Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 07:23:48 -0700 (PDT) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: What's your Window Manager preference? Message-ID: <199810091423.HAA21437@pau-amma.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <v03110700b242bd24fa56@[10.1.0.9]>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 15:09:13 -0400 >From: Dennis Favro <scqdaf@globalserve.net> > What's everyone's window manager preference? I've finally gotten the >time to get FreeBSD up and running, and I'd like to hear what everyone else >uses. Well, on the BSD-ish systems that I use (FreeBSD & SunOS 4.1.1_U1), I prefer tvtwm. (twm on "virtual desktop" steroids, so to speak.) On the Solaris 2.x systems, I prefer olvwm (olvwm:olwm == tvtwm:twm). One "feature of dubious merit" is that when xlock kicks in (I fire up xautolock when I start up the X environment), it only paints an image over the upper left-hand desktop when I'm running tvtwm on a FreeBSD system. (This may well be more of an XFree86 issue, but FreeBSD is the only thing I run on the Intel-based systems to which I have access.) the other desktops are "transparently locked" -- you can see the windows, but the cursor has (subtly) changed to a black arrow (as a prompt for the password). Now, usually I use the phrase "feature of dubious merit" rather sarcastically, but in this case, I mean it quite literally: it actually *can* be useful to have a display that is effectively "screenlocked," but which may be monitored by folks who you don't really want issuing commands. (This may be my years of dealing with mainframe operations types showing up....) However, I found it mildly surprising (technical term: "POLA violation" -- "POLA" being "Principle Of Least Astonishment") the first time I noticed it (and it took me a few seconds to figure out exactly what was going on). > I've tried out fvwm2, amivwm, twm and the K Desktop. They're all pretty >good. I'd like to give mlvwm a shot, (I'm a Mac user) but it needs a rc >file that I have /no/ idea how to go about creating. About the only other WM I've used is whatever comes with CDE (on Solaris 2.x), and I just found that too annoying. (Besides, at least one program I tried to use fails to work under CDE.) I never cared much for trying out different WMs; I had used twm for a while before trying tvtwm; once I used it, WMs without "virtual desktops" Need Not Apply, as far as I'm concerned. (Also, the scanning software I use at home is based on "xv". The scanner handles resolution to 400 dpi, but it seems that xvscan wants very much to display a pixel for each pixel scanned. Since the monitor & framebuffer I use don't support 400 dpi resolution (more's the pity!), it's necessary to display a high-resolution scanned image at much larger than actual size unless I'm willing to have loss of data. Then, if I want to print the result, the data sent to the printer have a resolution dependent upon the *display* resolution, the size of the image, and the scaling factor: so if I want to use the scanner & printer as a jury-rigged copier, I need to be able to display an image significantly larger than the usual desktop size of 1152x900. The use of the "virtual desktop" facility provides that, at the expense of virtual memory, of course....) And I have absolutely *zero* incentive to use something that tries to mimic anything from Microsoft, since that would represent significant additional (and unpleasant) learning curve for me, with no expectation of benefit. Others' experiences and perspectives, of course, are likely to be different, which is a Good Thing -- that's one of the reasons we have choices in the UNIX environment. david -- David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199810091423.HAA21437>