FVWM: fvwm and mvwm? How is fvwm?

[Michael Treibton]

Hi,

I recently read this:

https://plus.google.com/+ThomasAdamXteddy/posts/H5dV9UM7Pbe

And wondered what the status of fvwm is for definite, especially now
one of the main developers has abandoned it.

What do others think?

Michael

[Stuart Longland]

On 11/05/14 19:39, Michael Treibton wrote:
> I recently read this:
>
> https://plus.google.com/+ThomasAdamXteddy/posts/H5dV9UM7Pbe
>
> And wondered what the status of fvwm is for definite, especially now
> one of the main developers has abandoned it.
>
> What do others think?

It worries me a bit too. I started with FVWM when I started using Linux
in 1996. I've used a lot of window managers and desktop environments
(KDE, Gnome, OLVWM, WindowMaker, AfterStep...), including commercial
ones (Sun CDE, SGI 4DWM, SCO PMWM, MacOS X, Microsoft Windows, QNX
Neutrino, IBM OS/2).

FVWM has been the closest, close enough that I haven't gone and tried to
do my own thing.

That isn't to say I don't have my own ideas. Seeing others' blunders
into UI horrors has taught me a few mistakes I won't repeat. Different
desktops bring with them various ideas, some worth leaving behind,
others worth looking into.

Some of my ideas are documented here (after I stop bagging out Microsoft):
http://stuartl.longlandclan.yi.org/blog/2014/04/12/user-interfaces/

It's the sand irritating the oyster that produces the pearl. I think
these few grains in my abode aren't quite enough to get me annoyed just yet.
--
Stuart Longland (aka Redhatter, VK4MSL)

I haven't lost my mind...
...it's backed up on a tape somewhere.

[Thomas Funk]

Stuart Longland wrote:
> On 11/05/14 19:39, Michael Treibton wrote:
>> I recently read this:
>>
>> https://plus.google.com/+ThomasAdamXteddy/posts/H5dV9UM7Pbe
>>
>> And wondered what the status of fvwm is for definite, especially now
>> one of the main developers has abandoned it.
>>
>> What do others think?

FVWM is still an active project as you can see it on the mailing lists
but it's true that there are many parts in the code which could be
removed but that's not so easy. FVWM is over 20 years old and many things
were growed over the time and interlaced with each other.

If Thomas wants to clean up FVWM why not. It is free software and it is
his good right to do this. But this doesn't mean that FVWM is dead.

> It worries me a bit too.

Don't worry. FVWM has a very active community. See
- Mailing lists
- Forums
- Projects (Fvwm-Crystal, Fvwm-Nightshade)

-- Thomas --

[E Frank Ball III]

On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 02:28:19PM +0200, Thomas Funk wrote:
>
> FVWM is still an active project as you can see it on the mailing lists
> but it's true that there are many parts in the code which could be
> removed but that's not so easy. FVWM is over 20 years old and many things
> were growed over the time and interlaced with each other.


How will the new display managers (if that's the correct term) such as
Wayland and Mir effect fvwm? Does it have to be ported to Wayland to work?

E Frank Ball ***@frankb.us

[M***@gmx.de]

> Gesendet: Sonntag, 11. Mai 2014 um 18:57 Uhr
> Von: "E Frank Ball III" <***@frankb.us>
> An: fvwm <***@fvwm.org>
> Betreff: Re: FVWM: fvwm and mvwm? How is fvwm?
>
> On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 02:28:19PM +0200, Thomas Funk wrote:
> >
> > FVWM is still an active project as you can see it on the mailing lists
> > but it's true that there are many parts in the code which could be
> > removed but that's not so easy. FVWM is over 20 years old and many things
> > were growed over the time and interlaced with each other.
>
>
> How will the new display managers (if that's the correct term) such as
> Wayland and Mir effect fvwm? Does it have to be ported to Wayland to work?
>
> E Frank Ball ***@frankb.us

I'm also deeply interested in the answer of that question.

[Thomas Adam]

On 11 May 2014 17:57, E Frank Ball III <***@frankb.us> wrote:
> On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 02:28:19PM +0200, Thomas Funk wrote:
> >
> > FVWM is still an active project as you can see it on the mailing lists
> > but it's true that there are many parts in the code which could be
> > removed but that's not so easy. FVWM is over 20 years old and many things
> > were growed over the time and interlaced with each other.
>
>
> How will the new display managers (if that's the correct term) such as
> Wayland and Mir effect fvwm? Does it have to be ported to Wayland to work?

Yes, FVWM would have to be a Wayland Compositor to be able to work correctly.

Good luck with that.

If I were you, I'd let the FUD die down about Wayland and concentrate
on fluffier things.

