fvwm Turns Ten

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by michael on Friday May 30, 2003 @11:03AM from the bad-old-days dept.

Some Old Dude writes "fvwm, F* Virtual Window Manager, is celebrating its 10th birthday in a few days. This is the window manager I used when cutting my Linux teeth back in the last millennium, and the one I still use today (after trying many newer ones). If it's been a while since you've seen what fvwm can do, check out its features and screenshots."

16 of 363 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Anniversary release by gleather · 2003-05-30 11:05 · Score: 5, Informative

They released a new version today QUOTE: http://freshmeat.net/projects/fvwm/ The changes in this release are as follows: All single letter variables are deprecated, and multiletter variables are provided. The NoWarp menu position hint option works with root menus too. WindowListFunc is executed within a window context, so a prefix "WindowId $0" is no longer needed in its definition, and it is advised to remove it from user configs. FvwmEvent executes all window related events within a window context, so PassId is not needed anymore, and all prefixes "WindowId $0" may be removed from user event handlers.

--
Idiot.
1. Re: Anniversary release by Migo · 2003-05-30 14:07 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Actually we have released 2 versions today, 2.4.16 and 2.5.7. The changes in the beta are much more visible.
  
  But due to the Slashdot effect the 2.5.7 tarballs are going to wait a bit. :)
  
  RPMs are available for both versions right now.
Re:Even THAT deserves a mention in slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-05-30 11:08 · Score: 3, Informative

Gnome (and probably KDE) isn't a window manager, it's a desktop environment. You use something like icewm, sawfish or metacity as the window manager.
Re:Mummy? by JonMartin · 2003-05-30 11:12 · Score: 2, Informative

Fine. Flexible. Feline. Whatever the fuck (there's another one) you want. Why didn't you just check the FAQ (another one!)?

--
Serve Gonk.
Re:Mummy? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-05-30 11:16 · Score: 5, Informative

[From the fvwm faq:]

1.1 What does FVWM stand for?

A: "Fill_in_the_blank_with_whatever_f_word_you_like_a t_the_time
Virtual Window Manager". Rob Nation (the original Author of FVWM)
doesn't really remember what the F stood for originally, so we
have several potential answers:

Feeble, Fabulous, Famous, Fast, Foobar, Fantastic, Flexible,
F!@#$%, Flashy, FVWM (the GNU recursive approach), Free, Final,
Funky, Fred's (who the heck is Fred?), Freakin', Flawed,
Father-of-all, Feivel (the mouse from "An American Tail"),
Frungy (hey, where does that come from?), Floppy, Foxy,
Frenzied, Funny, Fumbling etc.

Just pick your Favorite (hey, there's another one!), which will of
course change depending on your mood and whether or not you've run
across any bugs recently. I prefer Fabulous or Fantastic myself,
although I often use F!@#$% or Freakin' while debugging...

Recently 'Feline' is becoming popular. Perhaps this has something
to do with the discovery that four of the six core developers have
cats (averaging 1.17 cats)? Miaow.

Know what? I found another one while stroking my cats: FEEDING :-)

Check this link:
fvwm-cats
FVWM stands for ... from the FAQ by yppiz · 2003-05-30 11:19 · Score: 4, Informative

FVWM FAQ - what does FVWM stand for?
1.1 What does FVWM stand for?
A: "Fill_in_the_blank_with_whatever_f_word_you_like_a t_the_time Virtual Window Manager". Rob Nation (the original Author of FVWM) doesn't really remember what the F stood for originally, so we have several potential answers: ...

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
Featherweight by Newtonian_p · 2003-05-30 11:32 · Score: 5, Informative

The 'F' stands for Featherweight. It was called that way because it was originally less ressource intensive than twm (tabbed window manager) on which it is based.
The author might have forgot what his acronym stands for but some people remember the original announcement.

--
There are 2 kinds of people in this world: Those who write in decimal and those who don't
1. Re:Featherweight by IO+ERROR · 2003-05-30 16:49 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  From the old (version 1) man page of fvwm:
  
  The name "FVWM" used to stand for something, but I forgot what. (Feeble, famous, foobar? It doesn't really matter, this is an acronym based society
  anyway.)
  
  I certainly don't remember featherweight, and I can't find the original announcement. The earliest Usenet posting (Jun 1 1993) I could find refers to it as feeble. But it doesn't really matter, since I haven't used fvwm in years, and really don't have any plans to go back. After all, I have 256MB of RAM.
  
  --
  How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Re:Mummy? by Newtonian_p · 2003-05-30 11:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Its stands for Featherweight as I have indicated in my other post.
The author forgot but some people still remember.

--
There are 2 kinds of people in this world: Those who write in decimal and those who don't
well, there are probably better choices now by 73939133 · 2003-05-30 11:45 · Score: 5, Informative

Fvwm was nice back then. But even if you want a small, light-weight window manager, there are probably better choices than fvwm these days: Oroborus, Blackbox, IceWM, Ion, to name just a few. Their code tends to be cleaner and their configuration and code tends to be more modular.
Re:RedHat is lame by Anonymous Coward · 2003-05-30 11:57 · Score: 2, Informative

They have this thing now called the "internet" where you can get programs that don't come on the distribution CDs.
Re:why didn't this window manager die LONG AGO? by Drathus · 2003-05-30 12:08 · Score: 2, Informative

By definition a DX has a built in math coprocessor. The SX series was a DX chip with the built in CoProcessor disabled so Intel could sell a math coprocessor add on chip.
Re:On fvwm... by diaphanous · 2003-05-30 12:27 · Score: 4, Informative

Knuth is retired and doesn't have graduate students anymore. And if he did have grad students, I suspect they would be doing hardcore algorithmic analysis, not hacking fvwm and X11.
~Phillip
Personally... by shepd · 2003-05-30 12:28 · Score: 2, Informative

I find VTWM suits my needs better.

If you're going to go lean and mean, why not go all the way? ;-)

--
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Desktop Shell by PineHall · 2003-05-30 12:40 · Score: 2, Informative

If I were to say what to do, I'd have people stop wasting time cloning Windows, and use it to make Linux a better Unix. And as for GUIs, I'd like to see a good GUI in the Unix style. Like, say, apps with hybrid command line/graphic interfaces. Graphic pipelines, perhaps? Or if you have to copy it, something in the NextStep/OSX style (last time I checked, GNUStep was nowhere near usable). I don't know.
I am also a user of FVWM, but I have heard of Enlightenment which is now calling itself a "desktop shell". I don't know much more than that but it sounds like something that would interest you. It is definitely very configurable and pretty.
Others by DragonHawk · 2003-05-30 14:40 · Score: 2, Informative

"Nostalgically twm would be more cool. fvwm, fvwm2, fvwm95, icewm, sawfish are the 'other' window managers."

Actually, I think twm would be an 'other' as well. I believe the original window manager was xwm.

http://www.plig.org/xwinman/others.html

--

dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.