Slashdot Mirror
GNU Window Maker 0.60.0 Released
papason with the news that
Windowmaker is out, and alternative downloading can be found
here " From the site itself, it talks about the major changes include more Theme related configuarability in WPrefs, better international support, and more-check the ChangeLog.
Did WM drop me to a command line? Did it dump me out of my running apps (including some coding)? Did it freeze the keyboard, leaving me high and dry?
NO it did not! Instead, WM actually trapped SIGSEGV and popped up a dialog asking me what I wanted to do (drop to the CLI, or restart WM)!!
THIS is how window managers should behave when there's a problem. There's nothing more galling than losing some work or time to a window manager crash. I suppose there are things that Window Maker can't catch, but I was duly impressed that it caught this. I'm a Window Maker fan for sure.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
I use Fvwm2 - Not WindowMaker, Gnome, or KDE or any other Window Manager. I don't want a cluttered desktop - not even a *dock* or *panel*. On my 15 inch monitor there is no room for it with the xterms that I run. Fvwm2 allows me to write scripts to control actions on the desktop (probably poor wording), something that the others currently do not have.
CORBA (or any other underlying mechanism for communications between applications) is a most welcome addition to the Linux community. It is most needed, as well as other quality stand alone applications (hate bloat). CORBA is not part of the *desktop* that you see, and does not depend on any Window Manager. What GNOME and KDE are doing is providing the underlying tools/mechanisms for these applications to communicate with each other and they are using the *desktop* metaphor to entice *Windows* users to Linux. Look beyond what you see on your screen. There is much much more to both GNOME and KDE. Emacs, Mutt, and xrn among others are great programs, but there currently does not exist a method to pass data *transparently* between these nifty applications.
If you don't like the way that GNOME and KDE look, don't use their Window Managers, but don't knock the projects for trying to produce something that currently does not exist on Linux. You can use your WindowMaker and still take advantage of the things that KDE and GNOME are working on, the underlying mechanisms do not, repeat, do not, depend on what your display on your monitor looks like.
The underlying mechanisms that they are developing could be used for speech input to get passed from one program to another, embed text or graphics between programs, many many other possible uses. They are laying the foundation for many future projects.
obviously you know nothing about fvwm. for one it was never a motif wannabe and two, it certainly hasnt been booring for some time. it has come along way in the past couple of years and is nothing like the window manager you first used when you installed slackware because it was the only distribution available.
I don't know if anyone else has encountered this problem, but I'm using WindowMaker-gnome 0.53.0-2 with the latest gnome unstable debs from www.debian.org/~jim/... My problem is that whenever I quit Netscape, WindowMaker crashes. It doesn't seem to happen with any other program, just Netscape (4.08, 4.5, and 4.6 all cause it).
Any ideas?
Kyle
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
using --enable-single-icon with configure
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
It's nice of you all to mention my system as an alternartive download location ...
;-)
but next time point to my Full ftp.windowmaker.org mirror instead of my own little personal WindowMaker-section
i had the same problem. i fixed it by changing that like to
#include "WUtil.h"
as well as the raster one to in quotes as well... after that it worked fine (i am using rh6)
Try Mandrake 6.0. It is short on WindowMaker themes, but it comes with a pre-configured TTF server,2.2.9. kernel, lets you install multiple window managers during install and sets them up with kdm sessions for you.
kde is the default WM and has lots of themes, but you can also do gnome.
It would be pretty smooth for someone who does not want to fool with setting these up individually.
http://www.linux-mandrake.com
Cheers,
-karma
I switched back to 0.52 from 0.53 because I was driven crazy by that "Workspace #" that appears and slowly fades whenever you change workspaces. Is there a way to turn that off? I couldn't find one. That's my favourite new feature - no need for those silly pager apps you have to click on. You can turn it off in 0.60
I've found Window Maker to be very well maintained in Debian. (I use the not-quite-released version 2.2, potato.) The core wmaker package works excellently, as does the add-on wmaker-gnome package (to make wmaker more respectful of panel and gmc). I would assume that the wmaker-kde package works just as well. Various dock-apps and wmakerconf are all available as packages, and all kept up to the minute. With apt (debian's advanced front-end to the packaging system), you can easily keep yourself current, as well. With menu, debian's unified root-menu system, packages register (and unregister, if you remove them) entries in the Debian section of the wmaker application menu. Several themes are included, but I believe these are just the ones that are distributed by windowmaker.org in the wmaker-data tarball. For a real theme selection, get wm.themes.org and wmakerconf talking together.