-- Thomas Adam

[Martin Cermak]

On Mon 2014-05-12 11:26 , Thomas Adam wrote:
> On 11 May 2014 17:57, E Frank Ball III <***@frankb.us> wrote:
> > On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 02:28:19PM +0200, Thomas Funk wrote:
> > >
> > > FVWM is still an active project as you can see it on the mailing lists
> > > but it's true that there are many parts in the code which could be
> > > removed but that's not so easy. FVWM is over 20 years old and many things
> > > were growed over the time and interlaced with each other.
> >
> >
> > How will the new display managers (if that's the correct term) such as
> > Wayland and Mir effect fvwm? Does it have to be ported to Wayland to work?
>
> Yes, FVWM would have to be a Wayland Compositor to be able to work correctly.
>
> Good luck with that.
>
> If I were you, I'd let the FUD die down about Wayland and concentrate
> on fluffier things.

So, what's the relationship between your aforementioned private
FVWM cleanup effort [1] and wayland?

>
> -- Thomas Adam

And what are plans of current active FVWM developers re. wayland
porting?

Let me note that FVWM absolutely fits my needs.

Martin

---------------------------------
[1] https://github.com/ThomasAdam/fvwm/tree/ta/complete-cleanup

[Thomas Adam]

On 12 May 2014 12:08, Martin Cermak <***@gmail.com> wrote:
> So, what's the relationship between your aforementioned private
> FVWM cleanup effort [1] and wayland?

Absolutely none.

-- Thomas Adam

[Michael Treibton]

On 12 May 2014 12:20, Thomas Adam <***@fvwm.org> wrote:
> On 12 May 2014 12:08, Martin Cermak <***@gmail.com> wrote:
>> So, what's the relationship between your aforementioned private
>> FVWM cleanup effort [1] and wayland?
>
> Absolutely none.
>
> -- Thomas Adam

Perhaps that's OK. Are there any plans to merge your work back to
fvwm when you're finished? Is there any reason why this has to be a
fork and not a branch in cvs?

Michael

[Thomas Adam]

On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 02:16:51PM +0100, Michael Treibton wrote:
> On 12 May 2014 12:20, Thomas Adam <***@fvwm.org> wrote:
> > On 12 May 2014 12:08, Martin Cermak <***@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> So, what's the relationship between your aforementioned private
> >> FVWM cleanup effort [1] and wayland?
> >
> > Absolutely none.
> >
> > -- Thomas Adam
>
> Perhaps that's OK. Are there any plans to merge your work back to
> fvwm when you're finished? Is there any reason why this has to be a
> fork and not a branch in cvs?

Go back ten years, maybe a little more and it used to be the case that
forking was bad; considered a social nightmare between a project and its
developers because forking was seen as a resolution to a problem that
couldn't be solved for the project as a whole.

Now though, with the advent of services like GitHub, forking has become more
sociable; the implication that it's just a work-flow of doing work and
contributing back that work to the "canonical" source for that project.

And that's what I'm doing here---this work is something quite disruptive and
making that apparent is something I think is important. It's completely
different to FVWM at the moment, and is ripping out a lot of the internals
such that they're not so comparable at the moment. Whether this means the
work I'm doing is integrated back to FVWM is undefined; the prerequisite
being I actually have to _do_ some work first.

So I don't want idle speculation or wonder to permeate the work I'm doing,
the only thing FVWM will benefit from this will be bug-fixes, and I've
already identified a few memory leaks. It's nice for FVWM in a way, it's
being audited for free as a result of this work.

-- Thomas Adam

[lee]

Thomas Adam <***@fvwm.org> writes:

> So I don't want idle speculation or wonder to permeate the work I'm doing,
> the only thing FVWM will benefit from this will be bug-fixes, and I've
> already identified a few memory leaks. It's nice for FVWM in a way, it's
> being audited for free as a result of this work.

Is the code currently in the repo on github "useful"? "Useful" would
mean that one could compile it and use it instead of fvwm.

I`m all for removing cruft and better efficiency, and I appreciate your
effort and would be happy if I could help.


--
Knowledge is volatile and fluid. Software is power.

[lee]

lee <***@yun.yagibdah.de> writes:

> Thomas Adam <***@fvwm.org> writes:
>
>> So I don't want idle speculation or wonder to permeate the work I'm doing,
>> the only thing FVWM will benefit from this will be bug-fixes, and I've
>> already identified a few memory leaks. It's nice for FVWM in a way, it's
>> being audited for free as a result of this work.
>
> Is the code currently in the repo on github "useful"? "Useful" would
> mean that one could compile it and use it instead of fvwm.

So I cloned and compiled it, and it works --- even seems to be a lot
faster than the fvwm version in Fedora.

However, I have

FvwmRearrange -tile -a -mn 2 -noraise 0 0 100 100

in a menu, and it doesn`t work anymore in that it doesn`t seem to do
anything. Is this feature disabled/removed in mvwm?


--
Knowledge is volatile and fluid. Software is power.

