fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

theringmaster · 2007-09-22 00:08:06

I recently have been eyeballin' FVWM as a suitable replacement for xfce4, which in my humble opinion, is a little bit too slow to update itself. I would like you guys/gals to share your experiences, triumphs, failures, reasons for, as well as against, Maybe a nice theme or two. Maybe this could be the official fvwm thread of the arch forums.

maybe some kind moderator could move this to a more general chat for me.

Last edited by theringmaster (2007-09-22 00:24:46)

pauldonnelly · 2007-09-23 03:45:36

I like FVWM a lot, coming from TWM and VTWM before it. Assuming you want a floating WM that offers more flexibility than flash, it's a very good choice. I used it to roughly emulate Plan 9's window manager, and it was very pleasant to use.

theringmaster · 2007-09-23 06:12:05

pauldonnelly wrote:

I like FVWM a lot, coming from TWM and VTWM before it. Assuming you want a floating WM that offers more flexibility than flash, it's a very good choice. I used it to roughly emulate Plan 9's window manager, and it was very pleasant to use.

May i ask what you mean when you say "flash".

Theomachos · 2007-09-23 17:15:14

For people who want tiling functionality in Fvwm:
http://fvwm.lair.be/viewtopic.php?f=6&t … 8bf9a4cd53

Simply edit FvwmRearrange, compile and set keybindings for your new tiling-function.

Shaika-Dzari · 2007-09-23 19:23:32

I used Fvwm since one year now.
This is a great windows manager. Fast as hell and very light.

You need to read some man to configure it but when it's done, this is really cool.

I recommend fvwm-patched pkg from archlinux.fr:
http://wiki.archlinux.fr/howto:archlinu … rchlinuxfr

@+

peabrain · 2007-09-23 23:12:34

The downside of FVWM is that it requires some amount of manual edit-files-by-hand configuring (well not all consider this as a downside).

The upside is that FVWM is the best there is. And this is not an opinion.

Remember to use fvwm-devel because it contains many essential features and fvwm stable (2.4.x) is somewhat obsolete. Besides if fvwm-devel would really be considered unstable in normal use, then there wouldn't be such thing as a stable window manager.

Congratulations on becoming an FVWM user. You won't be looking back. Or if you do, well then you just don't understand what's good for you.

Last edited by peabrain (2007-09-23 23:14:51)

theringmaster · 2007-09-24 01:08:15

peabrain wrote:

The downside of FVWM is that it requires some amount of manual edit-files-by-hand configuring (well not all consider this as a downside).
The upside is that FVWM is the best there is. And this is not an opinion.
Remember to use fvwm-devel because it contains many essential features and fvwm stable (2.4.x) is somewhat obsolete. Besides if fvwm-devel would really be considered unstable in normal use, then there wouldn't be such thing as a stable window manager.
Congratulations on becoming an FVWM user. You won't be looking back. Or if you do, well then you just don't understand what's good for you.

well i haven't switched yet. My next machine (a laptop maybe) will have fvwm no questions asked. I wanna keep my machine stable (meaning that i don't wanna confuse my mother who also uses my machine).

PS. KEEP THOSE COMMENTS A ROLLIN' and I found this wicked picture!

Last edited by theringmaster (2007-09-24 03:17:09)

hk2717 · 2007-09-24 03:40:11

FVWM lovers, may I have your opinion on Openbox pls?

Theomachos · 2007-09-24 09:42:56

*boxes = a little less configurable, but much easier to handle - and it looks good after install (not like Fvwm, which looks really like...uuuuhhh )

IMHO the only WM to challenge Fvwm is sawfish. In fact, it is even more powerful because of Lisp.
It only has a very small community and you will have to find out many things on your own...

When it comes to extensible WMs, there are three choices for me:

Fvwm - standard, powerful, can be extremely good-looking, many example configs
Sawfish - no limits (if you know lisp)
Stumpwm - WM + REPL = Hours of fun... , Tiling WM

For Fvwm-people: I really recommend taking a look at fvwm.lair.be .

RobbeR49 · 2007-09-24 14:01:04

I used Fvwm for a while, and I liked it a lot. I would warn you though that if you start doing a lot of customizing with it it can turn into a huge time-sink. But that is also part of the fun.

I think one of the only things that annoyed me was that despite all of the options for customization I would occasionally find tiny things I couldn't do with it.

I ended up going back to openbox because in the end it worked like I wanted without all the fuss. I realized somewhere along the line that I was customizing Fvwm to act similar to openbox anyway.

Oh, and FvwmButtons is awesome - it's the best thing about it IMO. I wish there was a standalone version of it.

Weeks · 2007-09-24 19:52:35

FVWM was my first window manager and I loved it. Mainly because I loved editing the configuration file to customise FVWM. I'm a XFCEr now. Yesterday I tried openbox and fluxbox as less resource intensive alternatives. In the end I returned to XFCE for the following reasons:

* Thunar for its simplicity and ability to detect and mount devices.
* The menu bar that automatically updates itself from the .desktop files.
* Panel with the "system tray" thing and quick launch buttons.
* The notes applet.

I know you can get all this stuff for fvwm, openbox, fluxbox etc from different sources but with XFCE it's all nicely integrated and similar. In addition, I simply can't be bothered to spend time editing my configuration files for often minor visual defects and general alterations and I simply want a desktop without the hassle of configuration. I may one day look at that lisp wm and the keyboard driven one, but at the moment I'm far too much of a point and click junky even if it is more inefficient as they claim - it's just easier.

Last edited by Weeks (2007-09-24 19:55:01)

theringmaster · 2007-09-28 16:36:06

I also accept comments from fvwm-crystal users. I have been researching it lately and it seems like a god-send.

pauldonnelly · 2007-09-29 02:31:24

theringmaster wrote:

pauldonnelly wrote:
I like FVWM a lot, coming from TWM and VTWM before it. Assuming you want a floating WM that offers more flexibility than flash, it's a very good choice. I used it to roughly emulate Plan 9's window manager, and it was very pleasant to use.
May i ask what you mean when you say "flash".

I mean that FVWM doesn't do anything graphically fancy. Setting up pretty bitmapped windows seems to be more trouble than it's worth, although I think it's supported.

theringmaster · 2008-04-06 15:51:03

you will have only a few minutes of downloading and installing, but you will still have month's of configuring fvwm unless you go with fvwm-crystal.

iBertus · 2008-04-06 15:52:00

FVWM doesn't support fancy animations or compositing (ala compiz) but allows for the ultimate in customization. I've not tried sawfish, but FVWM rocks in my opinion. I'm planning on setting up FVWM on both my main workstation and laptop to replace compiz-fusion.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-09-22 00:08:06

fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#2 2007-09-23 03:45:36

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#3 2007-09-23 06:12:05

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#4 2007-09-23 17:15:14

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#5 2007-09-23 19:23:32

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#6 2007-09-23 23:12:34

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#7 2007-09-24 01:08:15

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#8 2007-09-24 03:40:11

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#9 2007-09-24 09:42:56

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#10 2007-09-24 14:01:04

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#11 2007-09-24 19:52:35

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#12 2007-09-28 16:36:06

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#13 2007-09-29 02:31:24

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#14 2008-04-06 15:51:03

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

#15 2008-04-06 15:52:00

Re: fvwm....Your thoughts and comments...please

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