So as hinted yesterday, GNOME2 + pekwm. Here it is, in three simple steps.

0. get pekwm (package, compile from source, whatever). duh.

1. tell gnome2 to use it. ie, set ‘pekwm’ in /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager via gconf-editor or equivalent.

2. Discover that gnome2 still doesn’t pick it up, and get an error in .xsession-errors like this:

gnome-session[2010]: WARNING: Unable to find provider 'pekwm' of required component 'windowmanager'

Solve by creating $HOME/.config/autostart/pekwm.desktop with the following (or similar)…

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=/usr/local/bin/pekwm
Hidden=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
Name[en_AU]=Window Manager
Name=Window Manager
Comment[en_AU]=our windowmanager
Comment=our windowmanager

3. Make sure your own pekwm configuration is in $HOME/.pekwm too

note: at work I have this setup, but against ‘mate’. Thus: /desktop/mate/session/required_components/windowmanager, and /usr/share/applications/pekwm.desktop with content of:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=pekwm
Exec=pekwm
NoDisplay=true
# name of loadable control center module
X-MATE-WMSettingsModule=pekwm
# name we put on the WM spec check window
X-MATE-WMName=Pekwm
# back compat only
X-MateWMSettingsLibrary=pekwm
X-MATE-Autostart-Phase=WindowManager
X-MATE-Provides=windowmanager
X-MATE-Autostart-Notify=true

No, I don’t know how I got either of those pekwm.desktop files. I think with mate, I copied a different one, and tuned to pekwm. With my newer (oddly) gnome2 setup, it magiced in somehow when I was testing with a test account…