[xmonad] Going Gnomeless (and Unityless on Oneiric)

[Jacek Generowicz]

Brandon Allbery wrote:

> Because [X] was launched by LightDM, which is managing it by
> initially displaying a "greeter", then launching a session when
> someone logs in via the greeter.

Makes sense.

> > [No docs and silent errors in LightDM]

> Personally I'd be removing it and installing gdm or kdm at that
> point.  :/

Agreed.

But I need to keep my current session stable (it contains too much
useful state), while faffing around with experiments with new DMs. Can
I keep the current LightDM (and the session I'm currently in) running,
start GDM / KDM / whateverDM and keep on starting new experimental
sessions in the second DM while keeping my original session
(containing all the other work I'm doing) alive.

Personally, I can't work with the "everything else has to be restarted
every time you want to try something" workflow. (I won't really be
happy until I can do kernel upgrades without having to log out (How's
the Hurd getting on?) :-)

> The other alternative is xinit/startx, which launches a server and
> then feeds a connection to that server to a script which attaches
> things to it to make a session.

Any pointers on how to get this going?