When I boot my slackware-14.2 the DE is FVWM but it seems much more rudimentary than the FVWM2 that is optional on login in Suse. Are these the same F's? If there's a superior fvwm to be installed in 14.2 how would I do that? TIA

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Artificial-Stupidity will never be competitive

thanks, I think the installer said fvwm2, I'll read up on it anyway

The default fvwm and xinitrc configs are pretty basic. They provide annoyance free starting points for you to make the environment you want.

If you want to keep things clean, you can. If you want a bunch of diddleware, you can add it. It's all up to you.

As an aside... I've been using pretty much the same config files for 20+ years. They get tweaked as things change. But, there's no need to get familiar with new UI's or decraptify after upgrades. It's great.

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thanks, i had some booting issues but i can
see that fvwm really is more than meets the
eye ..at first

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Who, has loved us more?

I have removed Fvwm2 and installed Fvwm3 from SBo, and de-activated the .fvwm/config by renaming both the directory and the config file.

Fvwm3 starts fine, and "ps axf" shows it's really 3, not 2.

But the desktop menu says "Quit Fvwm2"(*) ...?!?

(*)Or whatever. I'm not in Fvwm3 ATM, so I can't check it first-hand.

Do any other Fvwm3 users see this?

I uploaded this snapshot of my go-to desktop a
couple of days ago, I think it'll stay up for a
couple more, it's the result of some 30 years
of trial and KDE has been good to me ..but I
don't like monopolies (all eggs in one basket):

https://paste.opensuse.org/56797715

The additional ditros/DE's I'm going to use will
have to facilitate doing something very similar.
XFCE and LXqt are pretty good, Mate a little less,
don't know if it's possible with FVWM. I've put
Enlightement and Cinnamon on the back burner
after one try, Gnome3 is out of the question
based on the little I know.

Did you set up this desktop manually, or is it the default?

Just out of curiosity, what is the appeal of fvwm? I've had a look at version 3 but it didn't seem too welcoming. I guess it would be fast on a low spec system?

It's kde and it's definitely NOT default. I don't know if it's me or what but just about every single 'default' DE setup makes me wanna puke, that of course is not necessarily a DE job but a distro job.

From my end it's a matter of wanting to use more DE's and not depend on one, just as in the case of distros. When I first started in the 90's with Slackware FVWM was the standard offering and I remembered it as a very simple and clean DE with no fluff. I have since then found out from others that is it quite (custom) expandable.

It's probably the fastest and most configurable window manager that has ever existed. It works great on low-end machines. But it does take manual labor and a thorough knowledge of its documentation to make it work properly. Depending on one's skill level, one could make it very nice or totally butt-ugly (I've done plenty of both). There have been configuration tools/config files written over the years, including a Windows 95/98/2000 lookalike, but they're somewhat limited.

I used to use it regularly back in my early Slackware days 15-20 years ago, but things like XFCE are just as good with only a slight speed deficiency. But I've thought about giving it a shot again, just for the heck of it.