Slashdot Mirror
fvwm Turns Ten
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."
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.
Unless all of the choices suck.
Life in Orange County
What does F* stand for?
I forgot to buy it a gift. I'm so screwed.
and a catchy name too. It really rolls right off of your tongue about like a sawblade. ;)
F* yes! Happy F*'ing birthday! (The BSD devel made me do it).
Really, thanks and congrats to the developers of this great WM: this was my first Linux non-CLI, and it remains my favorite.
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business. -Thackeray, William
After trying out kde, gnome and xfce, I went back to fvwm and couldn't be happer with my current setup. The only thing on my desktop when I login is a single xterm. I can launch anything I need from there, but I also spent some time to customize my root menu (right-click on desktop) to give me quick access to the apps and scripts I use the most (including xterm -- I forgot to put that in their the first time around... didn't notice it until I accidently closed my one and only xterm -- oops!)
REAL men use the console. For those forced to use those silly window gadgets by their PHBs, there's NAWM: Not a Window Manager. Non-reparenting, non-eye candy, pure window management functionality and nothing more. Check it out.
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
my hypercard stack "Escape From The Dark Cassel [sic]" turned 12 today... can we celebrate that too?
Here's some food for ya !
How to explain FVWM to a troll ?
In the good old days, when THE distribution was something you downloaded as floppy images, when a 386 DX with 16 megs was considered a nice machine (with your file server being a 486/33), when you had a Minix FS and hex-edited your boot device on your boot floppy, in those old days you did not want a *huge* window manager.
But after downloading the slackware X series of floppy disks, you wanted SOME kind of WM.
And yes, it was cosidered a bonus to open an xterm without the system starting to swap.
Can your stomach take more, little troll ?
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
<AOL>Me too</AOL^>
"Mouse? Oh, you mean the thing I use to figure out what xterm I want to type in."
(Cripes, even the FVWM screenshots on the almost-slashdotted page look almost too glitzy for my tastes ;-)
This is like a "Happy friggin' birthday" greeting. "It's your birthday, here's the Slashdot effect for your birthday." And they can't effectively return the gift if they don't like it.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
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
Lets stack FVWM up with its contemporary, Windows 3.0 and then see who runs home crying.
FVWM had the 3D look of Motif without the awkwardness of OpenLook and because it was just an X Window Manager it avoided the OS integration of MS Windows.
Newer GUIs like WindowsXP and Aqua, GNOME, KDE, etc. move beyond the window manager concept to the entire visual user experience.
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.
Well, I use FVWM. It is my WM of choice, and I like it a lot. It is small, it is (very) fast, it is scriptable, it does not look nor act like a Windows knock-off (though you can probably make it, both, of course). And I use it on fast machines, mind you, it's not that I couln't use KDE. It's just that I like plain X + FVWM better.
And it does have some cute features. I have impressed a couple of friends with FVWM's "stroke" thing, starting apps and controlling audio volume and stuff, by drawing shapes on the screen with the mouse---though I must say that I don't really have much use for that, save for showing off.
I wonder why is that so many of you regard mass adoption as something so desirable that justifies turning a first-class Unix system (oops, hope no SCO spies are reading this) into a bad Windows clone. Or even a good one. I just can't see the point: if a user needs something Windows-like, well, there is Windows already.
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.
But then again, neither me nor you nor anyone can make Linux developers do this or that; everybody is free to choose what to do with our Linux-hacking time. Fortunately.
I have, more than once, been incredibly relieved to find twm installed as a part of X on machines (not OS 10). Because when the install fails without getting all 90 billion parts of gnome or kde installed correctly, or using an old machine that can't handle the latest and greatest, I can use twm as a marginally useful window manager to start getting things done.
And when this happens, the one of the first things I do is download and install fvwm. Woohoo!
