cinnamon + alternative windowmanager

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wave and matter

cinnamon + alternative windowmanager

Post by wave and matter »

Hi, i have been using linux mint for some time now and mostly like it.
However i have noticed, that some settings, especially concerning video, seem to be specific to the individual desktop environments. For example if i start another xsession for my favourite window manager (which right now is i3), my settings concerning a second screen are not taken over from the cinnamon settings, instead i end up with a cloned screen. This is a bit confusing, since i would have expected these settings to reside in some global file similar to the xorg.conf of the past.
I imagine that the most elegant way to fix this - especially for somebody who likes most of cinnamon - would be to start a cinnamon session where the window manager component is replaced by the window manager that i would like to use. Is this possible?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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wave and matter

Re: cinnamon + alternative windowmanager

Post by wave and matter »

I just played around and noticed, that when i simply run
"cinnamon-session-daemon"
after starting i3, my screen settings from the cinnamon session will be applied. It seems reasonable to assume that this is true for all my other settings as well.

This can probably added to any other window managers initialization script, so this provides some kind of solution to my problem.
Of course i am still curious for potential cleaner solutions.
scryan

Re: cinnamon + alternative windowmanager

Post by scryan »

wave and matter wrote:I just played around and noticed, that when i simply run
"cinnamon-session-daemon"
after starting i3, my screen settings from the cinnamon session will be applied. It seems reasonable to assume that this is true for all my other settings as well.

This can probably added to any other window managers initialization script, so this provides some kind of solution to my problem.
Of course i am still curious for potential cleaner solutions.
i3 is awesome :)
(I secretly check the DE & WM forum in hopes of finding people using tiling window managers :P

Not at all what your looking for, but perhaps consider dropping cinnamon and just using i3?
I just use i3 and i3status and its pretty manageable... The biggest issues are if you have a laptop and launching programs. I just have $mod+whatever for really important apps and use dmenu to launch random stuff. Maybe that is just me, I like just typing in the first half of a program's name and pressing enter anyways, easier then menus.

You probably already have nm-applet install? I think its generally at least what mate and xfce use? Run that and it put wifi in your status bar so you can see status and click to choose networks, whatever.
Power you will probably have to find something else. I just use xfce4_power_manager which gives charging status and options in system tray.
You need something to set a background too, i3 docs recommend feh

It seems like a bit of a jump ditching your desktop for just a wm, but really with your normal power and wifi system tray icons I can't think of what else I would want or need. I've found most of the tiling wm's are much more clean without a DE. The performance increase is really nice(cinnamon is ~180mb, i3 is ~3mb) and you get more screen space too with out a panel.

Sorry, don't mean to lead away from mint or offer help your not looking for... just food for thought. It is a lot more manual config.

Should be able to launch the session from your login screen... If not you just need to make a file to tell your display manager its there.
wave and matter

Re: cinnamon + alternative windowmanager

Post by wave and matter »

I have been using gentoo linux for quite a long time in the past, so in principle setting up stuff by hand would not be the problem. However, one of the reasons i am using Mint now, is that i wanted to switch from setting up my computer as some kind of hobby to just having something i can use almost instantly.
But the solution with simply running the cinnamon settings daemon seems to provide just what i needed.

The only thing i am missing at the moment is indeed a network management app in the status bar. I tried manually running nm-applet as you recommended (both from a terminal and via alt+d) but it seems not to integrate with i3bar/i3status, which i am running...
scryan

Re: cinnamon + alternative windowmanager

Post by scryan »

wave and matter wrote:I have been using gentoo linux for quite a long time in the past, so in principle setting up stuff by hand would not be the problem. However, one of the reasons i am using Mint now, is that i wanted to switch from setting up my computer as some kind of hobby to just having something i can use almost instantly.
But the solution with simply running the cinnamon settings daemon seems to provide just what i needed.

The only thing i am missing at the moment is indeed a network management app in the status bar. I tried manually running nm-applet as you recommended (both from a terminal and via alt+d) but it seems not to integrate with i3bar/i3status, which i am running...
Do you get other applications added to system tray automatically? Like VLC or Banshee, SMPLayer (three I can think of that give sys-tray icons offhand)

I simply have to run nm-applet, this has always taken care of itself and added a sys-tray in the past. I believe the dialog box that is opened for you to enter a password once you choose to connect to a network is handled by gnome_keyring, but even without that you still should get tray icon, you just never get prompted for a password so new connections fail.

Not sure what is going on with yours. I will say nm-applet does not spawn a parallel process, you will need to execute "nm-applet &" if you want your terminal back, launching via dmenu should be fine, and obviously it will exit when you close the terminal/whatever launched it.

When you launch via terminal do you get anything? does the process end or stay running? have you looked for it in process list?
Seems strange, should work just fine stand alone? I wonder if for some reason either the process is quickly exiting or if cinnamon stole your system tray and is displaying its icons on the missing cinnamon panel rather then letting i3bar pick them up? I don't even know if that is a thing, lol... But perhaps your cinnamon tray is hidden and everything is just being placed there?
wave and matter

Re: cinnamon + alternative windowmanager

Post by wave and matter »

When i run nm-applet, it says

robert@robert-laptop ~ $ nm-applet
** Message: applet now removed from the notification area
** Message: applet now embedded in the notification area

that looks correct, but nothing appears in the panel.

However it seems that you are right about nm-applet looking for the wrong panel, since it works if i open a 'pure' i3 session without cinnamon-settings-daemon.

Since i am already using a cinnamon/i3 hybrid, an alterative might be to manually run the cinnamon panel. However a quick google search did not reveal the name of the binary i would have to execute. Looking in the obvious places, i found gnome-panel, but that seems to be wrong, because running gnome-panel followed by nm-applet will give me an empty gnome-panel as well..
scryan

Re: cinnamon + alternative windowmanager

Post by scryan »

I don't know if cinnamon is that modular? I get the feeling you cant just use cinnamon panel, but then I have never really tried... I don't like panels, having task bar and the ability to minimize is an alternative to multiple desktops IMO, so I don't really like the mix of the two lol.

But yeah, from what I have found XFCE is SUPER modular, and makes a point of being so, however most of the other desktops not so much.I have seen things to make KDE applets stand alone(but never used it) but otherwise have never really seen KDE/Cinnamon/whatever used independently as a panel.
This would be way easier if you were using XFCE, lol.

I just started using dual monitors, and nm-applet pops up on the wrong one. Its my desktop so it doesn't really matter but if I get annoyed enough to look for a way to tell it where to go I'll share it here... Otherwise yeah, this kinda thing is why I started running arch with just a WM :twisted:
"its just easier" :?:
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