problems with xdm(?) / gnome

[doormat]

I have a GF4 and wanted to actually get some use out of it. I'm running mandrake 8.2 (2.4.18), so I installed XFree86 4.2.0, and then the nVidia linux drivers, and finally got them working. Now when I start my computer, instead of opening up to the gnome login screen, it comes up to some really old-looking window interface (maybe just the plain Xwindows interface?). How do I get that to go away and get gnome to come up?

I found out how to get back into gnome (gnome-session) but now the xwindows interface comes back every minute or so. I have to type in exit in all the shell windows and it will bring me back to gnome. TIA.

[xalice]

If you want to use the gnome log-in screen, you need to set gdm as your default display manager.

Edit /ec/sysconfig/displaymanager

Look for the section that says something like:
#Here you can select your default display manager (kdm, xdm, gdm, etc.)

then set

DISPLAY MANAGER="gdm"

Save and exit.

I'm running Suse so I then run SuSEconfig to write the new settings - i'm not sure what the comparable command is in Mandrake.

[doormat]

Hmmm, wasnt able to find that file, /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager. Any other places where that file might be sitting?

[sharth]

If you use Debian, then the scripts for the xdm and gdm and what not are tored in /etc/rc?.d (probably 2).

So if we look in there, and see only S??gdm then it means that gdm should be running. if we only see S??xdm then xdm should be running. If we see both, then either (or both) could be running.

The scripts have a true false choice for if you want to force them to be the default display manager, but other than that, in Debian, it defaults to whatever display you have chosen in /etc/X11/default-display-manager

That file should include the location of the executable for gdm or xdm depending on whichever you want.

Atleast this works on Debian :)

[doormat]

Well I couldnt find any of those files, but I did manage to get it working sorta.. when I boot, it boots into xdm or whatever, then i ctrl-alt-backspace out of it, then it goes back to the login for a second, then comes back into gnome like it should, and works perfectly.