[Michael Treibton]

On 26 May 2014 17:18, lee <***@yun.yagibdah.de> wrote:
> lee <***@yun.yagibdah.de> writes:
>
>> Thomas Adam <***@fvwm.org> writes:
>>
>>> So I don't want idle speculation or wonder to permeate the work I'm doing,
>>> the only thing FVWM will benefit from this will be bug-fixes, and I've
>>> already identified a few memory leaks. It's nice for FVWM in a way, it's
>>> being audited for free as a result of this work.
>>
>> Is the code currently in the repo on github "useful"? "Useful" would
>> mean that one could compile it and use it instead of fvwm.
>
> So I cloned and compiled it, and it works --- even seems to be a lot
> faster than the fvwm version in Fedora.
>
> However, I have
>
> FvwmRearrange -tile -a -mn 2 -noraise 0 0 100 100
>
> in a menu, and it doesn`t work anymore in that it doesn`t seem to do
> anything. Is this feature disabled/removed in mvwm?

I think this module has gone now.

one thing i am interested to know is if we will be seeing the monitor
support in mvwm put back into fvwm. is anyone interested in putting
back changes to fvwm? i thought that was the point of mvwm?

seperate monitors has been something i've wanted for ages and it seems
to be working for me - does it work for anyone else?

Michael

[Olivier Galibert]

I found that setting up the monitors with xrandr then restarting fvwm
from the menu works rather well. So screen configuration is well
taken into account. OTOH, it seems that having fvwm pick it up
automatically would require major surgery. The setup is so not
dynamic it's not funny.

OG.


On Sat, Jul 5, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Michael Treibton
<***@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 26 May 2014 17:18, lee <***@yun.yagibdah.de> wrote:
>> lee <***@yun.yagibdah.de> writes:
>>
>>> Thomas Adam <***@fvwm.org> writes:
>>>
>>>> So I don't want idle speculation or wonder to permeate the work I'm doing,
>>>> the only thing FVWM will benefit from this will be bug-fixes, and I've
>>>> already identified a few memory leaks. It's nice for FVWM in a way, it's
>>>> being audited for free as a result of this work.
>>>
>>> Is the code currently in the repo on github "useful"? "Useful" would
>>> mean that one could compile it and use it instead of fvwm.
>>
>> So I cloned and compiled it, and it works --- even seems to be a lot
>> faster than the fvwm version in Fedora.
>>
>> However, I have
>>
>> FvwmRearrange -tile -a -mn 2 -noraise 0 0 100 100
>>
>> in a menu, and it doesn`t work anymore in that it doesn`t seem to do
>> anything. Is this feature disabled/removed in mvwm?
>
> I think this module has gone now.
>
> one thing i am interested to know is if we will be seeing the monitor
> support in mvwm put back into fvwm. is anyone interested in putting
> back changes to fvwm? i thought that was the point of mvwm?
>
> seperate monitors has been something i've wanted for ages and it seems
> to be working for me - does it work for anyone else?
>
> Michael
>

[Michael Treibton]

On 5 July 2014 16:05, Olivier Galibert <***@pobox.com> wrote:
> I found that setting up the monitors with xrandr then restarting fvwm
> from the menu works rather well. So screen configuration is well
> taken into account. OTOH, it seems that having fvwm pick it up
> automatically would require major surgery. The setup is so not
> dynamic it's not funny.

i know fvwm can do this - but my main point is mvwm not only uses
xrandr but makes the pages and desktops per monitor as well. my
question is will this functionality ever hit fvwm?

Michael

[Chris Bannister]

On Sat, Jul 05, 2014 at 04:54:32PM +0100, Michael Treibton wrote:
> On 5 July 2014 16:05, Olivier Galibert <***@pobox.com> wrote:
> > I found that setting up the monitors with xrandr then restarting fvwm
> > from the menu works rather well. So screen configuration is well
> > taken into account. OTOH, it seems that having fvwm pick it up
> > automatically would require major surgery. The setup is so not
> > dynamic it's not funny.
>
> i know fvwm can do this - but my main point is mvwm not only uses
> xrandr but makes the pages and desktops per monitor as well. my
> question is will this functionality ever hit fvwm?

You could submit a patch?

--
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people
who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the
oppressing." --- Malcolm X

[Michael Treibton]

On 6 July 2014 09:39, Chris Bannister <***@slingshot.co.nz> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 05, 2014 at 04:54:32PM +0100, Michael Treibton wrote:
>> On 5 July 2014 16:05, Olivier Galibert <***@pobox.com> wrote:
>> > I found that setting up the monitors with xrandr then restarting fvwm
>> > from the menu works rather well. So screen configuration is well
>> > taken into account. OTOH, it seems that having fvwm pick it up
>> > automatically would require major surgery. The setup is so not
>> > dynamic it's not funny.
>>
>> i know fvwm can do this - but my main point is mvwm not only uses
>> xrandr but makes the pages and desktops per monitor as well. my
>> question is will this functionality ever hit fvwm?
>
> You could submit a patch?

i'm not a developer and wouldn't know what to do - which is why i am
asking if someone else does know and could look at doing it?

Or point me in the right direction

Michael