E has no fvwm code in it.
didnt claim that it did, but it is most likely that e never would have happend if raster hadnt written fvwm-xpm.
oh yeah and fvwm blows, functionality AND attractiveness are BOTH missing...
exactly what functionality and attractiveness is it missing? i would really like to hear this. i think your opinion is based on the very old 1.x versions of fvwm.
no dock (to my knowledge)
there is fvwm wharf, its kinda old and not updated much since fvwmbuttons can mimic its behaviour fairly well.
or customizable panel
fvwmbuttons has been there for years.
clucky config (and I hand edit E configs...)
the config is no clunkyer than any others, the biggest problem is that most distros package poorly organized configs with their packages.
here is no reason to use it...
well no more or less reason than any other windowmanager.
f you have a nice computer, then run E, not only the graphically best, but it will actually be faster.
well nice try, but e will not be faster than fvwm on a faster machine. your logic is fundamentally flawed, any program that is faster than another on a slower machine because it is less computationaly intensive and uses less resources will still be faster on a fast machine.
You're not alone: I get precisely the same sense. I wonder who, out there, has read the reviews in the Interface Hall of Shame? How many developers are wittingly or unwittingly cloning Windows desktop behaviors (not to mention stuff like Explorer! ack!) without questioning whether this is really an effective approach? I think that needs to be questioned. I think (and this is a mac dude saying this) desktops need to be questioned, the whole Mac legacy needs to be questioned. If people want that, they know where to go. What else might be possible?
I think it's only fair to point out that Windowmaker was also written from the ground up (IE no FVWM code either).
no dock (to my knowledge) or customizable panel
clucky config (and I hand edit E configs...)
Eh? Are you knocking on E or on Windowmaker? WM certainly has a dock and a control panel for changing the config. There isn't a "customizeable panel" per say, but that's what dockapps are for. I don't think the config is that clunky either, even when you do it by hand with vi.
E isn't bad either, but it just isn't my style. (P.S. E is faster?!?)
I read the internet for the articles.
Not to be a wanker, but when the hell is Window Maker 1.0 going to be released? WM has been ready for primetime for AGES. Right now, it should be more in the 1.2-1.5 range...
:)
You're scaring away the users who don't like to use beta software (a rare thing in Linux, beta? Right?)
Alfredo, just call it 1.0 for god's sake. and through in a few token bugs for the 1.0 release. It's just too damn stable
you don't have kernel headers on your machine or they aren't in the correct location. i don't use HatRed so i can't help more than that. perhaps they are in an rpm you don't have installed? or you can download a kernel archive and link /usr/include/linux to /where_ever_you_install_it/include/linux. hope that helps
Now, what benefits are generally available from having applications that can communicate via CORBA?
Well KOM will allow linking and embedding for one thing, see the Openpart docs available at the KDE website for more info.
How is a desktop environment necessary for the use of CORBA?
It isn't with KDE.
Everyone grumps about the M$ interface,
The ocassional non-resizable dialog with a list box in it pisses me off, but I would say that comparatively MS's interfaces are good, indeed MSs main strength.
it appears to my poor vision that KDE and GNOME are striving to be nothing more than better implementations of what M$ has already done
I don't agree with that at all. KDE isn't any more like windows than it is the Mac GUI, or NextStep or OS/2. A lot of effort goes into not copying the bad features of other GUIs.
I just don't know what benefit *I* am supposed to obtain from them[DEs].
I don't know enough about you to say for sure, but you might find a web browser, e-mail client and word processor easier to use if they interoperate well and have consistent UIs. Also look for Matthias Ettrich's original e-mail on the motivation for the KDE it's worth reading.
Perhaps this isn't revolutionary enough for your tastes, but some of us just want to focus on making useful free apps with GUIs rather than creating a revolution in GUI design. (At least for the moment anyway, one thing at a time).
Sorry I couldn't provide links I'm just taking a short break from coding.
i have been thinking about trying windowmaker, but am wondering if they have or are planning to add more transparency support. anyone have any news? thanks
I tried eterm too, but it seemed bloated and unstable. That was a while back, so maybe it's improved, but aterm does everthing I want so I haven't bothered to re-evaluate eterm.
