From kde-cygwin Fri Aug 30 16:33:54 2002 From: David Fraser Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 16:33:54 +0000 To: kde-cygwin Subject: Using KDE as default desktop under Windows X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-cygwin&m=103072530327420 I am now using KDE as my default shell under Windows. Thanks to everyone for the effort - it's so much nicer than explorer :-) I thought it would be nice to have a page on the web site explaining how to do it, and indicating status as more integration gets done... basically this is what I did (this is for Windows 2000 but should be portable to others): make XFree86 server run full screen without window decoration change ~/.xserverrc to include -fullscreen in the parameters: exec X - screen 0 1024 879 -engine 4 -fullscreen -depth 32 -ac -nowinkill -noreset -emulate3buttons 100 you can say -nodecoration (which -fullscreen implies) instead if you want a non-fullscreen window without border etc. replace the default shell, explorer.exe with X-windows change the following reg entry under from explorer.exe to c:\cygwin\bin\bash --login -c startx HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell Once this is done, logging in starts up the X server but no Windows desktop, Start bar etc. Note: if you want to run windows programs from here, on Windows 2000 you can press Ctrl-Shift-Esc which brings up the Task Manager, then go File/Run. Logging out from KDE doesn't actually log out, you need to close KDE in another way and then press Ctrl-Alt-Del and choose logout. Depending on your .xserverrc parameters, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace or Alt-F4 can be made to close the X server. Otherwise, you can close it from the Task manager (select the Cygwin task and say End Task). This also brings up a bash shell window which is behind the X server. I tried to get rid of it by running cmd /c start /b bash ... but this was unsuccessfull. If you switch to any windows applications, the X server will be minimised. I seem to remember some discussion on slashdot or somewhere about how Cygwin XFree86 cannot run in rootless mode (as the actual background window like Windows exlporer does for the desktop). Does anyone have any info on why this is, or on how we could patch it so that it will? That way windows apps will run in front... Next step: get KDE to run windows applications from short cuts. I created a simple script called "win32start": #!/bin/bash startpath="$*" if [[ -L "$startpath" ]] then # this is a symbolic link. find the actual file, start that startpath=`find "$startpath" -printf %l` fi startdir=`dirname "$startpath"` startfile=`basename "$startpath"` cd "$startdir" cmd /c start \"starting application\" "$startfile" This is put in /usr/bin It handles cygwin unix-style symbolic links to Windows shortcut files as well (both are given the extension .lnk, but have different stuff inside ... if you create a link to a shortcut it is thus called .lnk.lnk). Basically it gets whatever parameters are given (it needs to use them all so you can pass spaces without it separating them out; escaping the spaces with backslash confuses cmd, although they could be unescaped) and works out what directory the file to start is in. It's easiest to get into this directory as we then don't have to convert the path from unix to windows style. Then it runs cmd and tells it to start the application. The first parameter to start is the window title which has to be given if we quote the start file. But this window title only applies to cmd, which just starts the application and quits. Example: $ win32start /c/Documents\ And Settings/All\ Users/Start\ Menu/Programs/Acrobat\ Reader\ 5.0.lnk on my system this starts up Acrobat. Now we want to make KDE associate these files with win32start so we can click on them from konqueror and put them in menus. First we need a mime type for the Windows shortcut files... Add the following to a new file ~/.kde2/share/mimelnk/application/win32shortcut.desktop (on most systems, it could be ~/.kde/... - I've had KDE 1 installed ...) This users the link icon which just looks like a shortcut. It would be nice to get KDE to read the windows Icon out of the shortcut file but probably lots of work [Desktop Entry] Comment=Win32 shortcut file Hidden=false Icon=link MimeType=application/win32shortcut Patterns=*.lnk Type=MimeType Then create the association. To do this, create a desktop file under ~/.kde2/share/applnk/win32start.desktop and place the following into it: [Desktop Entry] Comment=Start Win32 applications or files Exec=win32start Icon=exec InitialPreference=3 MimeType=Application;application/win32shortcut Name=Win32 Starter Path= ServiceTypes= Terminal=false TerminalOptions= Type=Application X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false X-KDE-Username= This can also be done through control panel if you want to make life easier ... but on my system it gave some trouble ... Now you should be able to for example browse to your Start Menu on your windows drive and start programs. I then added a nice second start menu to kicker by using a QuickBrowser linked to my Windows Start Menu folder ... (actually I now have a subdirectory of ~ called Start which contains links to everything in the All Users Start Menu and my user's Start Menu .... with a simple shell script to update the links) I've created a nice icon for this as well, with a "exec" icon background with the four coloured windows from the Linux samba icon on top. It sits next to the K menu icon, so I can launch either KDE or standard windows apps. Any feedback/comments? Is this what other people are using kde-cygwin to do? _______________________________________________ kde-cygwin mailing list kde-cygwin@mail.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-cygwin