On Sat, 22 Jan 2000, Kadari Mayson wrote:

> What is everyone's favorite X environment?

i can answer w.r.t. window managers.  ``environment'' maybe subtly
different these days--not sure.

olvwm is my favorite.  twm is a distant second.

I picked up olvwm a while ago, and like it because it's simple, clean, and
has an amusingly detailed vitual console implementation. these days olvwm
seems to be rare and poorly respected outside Solaris, probably largely
due to the fact that RedHat desupported it in favour of glitzy junk after
release 4.2.  Also, we only have olwm (sans virtual desktop) in pkgsrc,
which is a point against it--olvwm is a bit hard to find and doesn't
compile as cleanly as modern window managers.  It's unmaintained.

My honest advice to you, if you want to catch the wave of _current_ Unix
development, is to avoid olvwm.  instead:

 o Avoid the following wm's, because they are horrible on so many levels
   o fvwm (version 1 or version 2)
   o Afterstep, or anything which claims to emulate the NeXT.
   o enlightenment (from the people who brought you shlibs that call
     system(...) to process image files)
   o anything that boasts of ``themes'' (e) or ``configurability'' (fvwm) 
     as the key features, because these two usually act as meager excuses
     for fundamentally poor and unconsidered design.
   Note that this advice rules out almost every window manager currently 
   available.  It is likely to be controversial.

 o Look to the GNOME project for guidance (http://www.gnome.org) as they
   are doing the most ambitious and popular UI work under X these days.
   They will refer you to several window managers, including some of the
   diabolically evil ones above.

 o Insist on a good ``virtual console'' interface, as this is probably the
   most truly useful fancy feature.  except for that, twm is a lot nicer
   than it usually gets credit for being.  especially on a slow computer!

 o Try _many_ window managers.  You can get a good start by browsing

    ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkgsrc/x11/README.html

   You may already know about the package system.  It is good because it
   will allow you to build many window managers from source with nearly 
   zero effort.  but if you're still interested it would be great to
   perhaps branch out, find your own odd favorite window manager, and add
   it to pkgsrc.

If I followed this advice myself, I'd probably be much happier. :)

The easiest way to start a window manager is to login with no window
manager (press F1 instead of Return after your password if you're using
xdm) and start the window manager by hand, by typing something like this
at the promt in the single ``failsafe'' xterm window that xdm gives you:

$ ctwm&

This way, you can simply use Unix job control to kill the window manager
and start another.  Your session ends when you log out of the special
``failsafe'' xterm that xdm created for you, not when you kill the window 
manager.  Some window managers will tell the X server to log you out when
they quit, but the nice ones will exit peacefully if you send them a
SIGTERM.

There is probably a way to do something similar with startx, but
unfortunately I only ever learned how to use xdm so I can't help.  If you
want to use xdm, you can very nearly just type 'xdm' at a root shell
prompt.  You need to edit /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers to name the X
server that you want xdm to manage--see xdm(1).

Traditionally people edit startup scripts so their window manager starts
up automatically, once they find one they like.  It's more professional
and saves time on slow machines.  But the failsafe thing is a great way to
shop around for a good wm, and it has the advantage of making the window
manager abstraction instructively obvious.

I hope this helps, as it's perhaps too much information and not enough
detail.  If you find a good wm lurking out there, send me some email as
it would do me good to drop crufty but well-liked olvwm.

-- 
Miles Nordin / v:+1 720 841-8308 fax:+1 530 579-8680
555 Bryant Street PMB 182 / Palo Alto, CA 94301-1700 / US