I noticed in your screenshot that you aren't using the transparent scrollbars. I know they are in aterm 0.3.6, as I use them myself, and they look much nicer than the plain gray ones. Stick this in your ~/.Xdefaults file:
Aterm*transpscrollbar: true
Transparent dock and menus sounds cool. If titlebars were also transparent you would never need to pick a theme, just a background.
Now if I could just get every other X application to do transparency... :)
Ehm...Window Maker has no roots in FVWM, it was written entirely from scratch.
Glad to see they bumped up the version number by more than .01 this time. Anybody know if there's more serious functionality planned for 1.0, or are there just 0.40 bug patches left?
not to be a pain in the ass, but shouldn't the logo up be the GNUstep one?
-herb
your mom!
If you use your computer to make a pretty desktop, use AfterStep. WM "themes" can't compete with Afterstep for customizability.
Each has its place, and if I wasn't using WM then I'd probably use AS with the same set of features.
I'm using the RH 6.0 distro with WM and wanted to use gmc as my desktop/file manager but it seems to produce a memory leak... of course it might be the 2.2 kernel compiled with pgcc, but the only time i notice all my shared mem dissappear is when running gmc (after 8 hiours or so...)
Let's drop the announcements of "My Daily New Linux Kernel(s)" to Freshmeat only as well then ok ?
In file included from /usr/include/errno.h:36,
from nxpm.c:46:
/usr/include/bits/errno.h:25: linux/errno.h: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [nxpm.lo] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/WindowMaker-0.60.0/wrlib'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
[root@megalomania WindowMaker-0.60.0]#
I switched back to 0.52 from 0.53 because I was driven crazy by that "Workspace #" that appears and slowly fades whenever you change workspaces. Is there a way to turn that off? I couldn't find one.
I tried running WM inside KDE but it was too resource-hungry. I've settled on kfm running inside WindowMaker as my preferred desktop.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Actually its GNU Window Maker
they got some heat from some software company called Windowmaker that made software for literally making windows so the developers added the space to the name.
'Tis far easier to attempt to tear down an established system, than it is to build up a better one.
While I haven't read the "Interface hall of shame", I would have if you had provided a link. However, what is one man's obnoxious quirk is another's ideal behavior. Interface is a matter of taste, despite whatever Microsoft trys to say with their "Research."
Here is a person who finds a desktop, and a bunch of panels and taskbars, on the bottom of the screen handy. I say that not from my first impression aesthetically (I remember blanching when switching from win 3.1 to win 95), but from months of heavy use.
If I want to lookup a signal from, say, class QTimer (in the course of KDE app coding), I click on my desktop icon "Qt Class List", then click QTimer, and boom! I have just what I want.
If I want to install the #$%#^ old egcs from the RH CD becasue the #$%#$% new egcs is giving me errors, I pop in the CD, click on the desktop icon "cd", and boom! The window pops up, and I can find and directly type the rpm --install with one CLI command. (So I only have to take my hand off of the mouse once, rather than switching several times.)
I find the desktop also a convenient place to store reminders (who needs a separate app? I plop an aptly named text file on the desktop, and save a detailed reminder in the file.
Oh, and while KDE (I know too little of GNOME to speak of it) may draw on ideas from Windows (as well as others), it doesn't blindly copy every little thing. I personally find myself FAR more efficient with KDE than I ever was with d:\winnt\explorer.exe
Someone here at /. described it like PIPEs on steroids. That is enabling the unix filosofy of having many really small programs that does one thing really well. I imagine all things like file dialogues, color selectors, spellcheckers and maybe some form of datatypes. Every part of the system using the same component for something, thereby exchanging it fore some other with more features or lesser resource requirements the change will affect the whole system.
I think OS/2 is the best example of this being actually done, and it might be its not absolutly necessary having a DE for this to happen. But then again, what do I know?
They became an official GNU project a while back.
I *really* like this WindowManager - WindowMaker. The dockable apps, the sound handling, the smooth window handling, the easy configurability, the modest memory footprint, the graphical rendering of components.
WindowMaker just plain rocks!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
I get rxvts, another gnome-panel, and other interesting programs starting up...when I type startx into WM/Gnome...is this what you mean?
how do i get gnome to ignore root, it keeps alerting me that i shouldnt use gnome...personally i dont care.
http://wm.current.nu/files.html#wterm
Also note that the changes Alfredo did have been rolled back into the standard rxvt from http://www.rxvt.org/
Matt
Install .53.0 first and then patch or install version .6 on top of it. The programmers all used patches from all the different versions so they dont know about this bug.
