I appologize in advance for the length of this post, I just wanted to be precise.
I just tried to install XPde on my Mandrake 9.2 system using version 0.4.0 using the following instructions posted on the site:
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Getting XPde
------------
To get XPde, go to:
http://www.xpde.com/releases.php
and pick up the latest release. You can download two different XPde archives. The first one includes all needed Kylix libraries (xpde-x.x.x-xxxxxxxx.tar.gz) and the second one does not (xpde-x.x.x-nolibs-xxxxxxxx.tar.gz). If you have already installed a previous version of XPde or Kylix 3 there is no need to download the full version.
To download it, you can use your browser, or you can use wget, which is included in most distros:
$ wget
http://www.xpde.com/releases/xpde-X.X.X-XXXXXXXX.tar.gz
Installing XPde
---------------
Open a console and change the current directory to the location you downloaded the tar.gz distribution:
$ cd /path/to/xpde.archive.tar.gz
Now, decompress and extract the contents of the archive using this command:
$ tar xvzf xpde-X.X.X-XXXXXXXX.tar.gz
This will create a subdirectory called xpde-X.X.X, change to it:
$ cd xpde-X.X.X
And now, you need to become root to perform the first installation part:
$ su
Password: ENTER_HERE_YOUR_ROOT_PASSWORD
And then, you need to execute the install script:
# ./install.sh
This script creates a directory called /opt/xpde, if you want to erase XPde from your system, you simply need to delete this directory.
Setting up the default environment
----------------------------------
[This step will be removed in a near future]
To setup the default environment for each user, you need to execute another script, but this time, as the user is going to use XPde. So you can use Ctrl+D or the exit command to return to the previous user, or issue a su command, for example:
# su korben
Where korben is the user you want to allow use XPde.
Now, change the directory again to xpde-X.X.X and perform this command:
$ ./setup.sh
This script creates an .xpde subdirectory on your home directory which holds your account information.
Setting up the display manager
------------------------------
[This part will be automated soon]
To allow you to choose XPde from your display manager, you need to perform some additional steps, which depend on your distro and the display manager you are using, in RedHat 9.0, by default, you use GDM.
Become root using the su command
$ su
Password: ENTER_HERE_YOUR_ROOT_PASSWORD
And change the current dir to the XPde bin directory:
# cd /opt/xpde/bin
Now copy the file xinitrcDEFAULT from the source directory:
# cp /home/korben/xpde-X.X.X/xinitrcDEFAULT .
And now, rename it and make it executable:
# mv xinitrcDEFAULT xpde
# chmod +x xpde
And make a soft link to this file on your /usr/local/bin
# ln -s /opt/xpde/bin/xpde /usr/local/bin/XPde
And to setup the entry on yor display manager, you need to create a file which specifies all the data needs the display manager to load XPde. You can use your favourite editor, or use vi, which is included on every Linux distro:
# vi /etc/X11/wmsession.d/08XPde
Press i to start typing and type this:
NAME=XPde
EXEC=/usr/local/bin/XPde
DESC=XPde Desktop Environment
SCRIPT:
exec /usr/local/bin/XPde
And press :wq and Enter to write the file and exit the editor.
Reboot your system for changes to take effect.
Running XPde
------------
When the display manager is loaded, select XPde from the session list, select it and log in as the user you configured in the previous step.
You should see XPde running, if not, check all the previous steps.
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And here were my results:
I tried to install the latest version of xpde using the method above, but was unsuccessful. To let you know, I am using Mandrake 9.2, and am trying to install build 0.4.0.
First, the download went fine. But then, I received an error when trying to run the following command:
"$ tar xvzf xpde-X.X.X-XXXXXXXX.tar.gz"
The response I got was that the location did not exist. I tried creating a folder in my /home directory called "xvzf" but this also didn't work. I then noticed that on another set of instructions, the command was "xvfz" , which also didn't work. I ended up using File Roller to extract the file to my /home directory, which worked fine!
After this, I was able to change to root and run the install, but running the install DID NOT make a directory call /opt/xpde, as suggested in the following statement:
"This script creates a directory called /opt/xpde, if you want to erase XPde from your system, you simply need to delete this directory."
Also, after running the "./setup.sh" , this step didn't create directory in my home directory as suggested by the following statement:
"This script creates an .xpde subdirectory on your home directory which holds your account information.
As the previous steps didn't go right, this fouled up the rest of the install, but I tried anyway.
As the "/opt/xpde/bin" directory doesn't exist on my system, I did a locate xinitrcDEFAULT, which turned out to be in my /home directory. As the file was already in my /home/%username% directory, I made a copy of the file in the GUI and renamed by appending it with a "1" to distinguish it from the original.
I'm not sure that the next two commands did anything, but again, I did them regardless:
"# mv xinitrcDEFAULT xpde
# chmod +x xpd"
I was also able to make the softlink without any difficulties.
Also, I was able to start vi and run the following command without any difficulties:
"# vi /etc/X11/wmsession.d/08XPde"
However, after entering the following lines:
"NAME=XPde
EXEC=/usr/local/bin/XPde
DESC=XPde Desktop Environment
SCRIPT:
exec /usr/local/bin/XPde
I tried to "press :wq and Enter to write the file and exit the editor", but all this did was enter the characters on the same line as the "exec" line and proceed to the next line down. In other words, this final step didn't "write the file and exit the editor."
When I tried rebooting on the off chance that the changes would some how take effect, I found that there were no changes, but my system did boot without difficulties, which is still better than crashing.
If anyone can see any obvious flaws with my implementation of the instructions, please let me know.
Thanks for all those that have the time to reply!
