dilithium

Most Linux distribution install a default X server and display manager
combination. The system are pre-configured and typically work quite well
but tend to be heavy-weight and customization is limited to simple schemes
called themes. Themes contain a set or collection of schemes. A theme could
be a single font, a single icon or a barrage of back-ground images and color
configuration. There is no real definition of what constitutes a "theme".

Another option is to use an alternative display manager. These Alternatives
are typically available through the distribution but are not so "integrated"
with the system since the distributor was primarily focused on integrating
the "chosen" display manager. One of these alternative is fvwm-crystal.

Crystal is a some-what extreme example of display manager customization.
Crystal is actually a theme for the fvwm display manager. Unlike the simple
schemes used with gnome based display managers, Crystal is more of a
programmable theme that can quickly transform the appearance of the user
interface. One obstacle to using any alternative display manager is getting
it started. This is not unique to fvwm or crystal, it is more a side-effect
of having the system pre-configured for the "chosen" display manager.

Dilithium is simple program intended to simplfiy the task of starting
fvwm-crystal. Dilithium can be started as a daemon from an init.d script
or as a simple command line launcher like startx for xinit.

dilithium is basically like using startx, except that dilithium is intended
to be used to start fvwm-crystal. Startx ends up using xinit, though I am not
sure why; what little that is left to be done to start the X server could
easily be done in the startx bash script. By default dilithium does not use
xinit. To force dilithium to use xinit the --xinit switch must be used,
noting that user information must be known. This implies the --xinit option
can not be used for lauching the display manager for system startup unless
the --user switch is also given.

dilithium accepts a --client argument, so it actually could be used with
other display managers.

Wiley