more fvwm users!

I think that’s another problem really, namely the lack of a, by current standards, nice default theme, this is being addressed though. Maybe some really impressive themes should also be added to FvwmThemes, eyecandy-to-the-max or something, the problem is that those themes come to depend on a lot of outside programs that one can’t (and should not) assume to be installed which is probably why there aren’t any in them.

But all in all I think there’s only one form of good advertiseming and that’s content users, even if it may take some time for people to really discover Fvwm, if they crave the kind of configurabilty it provides they’ll find it in the end.

Like you already should have seen, many things like CPU-Monitoring and stuff can be done via FvwmScript.

Therefore, we could include some FvwmScripts that do this stuff and maybe some of Taviso’s dynamic-stuff that checks if anything is there.

Would have a cool effect if $NEWUSER would install a new software (e.g. sensors) and fvwm would /magically/ extend itself :wink:

Very nice ideas, Hun. I propose we make a brainstorming area here somewhere where anyone could throw in ideas.
And to answer mntnoe’s question, I check out fvwm site rather often, considering I’m not using fvwm :mrgreen:

As a thought relating to the comments on new users getting the impression fvwm is a dead project: on the first page of fvwm.org there is this: “Development is active, and support is excellent.”
I think it then boils down to the look of the website, which will definitely part opinions wether good or not. I do not know what looks like a webpage though.

Yep – it’s entirely subjective as to whether the aesthetics is good. You can’t cater for everyone. :slight_smile: But the important thing to remember that looks aside, the information is still there. And to me, that’s all that matters. :slight_smile:

– Thomas Adam

I don’t either, and I am not talking about aesthetics. You must admit, however, that the links immitating fvwm icons are a little atypical… The “Developer Info” icon are two eyes. The only way to find out is to hover the mouse over the icon. The “information”, as Thomas Adam says, is there, but it should IMHO be easier to find.

You can click the “Customize” button, hidden in the links section, and select another layout, but I think it is too hidden for the first-time-visiting user.

About the brainstorming ideas for FvwmThemes: Anyone up for starting a thread about it?

Well, I am a little… hesitant about that, especially what with the efforts Nick and I are doing with regards to a new default theme. Of course, if you are thinking of integrating existing themes into the Fvwm-Themes release, I strongly advise you start that off on the fvwm-themes user’s mailing list, because, quite frankly that’s where the developers are. By all mesns keep a paralell discussion here, but predominately start it off on the mailing-list. I can see already some parts internally of the config will need to be re-worked.

I am happy to help, of course.

– Thomas Adam

It’s the tenth birthday of FVWM.

As a ten year user of FVWM, I want to addd my two cents
concerning that delicate question about why there are not
more people using FVWM as their window manager.

I will not adress the question why there are not more people
using FVWM, but I will instead adress the question why there
are people that actually use FVWM as their window manager.

There are in fact three ways that lead to FVWM:

– The way of the ignorant :
your first computer was a UNIX workstation in some
research lab and the only wm available at that time
was FVWM. It took you several years before you realize
that a hard drive does not need to fill a room in order to
be efficient, and that there actually exists
other wm than FVWM (but not as stable as FVWM: the sidebar
of their windows are not as thick, so you stick to FVWM)
SIDENOTE: don’t laugh ! it’s my own story.

– The way of the geek:
you were an innocent [put the name of any wm here]-user
until you crossed the path of a FVWMGrandMASTER. Its teachings
moved you deeply; you still remember the fervent recitations of
the 45 FVWMman pages. Now a FVWM-zealot, you try to install FVWM
on all the computers you meet, and wonder why there are still
people sticking to other wm.
SIDENOTE: many thx taviso oh taviso you great etc

– The way of the solitary:
At some point in your life, you become unsatisfied
with your own window manager and begin a long quest
for the perfect wm. After several years of unfruitful research,
the light strikes you unexpectedly : FVWM !
In order to share this revelation with others,
you decide to write a FVWM-version for beginners
and you call it afterstep or enlightenment or FVWM-crystal.
SIDENOTE: it’s not a joke ! read
ironphoenix.org/tril/fvwm/

In other words :

That’s not you who chooses FVWM, that’s FVWM that chooses you.

Ten signs that you are one of the chosen :

10 - you know that, by clicking on the buttons of the window
on the official FVWM home page, you change the look of the page;
but the default look is definitely the best.

9 - the latest bgklhdWM feature is quite nice …
anyway FVWM could have had done that many years ago.

8 - each time you type in a window with no sidebar, you are
afraid that your text may fall out of the window.

7 - It’s 4 am and you write stuff about FVWM.

6 - you watch out other wm sites so as to implement your new
FVWM emulation, as soon as they upgrade their version.

5 - you wake up at night and browse the dictionary
to find a new nice meaning for the F.

