[dundee] Linux on the desktop

[Martin Habets]

 --- Andrew Clayton <andrew at digital-domain.net> wrote: > On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 12:45, Martin
Habets wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > One of the other main threads seems to be a need for consistency, or rather: an
> > interface that looks/feels/behaves consistent. The discussions on KDE vs. GNOME
> > are somewhat based on this. Even though personally I don't see any need for this
> > consistency at all, I can understand that Windows-users would demand it.
> > Part of the problem is that these modern environments take on too many aspects:
> > Display Manager, Window Manager, Theme Manager all in one. We must tear them up,
> 
> hmm... this is pretty much the case now... the display manager is
> separate from X, the window manager is separate from the display
> manager. Theme managers are relatively specialised. You have one for
> GNOME/GTK, KDE/Qt, Mozilla, Enlightenment etc...

If so, what is the name of the executable in KDE/Gnome that is the display manager?
And don't say kdm/gdm: those are login managers (with a wrong name).
I remember launching the Gnome applet manager under olwm (a window manager), but I
never found a separate display manager.

To explain more: a window manager takes care of the window boundaries and
the menus that appear when clicking on them, and (optionally) a menu when clicking
on the root window (i.e. the background).
A display manager takes care of a toolbar, clickable icons, and virtual screens on
the root window.
Sorry if this is turning academic (no pun intended), but I'd like to make sure we are
on the same page here.

> > and most importanty separate the Window Manager from the other parts. Why? Well,
> > application programs only deal with the window component and not the other parts.
> > Sidenote: The X-Windows server can ignore a request from a Window Manager, and
> > impose it's own behaviour.
> > 
> 
> I don't think this is true. X is about providing mechanism NOT policy.

You are right, that is the de-facto standard today. But that has not always been the
case, and X has allowed for servers that dictate policy. Deceased examples are the
old DEC Alpha implementation and the Apollo (later HP I think) implementations.

As said, these are all gone now AFAIK. But X still has all the *Hints* APIs, and
good applications are still not allowed to battle their window manager over the size
or position of their windows for example.

But I'm sure Bill and his followers would not mind about (breaking) such principles.
Neither would I, since it seems such servers die out in time (by which time the users
have converted).

Martin


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