How to make Mutter default window manager

Question

I'm running Debian Squeeze and removed Metacity in favor of Mutter. How do I avoid having to run mutter --replace each time I start Xorg (GNOME)?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 07 '11 at 12:57

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Press Alt + F2 and enter gconf-editor. Navigate the tree menu to desktop > gnome > session > required-components. Now, replace the windowmanager key with the window manager of your choice. Just replace gnome-wm (or metacity) with mutter.

Another possible solution:

You could add mutter --replace to System > Preferences > Startup Applications which opens gnome-session-properties program:

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edited Mar 07 '11 at 12:57

tshepang

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answered Mar 07 '11 at 12:28

Dayjay

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I tried that and it doesn't work. Maybe it's a bug? – tshepang Mar 07 '11 at 12:48
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I'm actually having the same problem. And no, editing gconf didn't work. – Shadur Mar 07 '11 at 12:51
You could add `mutter --replace` to System > Preferences > Startup Applications – Dayjay Mar 07 '11 at 12:53

Jander · Answer 2 · 2011-03-08T16:36:00.047

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Under Debian, if you want to change the window manager for all users, you can run (as root):

update-alternatives --config x-window-manager

and select the window manager you want as the default. However, this might only work if you're not using a desktop environment (e.g. GNOME or KDE).

If you're using GNOME, you can tell it which window manager you want by putting the following in ~/.gnomerc:

export WINDOW_MANAGER=/usr/bin/mutter

edited Mar 08 '11 at 16:36

answered Mar 08 '11 at 16:23

Jander

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That file doesn't exists in my home dir. Must I create it? – tshepang Mar 08 '11 at 18:06
@tshepang yes, create it. This answer is is the correct method on Debian. – bahamat Mar 08 '11 at 18:24
This doesn't work for me. I still get metacity as window manager. – tshepang Mar 08 '11 at 22:25

How to make Mutter default window manager

2 Answers2