can't automatically start sawfish in 8.10 beta

[Bobby D. Bryant]

The usual trick of killing the latest default wm, starting sawfish, and saving the session no longer works.

The /usr/bin/gnome-wm script suggests several ways of changing it, but none of them seem to actually work. Apparently GNOME now expects something from the wm that sawfish isn't providing.

.xsession-errors logs a complaint from x-session-manager, "Unable to find provider 'sawfish' of required component 'windowmanager'". Similarly if you specify '/usr/bin/sawfish' rather than just 'sawfish' in gconf-editor.

After the comments at the top of /usr/bin/gnome-wm suggest a couple of different ways of selecting a wm (i.e., via environment variable or via gconf key), it then says:

# NOTE: DON'T USE THIS. Please have your window manager install
# a desktop file and change the gconf key
# /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager

Changing that key produces the .xsession-errors message above.

Does sawfish need to provide "a desktop file" to work properly now?

[Bobby D. Bryant (bdbryant)]

You can halfway fix it by:

1) rename and edit /usr/share/gnome/wm-properties/Sawfish.desktop as described at http://sawfish.wikia.com/wiki/Update_desktop_file_(again)

2) run System->Preferences->Sessions, scroll down and highlight "Window Manager", click "Edit", and change:

gnome-wm

to

gnome-wm --default-wm sawfish

3) run gconf-editor, and change the key desktop->gnome->session->required_components-> windowmanager to 'sawfish' (without the quotes).

I describe this as "halfway" fixing it because you still get the x-session-manager complaint about "Unable to find provider" in .xsession errors as described in the previous post. So presumably something still isn't working just right. But at least this gives you sawfish when you log in.

I think all the maintainers need to do is rename and revise the Sawfish.desktop file as described above. Who knows what the 'right' way to change WMs is in the latest GNOME...

[Bobby D. Bryant (bdbryant)]

I notice that with the above hack there is an additional x-session-manager message in .xsession-errors:

WARNING: Application 'gnome-wm.desktop' failed to register before timeout.