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WindowMaker Development Resumes, Has First Release Since 2006

Posted by timothy on from the now-where-was-I dept.

First time accepted submitter brad-x writes "A new team of developers has recently picked up development of WindowMaker, and they've added many new features, including improved support for the freedesktop standard menu layout and Mac OS X style application and window switching from the keyboard, culminating in a new release, 0.95.2. A basic changelog is available on the newly redesigned website."

11 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Woooo! by busyqth · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've been waiting anxiously for this for, like, 6 years!!!!

    1. Re:Woooo! by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So have I—only more seriously. I built a crude imitation of the NeXT UI for Windows in tribute four years ago and I can't live without it. Tiles for icons was a Good Idea.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    2. Re:Woooo! by ByOhTek · · Score: 5, Informative

      Dude, Window Maker is awesome as a light weight desktop system. 3

      Aside from compatibility improvements, I say don't fix what isn't broken.

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
  2. Sweet by gman003 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I actually use WindowMaker on my personal dev-server-slash-tertiary-backup-desktop. It's an old piece of junk - Athlon 900 FTW! - but it still runs, and I don't have to worry about breaking anything important.

    I've tried various window managers and desktop environments. KDE, even a 2.x release, is too slow. Same for GNOME. Most of the rest are too capability-light for me to seriously use. But WindowMaker hits the sweet spot of "runs fast on old crap" and "is actually usable".

    This is the same machine I keep a copy of Firefox 2 on, since anything after that doesn't so much "run" as "walk".

    1. Re:Sweet by ByOhTek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Prior to upgrading the hardware (2-3 years ago?), I had an old K6-III for my server, and Window Maker was awesome on it. I still use it for the VNC attachable desktop I have running in the background to keep all my projects open so I don't have to restart my apps each time I log in. I don't need anything that lightweight any more, but, it gets the job done well, and doesn't crap out in the VNC "box" like KDE or Gnome.

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
  3. Yay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you really want to make your modern operating system look antiquated, isn't it easier just to go back to doing everything from the command line?

  4. WindowMaker is awesome. by Strahd+von+Zarovich · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Personally, I've used WindowMaker since the early '00s, and I'm still sticking to it. As a power user, I find its customization abilities extremely helpful. Also, I like that it's sticking to what it does best -- window management -- without eating up most of my CPU and GPU resources and bloating my memory. That's great news, keep up the good work!

  5. Re:Is WindowMaker still relevant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sometimes all you want is a window manager. You don't need an integrated file manager, dvd burner or media player. WindowMaker is tremendously fast, stable and memory efficient.

  6. Re:1990 Called by Beelzebud · · Score: 5, Funny

    I know! Where is the flash content, and the social media scripts, and tracking cookies that we have all come to love in this modern era!

  7. Cool by itomato · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a bunch of art updates I'd like to push. Real Media or ICQ, anyone?

  8. Window Maker Live ISO by pseelig · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a project on sourceforge to remaster a standard Ubuntu 11.04 ISO image into a Window Maker Live ISO. It is based on a small scripting framework which relies on the Ubuntu Customization Kit for the creation of a working Live CD, and has the very latest Window Maker 0.95.2 as the only and default graphical user interface. It is also very preconfigured, so that one is able to just start using it already at first login.

    The project is currently hosted at sourceforge.net/projects/wmlive and also provides some ready made live ISO torrents for interested people who don't want to have to remaster an Ubuntu ISO image on their own. Any feedback and possibly even contributions are very welcome.