I am currently using FVWM 2.5.12-4 and the version of FvwmIconMan does not contain anything about:
MaxButtonWidthByColumns
Do I need to upgrade Fvwm to get these options?
And if yes is the procedure just to uninstall my current version, enter gnome and install a newer?
I can’t find any newer in Synaptic though.
2.5.13 (current ‘unstable’ will have it.)
Why enter Gnome to do this? The Debian maintainer probably hasn’t created a .deb for 2.5.13 – downloading this from FVWM and installing it yourself is easy enough. You can even just do:
./configure && make deb-distand install the resulting .deb created.
– Thomas Adam
Ok then it will just override the old version.
Just thought it was best to uninstall the old version before installing the new.
It will get uninstalled automatically if you follow Thomas Adam’s procedure above 
…I am rather green in using anything else that synpatic. I have just downloaded the new version of fvwm to /home/me/apps/fvwm.
Should I just type ./configure && make deb-dist from there or should I put the extracted files in som root dir??
And what does it mean just to install the .deb?
make deb-distcompiles fvwm, and bundles it as a .deb file.:
dpkg -i ./fvwm-whatever.debYou’ll need to be user “root” to install it.
– Thomas Adam
Ok I just did:
me@ubuntu:~apps/fvwm/fvwm-2.5.13$ ./configure && make deb-dist
then it does a lot of…things.
but in the end I get these messages:
FVWM Configuration:
Version: 2.5.13
Executables: /usr/bin
Man pages: /usr/share/man
Modules: /usr/lib/fvwm/2.5.13
Data files: /usr/share/fvwm
Perl lib: /usr/share/fvwm/perllib
Locale msg: /usr/share/locale ar de fr sv_SE zh_CN
With Asian bi-direct. text support? no: No fribidi-config found in PATH
With Gettext Native Lang support? yes (libc)
With GTK+ required for FvwmGtk? no: Failed to detect GTK, see config.log
With Iconv support? yes (from C library)
With Mouse strokes (gestures)? no: Can't find working libstroke
With PNG image support? yes
With ReadLine sup. in FvwmConsole? no: Can't find working libreadline
With RPlay support in FvwmEvent? no: Explicitly disabled
With Shaped window support? yes
With Shared memory for XImage? yes
With Session Management support? yes
With Xinerama multi-head support? yes
With Xft anti-alias font support? yes (version 2)
With XPM image support? no: Can't find working libXpm
With Xrender image support? yes
See INSTALL.fvwm for the description of what this may mean.
fakeroot dh_testdir -P`cd .. && pwd`/inst-2.5.13
/bin/sh: fakeroot: command not found
make[3]: *** [inplace] Error 127
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/me/apps/fvwm/fvwm-2.5.13/fvwm-2.5.13'
make[2]: *** [deb-inplace] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/me/apps/fvwm/fvwm-2.5.13/fvwm-2.5.13'
make[1]: *** [this] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/me/apps/fvwm/fvwm-2.5.13'
make: *** [deb-this] Error 1
me@ubuntu:~/apps/fvwm/fvwm-2.5.13$ ./configure && make deb-dist
I get kind of many errormessages…is it safe to go on before I fix:
Can’t find working libXpm
/bin/sh: fakeroot: command not found
make: *** [deb-this] Error 1
You need to install (via Synaptic, if you so wish), the following packages:
fakeroot
debhelper
libxpm-foo-dev
The “libxpm-foo-dev” is something like: “libxpm-6-dev”, but you’ll have to search for it. It’s the “-dev” version you want, anyway.
– Thomas Adam
what?? It only took a split second:
me@ubuntu:~/apps/fvwm/fvwm-2.5.13$ sudo dpkg -i ./fvwm_2.5.13-0.20050807_i386.deb
(Reading database ... 135160 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace fvwm 2.5.12-4 (using .../fvwm_2.5.13-0.20050807_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement fvwm ...
Setting up fvwm (2.5.13-0.20050807) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/menu-methods/fvwm ...
Using `/usr/bin/fvwm' to provide `x-window-manager'.
me@ubuntu:~/apps/fvwm/fvwm-2.5.13$…Thanks for the guide!
You’re welcome.
– Thomas Adam