[SOLVED] XFCE: Change window manager to metacity

[Lennex]

Hello!

Due to personal preference, on my old machine, which uses XFCE as desktop, I have changed the default window manager to metacity.

Now I want to do the same on my new machine, but unfortunately I have both forgotten what I had done exactly and cannot find a satisfying solution on the web either. WHAT I know is that i have edited or maybe even created some global configuration file, which says something like "STARTWINDOWMANAGER=metacity". However, on the old machine I have already grep'd the whole of /etc/ for promising strings, with no reasonable result whatsoever. So please, anyone here who knows what to do?

Thanks!
Lennex

[PabloTwo]

On your old machine, try checking the Xfce session autostart entries. Maybe you put in something like:

metacity --replace

[Lennex]

Hm, nothing present of that sort. I'm pretty sure I wrote something like "KEY=value" in a file, where value is metacity or /usr/bin/metacity or something similar.

[PabloTwo]

Maybe something in your $HOME xfce4 settings?

BASH:~/-> grep -r "xfwm4" ./.config/xfce4
./.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml:<channel name="xfwm4" version="1.0">
./.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml:  <property name="xfwm4" type="empty">
./.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml:    <value type="string" value="xfwm4"/>

Of course, use "metacity" as your grep search string.

[secipolla]

Not sure if this is the bit to change or if there are other ones but in
/etc/xdg/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-session.xml
maybe you could replace 'xfwm4' for 'metacity'?

[Lennex]

Hm. this looks worth a try. Right now I'm at work but I'll test it as soon as I get to my machine ...

[Lennex]

Hey guys,

sorry for not responding any more back then, but somehow just none of the above suggestions had any positive effect. However, yesterday I came up with an alternative solution to my problem!

Even though this was tested on Xubuntu 12.04 LTS, it should work on Fedora or any other distro with a recent XFCE as well. It is for the local user only, so it's not as "ideal" as globally reconfiguring the default window manager in some config file, but at least it works well.

Steps:

1. Install metacity package.
2. Run "metacity --replace" in a terminal. Now metacity is your (temporary) window manager.
3. To make it permanent, go to Applications --> Settings --> Settings Manager --> Session and Startup --> Session. Here you will see a (incomplete) list of currently running processes. metacity should be one of them. Click "Save Session" and you are done.
4. The next time you log in, your saved session including metacity will be restored. You might want to close any unwanted open applications (like the terminal emulator, etc.) and save the session again. The session is stored in ~/.cache/sessions, so in principle you could also just edit this file instead.

Have a nice weekend!
Lennex