multwindow mode problem

[Okko Willeboordse]

David Strozzi <dstrozzi <at> MIT.EDU> writes:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> First, KDE for cygwin is extremely helpful!  Many thanks to its creators.
> 
> I installed KDE 3.1.4 today, upgrading from 3.1.1.  I could run KDe
> 'normally' via
> 
> startx &
> 
> but not in 'multiwindow' (all windows just normal windoze windows)
> 
> start -multiwindow &
> 
> I get an error, identical to one in a post from February by Trevor
> (http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-cygwin&m=107769264302613&w=2), where
> the KDE
> desktop 'takes up' the whole screen except the windows taskbar, and I
> can't get any windoze windows to come to the foreground.
> 
> So, I wiped cygwin off my hard drive, made a fresh install, and
> multiwindow worked fine.  For several times.
> 
> Then, I started 'full' KDE with startx &, and now the same problem occurs
> with multiwindow!
> 
> Following Ralf's suggestion to Trevor, I looked to see if the process kwin
> is running after KDE is done, and it is.  I kill it, and multiwindow works
> fine, new kde progs start as windoze windows, etc.
> 
> But, why does kwin start?  When I run KDE with startx &, is that modifying
> some initialization file?

Can it be that the behavior of ksmserver has changed?
Have a look in  /opt/kde3/bin/startkde. When in multiwindow mode, ksmserver
is started with '--windowmanager unknown'. Obviously 'unknown' is not a valid
window manager. The current version of ksmserver then starts kwin. If you
change the following line of /opt/kde3/bin/startkde:
KDEWM="unknown"	# dummy name to avoid loading of a window manager
into:
KDEWM="wm"	# dummy name to avoid loading of a window manager 
then kwin is not loaded and multiwindow seems to work, although I don't
know the implications of running ksmserver with --windowmanager wm.




> 
> Thanks.
> 
> ------------------------
> David Strozzi
>