Since you're clearly as mad as a mongoose, I'll bid you farewell.
graspee
I don't agree. I like the Unix desktop at its most Unixy - clean, efficient andminimal. No need to waste pixels catering for an idiot when this desktop is the interface for a computer professional. But if I wanted to waste some pixels, and I have in the past, I'd waste them on stuff that looks cool to my aesthetic, not what looks reassuring to some marketer trying to soothe the average user.
If you want to understand the "real" window managers, like fvwm, Afterstep, etc., realize three things:
I don't like CDE very much, but CDE is clean and technical-looking in a way that Windows isn't. Almost everyone would happily go from CDE to KDE or Gnome, but I'd feel some loss of Unix flavor.
(I've ignored the fact that fvwm works with Gnome - you could have the fvwm coolness and the Gnome user-friendliness, I guess.)
I'm currently running fluxbox at work and AfterStep at home. I like a lot of what I see in the fvwm release - it seems the good window managers are converging and adopting the best features.
I know there will always be a small group that thinks as I do, but I'm afraid we're not communicating very well. Tons of newcomers are pouring into Linux, and most of them have only seen Microsoft Windows. Therefore they're inclined to view the desktop through a Microsoft lens, even as they criticize Microsoft.
I don't like Microsoft software. I find it disgusting from concept to execution, from GUI aesthetics to file formats. I don't want anything on my machines to look like that.
1)It was good enough 8 years ago.
.fwm*rc file
2)I've got nothing better to do than fuck with my
3)My desktop doesn't look enought like ass yet.
4)I've only got 12M of memory.
5)What the hell X only holds up my xterms, and mozilla.
IANALBIPOOGL (I am not a Lawyer, but I play one on GrokLaw.)
~Phillip
80386 DX was a full 32 bit chip
80386 SX was a 386 DX with 24 bit memory bus and maybe a 16 bit data bus
For faster time to market, the 80386DX could work with an 80287 *or* 80387 math-co. There never was a 386 with built in FPU.
When Intel introduced the 486, everything changed:
80486DX had a built in FPU
80486SX had a built in FPU but was disabled (maybe due to poor QA rating)
80487 was an 80486DX with alternate pinout to fit in the "487" slot. Upon insertion, the 80486SX is disabled
80486SL was an 80486SX with some power saving features and lower clock speeds
80486SLC was a cyrix chip that had 16 bit data bus, 24 bit memory addresses, and no math co. It performed somewhat better than a 386SX but was cheap and drew little power. It was popular for notebook computers.
80486DX2 was the first clock doubling CPU
80486DX50 was a rare 50 MHz cpu with no clock doubling
80486DX2-66 / DX2-50 were clock doubling CPUs
80486DX4 were clock trippling CPUs
Then there were a bunch of pentia.
This was thirteen years ago, mind you. I was 3l337 just because I was _using_ the RT, nevermind there wasn't jack shit installed on it except CADAM
Clickety Click
My first experience with Unix-esque systems and X-Windows was in 1993 when I started college. At the time my choice was TWM or FVWM. FVWM was clearly the more advanced option and one of the more advanced window managers at the time. (CDE looked advanced, but was more of a hassle than it was worth.)
Since then I've tended to be lazy and taken what I was given, stuck with whatever was the default. As a result I spend a long time with Enlightenment followed by SawFish/SawMill. I've dabbled with a number of other window managers.
Then last year (2002), I took a job back at my old university. The default was still FVWM! And while FVWM had matured, it remained instantly identifable. I hadn't used it in five years, but it came back instantly. It felt right. Sure, it lacks classy menus, but the configuration file was easy enough to use and let me set things up how I wanted. Most window managers are determined to stick the various window management buttons where they want them. FVWM makes it easy to stick them where I want them. It's a minimal WM, I don't run any of the modules except for the pager (to switch between virtual desktops) and the IconMan, a very minimal list of windows on each desktop. My desktop is spartan and I've discovered that I really like it.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
You seem to have a hard time understanding the difference between a window manager (fvwm) and a desktop environment (gnome).