Isnt windowmaker the offical (or unoffical) GNU Debian Window manager? From developer gossip over in OPN, it seems like more than 80% of all debian developers that lurk in #debian seem to use window maker.. any ideas?
yo guys. The changelog boasts a really cool patch to windowmaker that changes which program recieves the mouse events. This now lets us use gmc fully, and the gmc root menu. But how do you get it to change focus? I have already tried to disable windowmaker mouse events, but still no go. Anyone here with a solution? Thanks.
-John
I know for sure that I don't want a preconfigured WM cause this would take half the fun. And regarding how mindboggling easy it is to setup and accustomize that wouldn't really be an issue for distributors.
"We ship WM preconfigured!"
"(yawn). Uhu. Impressive. (shrug)"
belbo. I support zero score posting
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
Which one should I run? What's the difference? From what I've seen they look very similar, in fact I can't tell the difference! Are they compatible in any way with each other?
TIA.
It was that the source compiled without any warning messages . Can't remember to have seen this before. I already knew then: this is it.
And I compared tops with people who are running KDE or GNOME: that's 2 MB vs. 12 MB... (Better stop here before I start drooling :-)
belbo I support zero score posting.
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
Hunh? Have you ever compared (for instance) the display properties applets of KDE and Windows? You don't think these two are a lot alike? How
:-)
about a taskbar/panel? Or "Start" menu? Trash can? Auto-start folder? Shortcuts?
Yes the display properties is similar to windows. The panel is more like CDE than anything windows. The taskbar is like windows, I don't use it much though but don't know how to turn it off, also note a MacOs like alternative the Windowlist in the panel is provided. Auto-start folder, sure I remember the mac having something like this. Shortcuts ditto.
I can't really justify my original statement though, I guess I meant KDE isn't a windows clone it's a blend of the best parts of CDE, Windows, the Mac GUI, OS/2 and NeXtStep. My first impression was, heck that looks a lot like CDE, then I discovered it was similar to Windows/Mac, then a found it has its own distinctive flavor, YMMV.
to say that the two aren't very similar seems silly
Except for the very I agree
A consistent UI is dependent upon the toolkit, not a "desktop environment."
No. In the case of KDE the consistent feel depends on the kdelibs as well as QT, but not on (kdebase). kdelibs is basically replacements and extensions to QT. KDE = development libraries + desktop shell + apps.
Not everyone needs to be able to edit spreadsheets from within a word processor. Why should those who don't need such "features" be expected to suffer the overhead associated with them in their UI?
Hey this is free software. That means a much more level playing field. If the apps with interoperability features are so bloated that demand for slimmer apps is strong then someone will code those slimmer apps. (Kruiser the alternative KDE file manger is one example). You've got the source code so the developer should be able to choose the level of interoperability.
Look at the plans for E, its going to be a competitor in the desktop shell arena, but you will still be able to use KDE apps from it. There is a fair bit of choice there.
Note there are limits, the choice of toolkits should benefit the developer but not make much of a difference to the user. I mean from the users point of view I don't want different types of scrollbars in different apps (themeing allows some flexibility and power here), and I don't want to find out my app doesn't support voice control as there aren't enough developers available to implement it.
It's basically depends on the supply of able programmers and the level of demand from users as to what gets done.
One of the *major* things I love about Linux is how fast it is. But it's *not* as fast at all running these big GUIs. It's manifestly slower.
Hmm, KDE doesn't slow down Linux much for me, I mean the kernel going at the same speed as always. I use bash to do most of my file management, KDE doesn't seem to have slowed down that at all, I still have the "choice".
I really would like to try to put more time into this reply but I still haven't finished that coding...
This didn't work for me.. I kept getting the same error. Funny thing is, util/wmsetbg.c, which is what was giving the error, actually does have an
#include "../WINGs/WUtil.h"
in it. Oh well, back to 0.53 for me.
Causation can cause correlation
Isn't this kind of thing better left to freshmeat?
Not that it's a big deal I guess, just seems like
some extra fluff.
From the nailing list:
Hi
I've had the same problem and I've just found a solution.
