I would like to know if there is a way to replicate the contents of the GNOME Applications menu in FVWM (Without running GNOME), because it was very convenient to have it and I don't know the command-line names of some of the programs I need.

Especially now I would really like to have it soon because I got VirtualBox and I don't know of any other way to start it other than that menu.

I don't mess with it, so I can't help with details, but read the manual for 'fvwm-menu-desktop'.

-- If that doesn't work (what with it being ancient and all) you can try editing the script, but the output still seems pretty poor. The thing I was actually trying to think of was

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pz215/fvwm-...wm-xdg-menu.py

Which is brand spanking four years old. Maybe that'd be better.

Or learn to write your own menus Your Way.

I thought about "writing the menu my way", but I don't know of all the programs I have, or the commands to execute them (including programs I sometimes need, such as VirtualBox and OpenOffice!).

The problem I see with fvwm-menu-desktop is that if I install ap program, it will not automatically be there.

I wonder how GNOME knows what to put in the menu in the first place?

I tried to look through the code you gave me, it was quite difficult because I've only programmed C-like languages, here I couldn't even tell which parts are comments! I found some paths going through it, found some XML files, but still no programs.

EDIT: I looked into fvwm-menu-desktop, I just don't understand whether it puts the output into a file, fvwm2rc, or stdout.

Just rerun the scripts to regenerate the menus.

I don't really know anything about Gnome, but I figure it scans the /usr/share/applications directory (or similar) for .desktop files. This is also essentially what the menu scripts do, as well. For details on the concepts:

http://standards.freedesktop.org/men...ec-latest.html
http://standards.freedesktop.org/des...ec-latest.html

For how to use the fvwm-menu-desktop thing, it has a manual. I don't have Gnome on and I don't use anything KDE related, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here, but I do have KDE junk on the system and editing

my $KDE_APPS = "$KDE_PREFIX/share/applnk";

to

my $KDE_APPS = "$KDE_PREFIX/share/applications/kde4";

and running `fvwm-menu-desktop --desktop kde-sys` produced a spew on stdout. You could divert that to a menu file, but the manual also gives instructions on using it with PipeRead. Still, probably be better off with the other. I can't play with it because I don't have python-xdg and I'm not going to install it, but basically, just find your *.menu files and pass them to the script as args.

fvwm-menu-directory is perl and the other is python and the basic comment character is the same as for shell: the '#'. Aren't you using a syntax-highlighting editor like vim or something? If you're used to seeing comments in a given color, they'll have the same color, whatever the symbol(s).

Both of the scripts are converters - they won't have actual applications in them - they pull those from elsewhere.

As far as what to do to learn what programs you're running, I don't know quite what to tell you. I don't remember how I learned. I guess I just run a lot of stuff from the command line, pay attention to what I install, write my own menus, etc. Maybe just run Gnome and go to the menu editor doohickey and see what's listed. Or run ps, top, htop, whatever, with your favorite apps running and look for them in the table. I dunno. Usually, it's pretty common sense. bash is bash, mrxvt is mrxvt, mutt is mutt, slrn is slrn, etc. I dunno what else to say. Good luck!

I guess I better just make the menus myself. Maybe I'll play around with fvwm-menu-desktop, as long as it won't modify my .fvwm2rc.

I do use Vim, but I didn't download that file, I just viewed it in Firefox.

Well, how about that that OpenOffice.org is soffice, and GNOME Document Viewer is evince. I have no clue about the name of that volume control icon thing, so I can't even control my volume.

True, there are exceptions.

volume control icon thing - maybe that's the full UI and the icon thing is a separate applet with a different name - I dunno. But the principle is that Search is your friend.

I personally don't know why those desktops don't default to giving the real names, anyway. Sure, there's 'gimp'y names and a trucKload of KDE stuff, but evince is a fine name.

I figured it out from that thread - it's "gnome-volume-control-applet". Funny thing is, that 'gnome-volume-control-applet' doesn't even have an About box to at least give you a clue to what it's name is.

Yes, that just makes no sense at all to me.

Why can't the command to open OpenOffice be 'openoffice' or something like that?

Why is evince called "Document Viewer" in the title?


And on the topic of desktops, I was considering trying a new distro (considering debian), and I was wondering if there is a way to install it without any of the graphic stuff, and then just install X and FVWM.

One problem here is that I wanted to use virtualization, and I installed virtualization software in the Fedora installation, but I have not the slightest clue what the command is to execute it.

Absolutely. I can't remember exactly how it goes because it's been awhile since I installed Debian but you basically just install the minimal system - don't pick a 'desktop' or whatever. Then you may install fvwm and Debian will pull in all the deps or you may need to install some sort of X metapackage and then fvwm. Either way, you can keep it pretty streamlined. Most distros are like that - Slack doesn't even come with Gnome and you can skip KDE. Arch's 'core' install has no X and then you just add that. I'm sure even Fedora has an option for that.

Sorry, can't really help with the virtualization stuff. There's a lot of it - qemu, bochs, another major one I can't quite think of now, along with minor ones.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...saster-759705/

Maybe it's time to try Debian.

Ouch.

I left a reply on that thread.