Quoting Steve Litt (slitt@???):

> Hi all,
>
> Fvwm is a lightweight window manager

Fixed it for you. ;->

> I found a couple issues with Devuan Jessie's Display Manager screen

For reference, the default X11 Display Manager in Devuan is 'SLiM', as
you guessed.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SLiM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLiM
http://www.archlinuxuser.com/2013/02/how-to-install-configure-slim-login.html
The default window manager is xfwm starting with xfce4-session as an X11
Session Manager and the rest of the XFCE4 suite (xfm file manager, etc.)

If it's unclear what a display manager (DM) is:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Display_manager
(Provides graphical login, some allow user to choose wm.)

If it's unclear what a session manager (SM) is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_session_manager
(Keeps track of what processes you're running and, if you suddenly
logout and log back in, restarts them.)

If it's unclear what a window manager (WM) is:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Window_manager
(Special type of X11 client that controls the placing and organisation
of all other X11 clients.)

> ...that make using fvwm (or anything but the default) just a little more
> difficult:
>
> 1) "Press F1 to select session"
> As far as #1, what the hell does "session" mean?


ITYM, what does 'session' mean as used in the 'SLiM' X11 Display Manager
UI? In this context, it seems to mean state maintained by an X11
session manager such as xfce4-session. The ArchLinux wiki page says
the SLiM DM parses these from /usr/share/xsessions/ by default.

But the question you really wanted to ask is: How do you add fvwm to
the things SLiM offers the user at login?

On https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SLiM, it looks like they say you
need to edit both /etc/slim.conf and ~/.xinitrc, and hash out the line
'sessiondir /usr/share/xsessions/' in /etc/slim.conf in order to 'disable
automatic detection of installed environments'.

I gather that SLiM has a bias in favour of assuming that _naturally_ you
are running a session manager. fvwm being blessedly unencumbered with
extraneous baggage does not start up a session manager -- though I
suppose you might be able to tack one on, in theory.





> 2) Choice of session is not sticky

Fixed it for you. ;->

It appears that each user can configure a default session by adding a
DEFAULT_SESSION=[$THING] line in ~/xinitrc . The $THING would be the
session manager or its wrapper script if you're running a session
manager, e.g., 'startxfce4' wrapper for the XFC4 suite that starts up
xfce4-session, xfwm, and probably a bunch of related junk, or 'fvwm2' to
start just the fvwm WM (which as mentioned isn't bundled with a session
manager), or the 'startfluxbox' wrapper for the Fluxbox WM, etc.

Details are on
http://www.archlinuxuser.com/2013/02/how-to-install-configure-slim-login.html