4 - you think that the handling of preferences for the
weather application on the dashboard of MacOSX 10.4 “Tiger”
is a uttermost plagiarism of what can be done by
Olivier Chapuis FVWM-metisse-0.3.5, together with
FVWM-themes, wm-icons and the translucency patch.

3 - you really like to target one-pixel-wide sidebars in order
to resize your windows ; in fact you never miss - that’s
the fruit of years of training.

2 - your version of FVWM is 2.5.14 (or higher) ; you have no menu
leading to the FVWMman pages - you don’t need it anymore.

and …

1 - you post on the FVWMForum :smiley:

Err, no. You’re a little late for that – the tenth birthday was in 2003.

As nice a sentiment as that is – it’s still preaching to the choir. People that use FVWM already know why they use it. Ideally, I would have liked this thread to have remained about why people are not using it, as the discussion was rather interesting. Be warned, I might still yet split your post.

Think yourself luck – I started out with TWM.

Maybe people did come across it in this way, and I hope that it is so.

[…]

Umm, all very… obvious. Interesting, though.

Quite.

– Thomas Adam

probably you already know this interesting page :

ironphoenix.org/tril/fvwm/

“My Quest for the perfect WM”

impossible, metacity and kwin is so little user? fvwm just 10 ahead then Ion?

I think that what lacks on the linux community as a whole is the “education”. What i mean is, the way Linux aproach a Windows user (not necessarly Windows, just an example of some1 who never used UNIX – but Windows users are the majority of computer users in the world) and tryes to ‘convert’ him/her to Linux and open Source softwares.

Even thought it might not seem, i’m making a point here, and its somehow related to the topic of this thread:

I’m gonna tell you my story: I first started using Linux when i saw amazing screenshots at lynucs.org and thought “OMG, thats awsome!!”. My interest to Linux was, at first, simply graphical. The eye-candy was something i had never experienced before. Of course that, as time went by, i realized Linux was simply a great OS for any type of application i might use and whatever i needed to do. I loved the way things looked and ‘made sense’, and, i can say, i experienced computing in a way i had never done.

That is the nice story, the ‘Grimms brothers’ story.

Now, the other part of the story is the grinding. What i mean is, what do you need to put up with, to get what you want. I am a young guy, at the verge of my life, and, being so, i didnt give up on Linux at the first complication, but i must confess i wanted to, after a while. The drivers problems, the whole editing and file changing routine, the libraries dependencies problems, the ‘command not found’ logs, that is something not every non-unix user is willing to put up with.

I’m not blaiming Linux and Open Source programmers. Not their fault the Microsoft monopolium will make it difficult for companies to make linux drivers (god damn, how great it would be if hotplug worked every time down!). I’m not blaming it on the ‘UNIX concept’ either. I do believe that the passive way Microsoft implies us to use computers is not the way to go. I would love to see the general public educated in computing and editing whatever files they want, and 70 year old Grandmothers using Linux and loving it. But that isnt happening, not just yet at least. You see, somewhere down the line, i believe, we forgot that people who migrate to Linux are used to ‘the easy way’.

Dont get me wrong, i dont think ‘the easy way’ is the right way. What i’m saying is, we have to educate people on how to use Linux in a way the transition goes smoothly. I believe that the only reason that the end user dont migrate to Linux is the apparent complex look of it. Apparent, but somehow true.

The GNOME and KDE DE’s are doing some of that. The problem is that they are adapting themselves to Windows users, when they should be adapting users to themselves. The whole GUI thing helps a lot of users and does give them a usable enviroment to work on, however, it doesnt give them control of their software. But the problem is how to go from that, to a FVWM. There isnt a transition between the two programs (but that goes for every type of program, like, going from Xchat to BitchX or goin from Amarok to command-line xmms, you get the point). Normal computer users are not used to the whole configuration thing. There wasnt a teching period that thought them the ways of Linux computing.

My point is (finally), we think small. Right now only a small part of the market share is achievable. Only the intersted geeks, or the day-to-day hacker, or the computer tech are a reality. The soccer mom, the 4th grade kid, the ‘normal’ user, are not.

Thats one reason why FVWM is not the most common WM around. People werent yet ‘educated’. The ones that use Fluxbox (wich are, in the poll, the majority) would love to use FVWM (wich is, by the way, much superior to fluxbox) if they only knew how to start. But the thing is, only the really intersted ones do. Only they have the heart to go through the grinding and ‘googling’ to achieve their goals. You wont see a common user going through the pain of studying config files and editing stuff. FVWM is an entusiast’s WM, only the ones that really want the control on their hands use it. But if you think of the Linux community as a whole, it is devided in ‘the hacker ones’ and ‘the ones that are bound to use just some of the things Linux offers’.

