why should i change from fvwm

plasmagunman · l33t Joined: 07 Jun 2002 Posts: 604 Location: berlin

i have successfully finished my first gentoo basic-installation and xfree is compiling... well, after that i have to install a windowmanager and after reading so much about blackbox, luxbox, waiman, ... i'm quite curious of the advantages of these. what can they what can't be done by fvwm? are they smaller and faster? is there anything what fvwm can do but the others not? i really like the configurability of fvwmbuttons.
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AutoBot · l33t Joined: 22 Apr 2002 Posts: 968 Location: Usually Out

Well being that fluxbox, blackbox, and waimea are very small wm's why not give each one a go to find out for yourself.

I was a big kde user until I began using gentoo some time ago, kde simply takes too long to compile. So I gave fluxbox a run for the money only to find that fluxbox is not simply an acceptable wm for me, fluxbox is a joy to use, is extremely fast and efficient, and it does all things I need when ran in conjuction with rox filer.
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lain iwakura · Apprentice Joined: 09 May 2002 Posts: 176 Location: sd, ca

i have to agree with autobot, of coarse, but you should find out for yourself.

in addition, if you like configurability, try enlightenment. it's kinda in the middle (comparing sizes) of fluxbox, bb, etc and kde, gnome. not too big, not that lightweight.
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sa · Guru Joined: 10 Jun 2002 Posts: 450

I would have to say stay with fvwm

But in order to achieve enlightenment young grasshopper, you must build and configure them all!

sa,
fvwm2.5.2 cvs

jtanner · Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2002 6:13 pm Post subject:

I've gone from fvwm to gnome to enlightenment to blackbox to enlightenment to kde. Each time I've switched, it's because I've encountered a problem or lack of elegance when attempting to do something. A lot of it (for me) depends on the hardware I'm running. For example, I'm currently running kde on a 933mhz PIII, and it's good. I don't know if it would be as good on my 550 mhz Athlon, or my 466 mhz celeron, though.

I left fvwm because I couldn't get the dock (or whatever) configured exactly as I wanted it. When I got the layout correct (I thought), it didn't function the way I thought it should. Plus, it just didn't look polished enough for me.

I've tried a couple of iterations of gnome, but each time it has that "cobbled together behind a nice facade" feel that I didn't care for, plus it seemed way too heavy for me. Things were *almost* integrated, functionality was *almost* there, but in the end it wasn't enough, and annoyed me more than anything else.

Enlightenment has been good to me, but by the time I built up all of the controls/apps I wanted on the side of the screen (gkrellm, E-Fancylauncher, iconbox, etc), it had that "patched together" look that I was trying to avoid. Plus, it would periodically start sucking up cpu and I would have to restart it.

I heard great things about blackbox, but when I tried it I didn't like how it handled minimized applications, and functionality generally seemed lacking. It's a great lightweight wm, but I needed more (different) functionality.

I read about kde3, so I thought I would give it a try. It's a little heavier than I prefer, but it has the functionality that I wanted, and looks very polished to boot. There are a few nits, but nothing that gets on my nerves too much. It's been stable, to boot.

Bottom line: find the one that is the best match to the way you work, and tweak it to your satisfaction. Gentoo makes this easy.

Jim