[Xquartz-dev] How to test a wm with gdb on XQuartz

[Dave Ray]

I am helping port alternative window managers to MacOS. One of them isn't working right, so I want to use gdb on the wm binary.

On a true *nix machine, I could start X without a wm running, then invoke a wm from an xterm. This is useful if I want to run gdb on the wm. It's not how one normally sets up an X11 environment, but is the way one would do it to test the wm.

On Snow Leopard, I am having trouble figuring out how to replicate this. If I comment out all the lines in my .xinitrc, and try to run my wm from a terminal, this doesn't work. I get a unstable condition where processes keep re-spawning and I cannot kill them, and have to reboot to recover.

If I remove the .xinitrc file, X11 boots with its default window manager.

Can anyone recommend a step by step process I can use on SL so that I can run gdb on a window manager at the shell prompt.

Thanks in advance.
Dave