The aproach is somewhat wrong, in my opinion. It still seems that only a small part of the market is confortable with Linux. I dont know how to fix it, i just know that thats what i think of it. The day Linux becomes more user-friendly (i mean common users) and doesnt looses its main characteristics (meaning dont go “Windows”) it will become a impactating force on the Desktop market. The day people start assimilating the UNIX computing filosofy, you’ll see more FVWM users. The day we educate people and they realize that FVWM is a software made for them and ‘by’ them (meaning, they configurate it how they want it), that stupid poll wont have to be made.

well, thats a man’s opinion. If you got one of yourself, lets have the debate, coz there is nothing better than a constructive debate.

  • BodyDrop -

PS: As for me, i’m the ‘hacker’ type, i like to go to the core of the software and adapt it to my likes and thus create a new software of my own. Thats why i’m loving FVWM and Linux for that matter.

I just now read Thomas’s first post, and thats EXACTLY what i mean. Educate. Educate people on editing things rather than just point-click dialog boxes. Educate what makes a good WM or DE instead of the way it looks or how easy it may seem at first.

DE’s like KDE and GNOME have amazing limitations. Much of the crap they got are useless for many of us and there isnt a simple way to get rid of it. Just as Thomas’s said, people are migrating from them to simpler WMs because it got unbarable and they have learned that a couple of GTK dialog boxes just wont do the trick.

Now, the ‘educate’ can be done at a higher level, and thats when many more users will migrate to FVWMs and programs alike. There are many potential FVWM users out there, but they just dont know that there is another way.

That way, even if FVWM does get a higher user base, it wil still sustain its main principles.

===========

Now, as a separate issue, i want to make a statement (more like an opinion but in a strong way, dunno how to name it): NEVER PUT A GUI CONFIGURATION ON FVMW!!! NEEEVEEEER!!!

educate people to use config files instead. Believe me, its simpler.

You’re veering off-topic of the original purpose of this thread, slightly. I
had hoped to try to keep this (now somewhat old) discussion centered around
why people may or may not be using FVWM. Depending on what the replies are
like, I might split this thread to The Tavern. I don’t, of course, want to do
this.

[quote="BodyDrop"] Now, the other part of the story is the grinding. What i mean is, what do you need to put up with, to get what you want. I am a young guy, at the verge of my life, and, being so, i didnt give up on Linux at the first complication, but i must confess i wanted to, after a while. The drivers problems, the whole editing and file changing routine, the libraries dependencies problems, the 'command not found' logs, that is something not every non-unix user is willing to put up with. [/quote] Maybe not, it's just a different way of working, that's all. I quite regularly have this conversation with people that have just switched from Windows. Five years ago, my attitude was much more that of -- "Unless you can invest considerable time into Linux, and have the time to learn fundamentals, don't bother". Now though, thanks to the glossy-overcoat that KDE and GNOME provide, switching is quite easy -- most of the like-windows functionality is available via GUIs.

Which is fine, but with that comes an inherent danger that it’s Linux
imitating Windows, so when something doesn’t work as it is expected to, that
could be taken to be a weakness, rather than one of a feature, which is where
most new Linux users get caught. The more Windows is imitated via Linux, the
greater the expectation there is for it to behave as such.

If you look at the latest convert from Windows to Linux, the expectation is
that they’ll use a GUI – more specifically it’s likely that they’ll use a DE,
since the transition is much smoother then – at least that’s the general
logic behind such decisions. But as I said earlier, there’s no change in that
– one isn’t learning anything about Linux just from going from one GUI system
to another. That’s not how Linux works. But for some, it’s a more gentler
introduction, and it’s still a route that I employ.

In fact, things are more backwards now than they were seven or so years go.
If you look at RedHat four and five (and as I have already mentioned in a post
within this thread) that was using FVWM as the de facto WM. Not DE, WM. The
switch seems to be now toward GNOME and KDE – an interesting turnabout.

See most of my posts with regards to this – I’m not about to reiterate them
here. :stuck_out_tongue:

– Thomas Adam

This is a nice place to advertise once again the fvwm-themes -package :slight_smile:
It is aimed towards just such users who don’t necessarily want to edit config files by hand. Marvelous software if I may say so.
fvwm-themes.sf.net

[color=red]I split the ArchWD vs fvwm-themes stuff out into a new thread, please continue there and keep this thread ontopic :slight_smile:[/color]

I have tried many other WM’s for Linux, and I like Fvwm the best, and one of the reason is its configurability and peer support.

Not many WM’s can completely change the looks and feels (KDE/GNOME/you-name-it-WM can be configured but somehow in some way the looks and feel are the same). The default FVWM configuration seems like garbage, but after a little bit of work with help of other people (look at the screenshots &configs section) you can really develop a good looking theme).

Plus, Fvwm is faster than other WM’s considering its versatility with all kinds of different modules, at least in my opinion.

This is being addressed, albeit slowly:

viewtopic.php?t=205

– Thomas Adam