powerful.

Logged in to gnome and with metacity running, I simply ran "fvwm -r",
telling it to replace the current window manager.  I think I then had
to make sure to modify my session settings in gnome so that fvwm would
start in future sessions; maybe you can just save your current session
at that point.  I have to admit it wasn't exactly smooth for me, since
for a long time I only had one desktop (of my 8 virtual ones) that
showed a normal background with icons....  Just to warn you.

That should at least give you some idea if you just want to replace
the window manager or are looking for a more comprehensive change of
desktop.  If fvwm isn't to your tastes, you can probably use a similar
procedure to try others, like openbox.

reid