In WINGs.h you can replace the line :
# include
by
# include "WUtil.h"
i believe when i used to do SuSE 5.3, it has WM configured and plus about 10 megs of themes. it disappeared in version 6.0 i guess that means they think KDE is more easy to learn(looking like windows98 and all).
i like WM, tho. i think it's configuration and installation is rather easy, i never read the docks and i run everything right after installation, so it's not a big deal if it doesn't come pre-compiled with a distro. unlike E.
Your logic is fundamentally flawed, any program that is faster than another on a slower machine because it is less computationaly intensive and uses less resources will still be faster on a fast machine.
:-). But I don't think that it follows immediately from the fact that it is faster on slower machines.
This is not necessarily true. Well, it is in the case you gave but not in his: you said a 'faster' machine but he said a 'nicer' one. It is well known that in programming you can often trade memory space for computational time; eg, precompute the results of a drawing operation and rubber-stamp it lots of times. In other words--a program that uses more memory may be making good use of its memory to improve speed.
In addition, most memory-intensive WM functions that I can think of offhand (eg storing pixmaps) aren't actually that computationally intensive [if coded well!!] -- modern PCs can redraw the whole screen at a rate limited only by the monitor's vertical refresh. With an X server of course this requires shared memory or server-side pixmaps to reach a reasonable level of efficiency. Which E does.
I assume that when the previous poster said 'nicer' he meant not only 'faster' but 'has more memory'. The above use of memory would actually be counterproductive on a RAM-limited system since you'd go into swap. However a 'nicer' system will likely have >32 MB of RAM and therefore be able to make use of whatever clever memory-eating (but CPU-sparing) algorithm the programmers can come up with.
All of this said, I can still believe that fvwm might be faster on my machine
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Take the time to learn how to configure Fvwm (current release is 2.2.2) and you'll see that it is a lot more customizable than anything out there besides E, and it is the most stable window manager in existance, as well as not using much resources.
Fvwm2 can look like and behave like E, WindowMaker, Blackbox, KDE, anthing that you want it to, you just have to learn how to make it look/act the way that you want. Don't knock it if you don't know how to configure it.
WindowMaker, while looking good, has been very buggy at handling certain applications throughout its history (emacs, netscape, etc) and still proves to be too buggy for me. If they ever get the bugs worked out, I'll consider it again, but I don't think that anything can replace the functionality/flexibility of Fvwm(2).
Actually, Fvwm2 beats WindowMaker hands down as far as features go. Heck of a lot easier to configure than Enlightenment too. Only problem is, the default setups that most distributions ship with Fvwm2 do not appeal to the younger generation, who seem more hooked on fancy eye candy than functionality.
If you use --enable-single-icon, wmaker 0.60 will not compile. The fix appears to be removing the } in line 3529 of dock.c.
Try this:/ wterm-6.2.6-3.i386.html
http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/contrib/libc6/i386
Works (for me) on RH5.2 and RH6.
That is why i don't use WindowMaker. A lot of things they have done are good, and elegant, and useful.
But if you want me to use a window manager that only wraps the top and bottom of a window, and won't let me resize unless i grab the bottom, you have GOT to be kidding yourself.
and WHY is that the way it does it? because it's "more correct". Correct my hiney, it's counter-intuitive.
Not too long ago, a member of the WindowMaker dev team wrote an article wherein he pointed out that instead of having menu bars with a list of menus and then sub menus with tearoffs, that we should have just one menu, with several tearoffs, as that would be "More correct". He admitted it would make a lot of people angry, but insisted that that's the way it should be done.
Personally, I gauge the quality of a software product according to two rules. It has to basically work, and it can't piss me off.
This is why i use icewm. Because FEEL is more important than LOOK.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
But for some reason I thought you COUDL use WindowMaker in RH6. I think it's an install option....but maybe I'm wrong.
Werd.
You CAN use it in RH 6.0. It's an issue of not being configured correctly. It almost looks like Red Hat took a copy and just slapped it on the CD without providing a decent default config.
The program menu only shows basic applications. None of the KDE apps were listed. Some of the Gnome apps were listed, but they were poorly organized. Since it used the wmconf program to generate the menu, it was almost impossible to adjust the default setup.
I tried running the Gnome panel with it, and I just could not get it to work. It either would cause X to crash, crash Window Maker, or both. It would not remember its configuration, and using session management with Window Maker was a horrible experience.
Overall, I looked at it and realized that I had to spend needless hours of configuration to make it work correctly. It really just pissed me off that they couldn't have taken the time to make sure that Window Maker was configured correctly, and ready for Gnome or KDE before shipping.
