I did a small Slack 11.0 install on an old Dell that I want to use just for internet surfing. It's networked to my other Linux box with broadband connection to the net.

I don't want to use a window manager, just run firefox (and maybe a couple other programs) from the command line. When finished with the program, quit and be back in Bash. In xwmconfig, a window manager must be selected, so I chose fluxbox. Accordingly, the last line of xinitrc reads "exec /usr/X11R6/bin/startfluxbox" I commented this line out, hoping that no window manager would be started, just X, but fluxbox comes up anyway.

It seems that what I'm trying to do should be possible, but how?

Um... firefox requires a windows manager to work. What: you think it can draw those windows by itself? (Technically one could create a graphical browser that does... good luck finding one.)

You can run a text-only browser (like lynx) without X... but anything that expects to open a window will need a windows manager. Just go for the most minimal you can find.

Try just typing "xinit" (without the quotes).

You'll get just an xterm window and nothing else. This is bare-bones X-windows. You'll still have to configure X (xorgconfig, I think), but you'll be able to run programs like Firefox. I Think, however, you'll only be able to run one program at a time.

Regards,

-Drew

Or try:

startx `which firefox`

you don't need a wm - just copy the system .xinitrc to ~/, then comment out the wm line. or, you can copy it to another name, and tell startx to use that: "startx </path/to/filename>"

you can start whatever programs you want by listing them in the .xinitrc, but you won't be able to manipulate their size or position after starting, and popups and dialogs won't have borders. for standard programs like xterm, you can use the -geometry flag to set size/position, but I'm not sure how to set the initial size of firefox (maybe in about:config ? - it must be saved somewhere on exit, as it carries between restarts, but I couldn't find it). but firefox will work that way - I just tried it.

you can run an xterm as the last line of the .xinitrc, without an "&" after the command - exiting from that will kill X. I use the borderless xterm to launch games like ET, to avoid running an unnecessary wm - not that flux uses that many resources, but every bit helps when running old hardware

EDIT: I just tried the great idea Wynd suggested - that's an even better solution. thanks!

You are correct. After posting my question I did type "xinit" and got the bare x with xterm from which I did run firefox without a window manager.

Actually, last week I saw a post, somewhere, from a person who made a dedicated internet surfer out of an old computer. Turn it on and firefox is up and running automatically. Unfortunately, I lost the post, but I'll figure it out.

Thanks.