I'm using E with Gnome which integrates nicely but I really like WindowMaker. Anyone have suggestions to make the two work seemlessly?
Now, what benefits are generally available from having applications that can communicate via CORBA? I know certainly that there are specific circumstances when this can be useful, but what particular benefit is there on a day-to-day basis that I'd want to suffer the overhead of running CORBA and a desktop environment in order to have it?
How is a desktop environment necessary for the use of CORBA? Can't I use CORBA without a "DE", thereby saving the resources?
Again, I'm not trying to be a butthead about this. I just wonder about the rather Microsoft-esque goods that we're all starting to swallow, and wondering about the benefits I'm supposed to realize from them. Everyone grumps about the M$ interface, but it appears to my poor vision that KDE and GNOME are striving to be nothing more than better implementations of what M$ has already done. Is that really the best course? How am I *really* going to benefit from giving up a load of RAM and CPU time to GNOME and KDE? I'm not saying that there aren't folk out there who really need that sort of stuff for their work -- so I'm by no means saying that GNOME/KDE are a waste of time. I just don't know what benefit *I* am supposed to obtain from them.
So: Why should I use either one? What are the benefits?
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
At the present date and time, a "desktop environment" like KDE or GNOME offers nothing that cannot be achieved via other means.
Eventually (maybe late this year or early next year), KDE and GNOME applications will be able to communicate with each other via CORBA. Then the real advantage will be to using an environment such as KDE or GNOME.
In case you haven't noticed yet, window maker already has everything fvwm has and more.
It's easier to setup, it's prettier and most of us like the feel of it as well.
So if you want to use fvwm that's fine by us, but don't try and degrade our window manager out of sheer jealousy. Window maker may have roots in fvwm, but it's long since over-grown them.
So this is now called GNU WindowMaker ?
Why ?
You know, I would love to see a Linux distribution cater to the Window Maker users. Last time /. had a poll, Window Maker was the most popular window manager by far. In February, 28% of us used Window Maker. Another 17% of us used 'other.' Third place went to FVWM with 13%. It's my favorite window manager, and I know lots of users who absolutely love it.
So, why isn't there a distribution that comes with Window Maker preconfigured, setup, and ready to go with Gnome or KDE support working already (Unlike, Red Hat 6.0)? It could come with lots of great themes already installed, along with plenty of dockapps.
Now, THAT'S a distribution that would be worthy of my time installing it.
why is it that windowmaker and e are the only window managers that get announcements on slashdot? what about FVWM to which both of them owe everything. fvwm prolly still has a larger user base than eithor of them and of late fvwm's development progress has prolly been faster than both of those windowmanagers put together.
#include "./WUtil.h"
That fixes it.
should be
. windowmaker.org/pub
ftp://shadowmere.student.utwente.nl/Mirrors/ftp
next time you feel the need to rant about something of which you're obviously misinformed, pipe it directly to /dev/null.
> next time you feel the need to rant about something of which you're obviously misinformed, pipe it directly to /dev/null.
Could we have him do that before it shows up here ?
I downloaded it yesterday and compiled it. The damned thing wouldn't even run.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
make[1]: Entering directory `/mnt/disk/opt/src/WindowMaker-0.60.0/src'
gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I. -I../wrlib -I../WINGs -I/opt/include -I/usr/X11R6/include -DLOCALEDIR=\"/opt/lib/locale\" -g -O2 -c dock.c
dock.c:3551: parse error before `else'
make[1]: *** [dock.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory
`/mnt/disk/opt/src/WindowMaker-0.60.0/src'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
I don't have a weak computer, but I run Blackbox. It's damn cool. But then again, I like the concept of minimalism. And the dock/wharf of the *STEP isn't too kind to my 14" display. So, I use Blackbox: no icons, no dock. Just a toolbar, a menu, gradient support, and easy to understand config files.
Got the stock, kde, and gnome versions pre-compiled. Lots of dock apps too.
;-)
I think the default wm is still twm though!
Hunh? Have you ever compared (for instance) the display properties applets of KDE and Windows? You don't think these two are a lot alike? How about a taskbar/panel? Or "Start" menu? Trash can? Auto-start folder? Shortcuts?
In fact, when I first tried KDE (during Beta 1), I read a FAQ from them where they said something to this effect: "We don't view this as copying Windows; we view this as taking the best from it and beating Microsoft over the head with it." Yes, there are differences (and there are definite improvements in KDE, too -- like editable *.kdelnk files, for instance). But to say that the two aren't very similar seems silly. Even the key bindings are extremely similar!
but you might find a web browser, e-mail client and word processor easier to use if they interoperate well and have consistent UIs.
A consistent UI is dependent upon the toolkit, not a "desktop environment." It is dependent upon developers working together to use that toolkit to make things work consistently. Certainly this has benefits, and you're right about that. But as to the integration -- isn't this something that is really NOT of benefit to everyone? Not everyone needs to be able to edit spreadsheets from within a word processor. Why should those who don't need such "features" be expected to suffer the overhead associated with them in their UI? Of course with Linux one has choice -- but that's beside the point. I am being told that GNOME and/or KDE represent the wave of the future for Linux GUIs. What if Joe User wants to use GNOME because he thinks it's cool but doesn't need all the "integration" junk? He's stuck with it. He can't turn it off, either -- just like Windows. No choice.
I'm not trying to be revolutionary. One of the *major* things I love about Linux is how fast it is. But it's *not* as fast at all running these big GUIs. It's manifestly slower. Why should I give up that speed for the sake of "integration"?
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Every time Miguel belches there is an article about Gnome on slashdot, yet any other software releases get the usual "Send it to freshmeat!".
Let's be fair, if Gnome gets coverage like this then so should everything else...especially GNU Windowmaker, which is the official GNU environment.
BTW the bug is this:
If you start a x session at tty1 you're x display will go to tty7. Whenever you try to start a command line tool in the Run applet it will prompt you for stuff on tty1. I started a "ssh -l my_name
My_Host" in the run applet. On tty1 a command line
prompt was started asking me for a password. To my stunning suprise the password *was* echoed on the screen. I did file report.
Ummm... That's not a bug, that's the way X always works. If you run a command line program, it will appear on the current controlling terminal. You were on tty1, so WM's controlling terminal is tty1, and since these things are inherited so is the run applet's, and therefore so is ssh's. There's not a whole lot you could do about it; you'd have to modify the Run applet to be smart enough to know whether what it's being asked to run is an X app in order to get around this, and to start the app in an xterm if it's not. That's not the kind of stuff that the Run app is supposed to do.
The real solution is to type "xterm -e ssh -l my_name my_host" in the Run... box.
Actually, I have. It's the best I've seen so far, but far from perfect. The least they could have done was include 0.53 instead of 0.52.
As soon as I resolve the weird file system problems that I'm having, I'll probably keep Mandrake.
Got any ideas?
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/sgunders/WindowMaker-0.60.0/util'
gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I../src -I../wrlib -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/X11R6/include -g -O2 -c wmsetbg.c
In file included from wmsetbg.c:49:
../WINGs/WINGs.h:7: WUtil.h: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [wmsetbg.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/sgunders/WindowMaker-0.60.0/util'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
[root@penguin WindowMaker-0.60.0]#
There are still bugs left. Obscure ones (such as the one I found) but bugs. Yet I certainly switched from my beloved afterstep to wmaker.
;-)
Although I still find afterstep nice too
BTW the bug is this:
If you start a x session at tty1 you're x display will go to tty7. Whenever you try to start a command line tool in the Run applet it will prompt you for stuff on tty1. I started a "ssh -l my_name
My_Host" in the run applet. On tty1 a command line
prompt was started asking me for a password. To my
stunning suprise the password *was* echoed on the
screen. I did file report.
Thanks
Oh, and I suppose a KDE or Gnome release would be noteworthy? Windowmaker is great, and has an impressive user base. Good job guys, you have me hooked and I ain't looking back.
If you're looking for a mirror of the Windowmaker ftp, try ftp.ameth.org/pub/mirrors/ftp.windowmaker.org/.
Instant Karma's gonna get you...
Actually ..
.kdelnk) to lauch Netscape if it was not running, or raise all the Netscape windows to the fore if it was running.
The coolest thing about fvwm is A) the FVWM modules API and B) the Perl interface to A). I wrote a Perl script to give my FVWM configuration Mac-style application menus, complete with hide [current app], hide others, show all, and a list of running applications. Selecting The GIMP, for example, on the applications menu would raise every GIMP window to the fore.
And, even better, I was able to execute other Perl scripts from an external shell to use the functions I created with this Perl script, and so I was able to add icons to kpanel to hide all windows and to show all windows. I was also able to use shell commands to hide or raise all windows of an application, so I could double-click on the Netscape icon (a
Eventually, I figured out that I like WindowMaker's app icons for switching apps more than I liked the Mac-style application menu, but being able to control a window manager using Perl scripts and shell commands is just sooooo damn kickass.
I have to wholeheartedly agree here. DFL spent 4 years with W95/NT: I've spent comparable time with various MacOSes. Apart from basic file management duties (which I don't see _any_ Linux desktop doing properly, and indeed don't see Windows doing properly either) I don't see what the point is to having a desktop _at_ _all_.
Look, this was neat stuff ten years ago- but just because it's only coming around to Linux in recent years doesn't mean it's _that_ great an idea. It's nothing more than a visual orientation tool, and this is only a reminder of the _real_ state of the filesystem, an imaginary picture and not the true status of the computer. The positions icons are in do not 'exist' in any relevant sense, to the computer. They are arbitrary.
Drag and drop is great- hell, I very often use my MacOS partitions and extensively use drag and drop, and it's totally prevalent in MacOS and works quite consistently- but there are only so many ways I use it, in the long run, and all of these ways could be implemented some other way. Selection in X is so screwy it's a moot point that it isn't drag and drop- and the other use I find is dragging selected text (always text) to the desktop and making a clipping. There are other ways I could get that result, because all it really is, is copying the active selection to a file- that's ALL it is, it's just done with a motion rather than a command.
I have linuxPPC running with a medium-old Window Maker and am well pleased with it, and run nothing resembling a 'desktop'. That's what multiple terms and the applications menu are for, and the latter allows tricks I couldn't begin to do from a 'desktop' with limited action grammar (I'd have to make special aliases to script the running of special other programs in combination- yuck! Not appropriate for use with MacOS).
I have linux (RH 5.1, heavily stripped) running on a _486_ at work with 16M of ram and a mere 240M hard drive, and _that_ runs an old Window Maker and is quite happy with it (and also runs aterms- with the option of making them transparent. Yah- transparent terms on a 486. Very nice way to run console apps on severely limited systems- it's not all that slow, even)
I agree with DFL: I see _no_ significant benefit to a linux 'desktop'. Why, why? I suppose I can see putting icons on the screen, but you don't _have_ to... and anyhow WM offers dock and clip and stuff to let icons be present. I've found, personally, after many years of using a very determined desktop environment, that I find it soothing and kind of Zen to have an empty space where the desktop would be- or a nice picture uncluttered by objects (save the clip- or even sans both dock and clip), or an Afterstep-inspired animated xlockmore background, like star -batchcount 200 -size 20 -trek 0 -straight (or laser, if I want to be veryveryalertandawake!)
Maybe it is simply that people who have used Mac or Windows for years and become very familiar with desktops are more open to looking at other approaches and thinking they are _better_ than what (to the old Windows or Mac user) seems like the old-fashioned way of doing things? When using Linux, I find that the idea of a desktop with icons to launch programs and menubars/taskbars on the screen etc etc etc seems intolerably limiting and trite... I guess it takes all kinds... how many other Mac/Windows users actively try to set up Linux so it behaves different from anything they are familiar with?
If not drag and drop, then what?
Is it a unified look and feel? Can't this be had by using apps based on one toolkit, for less overhead?
Is it integrated apps? Setting aside KOffice for the moment (since it's not *quite* ready), what other "integrated" apps are there (not counting app-swallowing panels, since panels aren't (IMO) an essential part of an "environment" and since that functionality already exists in window managers lacking an "environment")?
Is the big attraction having a "desktop"? What work do you do on it? What benefits does it add?
I'm not trying to be a pain in the neck. I'm literally at a loss for what exactly the benefits are that a window manager like Window Maker or AfterStep doesn't provide. After 4 years of Windows 9X/NT and after spending time with KDE, I still don't see what the benefit is of a "desktop" other than a place for icons to generate clutter. Why do I need that? I do all my work in applications, not on a desktop. So what does this add?
So what is it?
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
One on of the screenshots there is a transparent version of RXVT, which is also mentioned in the shots description. Does anyone have a link to the src of Alfredo's rxvt hack? I thought that was very cool.
Remove the } in line 3529, just before the #else, that ought to do the job.