WindowMaker dead? (Page 1 of 4)

As far as I know active development really ended back in 06, there seemed to be a small attempt to revive it, but I never hear much about it in a very long time. IIRC Window Maker was meant for GNUstep, which I also haven't heard much about in some time, though as I understand it, that at least is still in active development.

Really 2k1ish Window Maker was really the best looking thing that ran on my Intel Triton based PC (I was way out of date) and I do have a soft spot for it. IIRC Chis Green the guy who compiled the old FAQ himself switched to FVWM2 so, I think that is a pretty solid sign that it isn't really supported much  anymore.

Of Course, the source is still out there, and it is possible the project could be revived, if anyone wants to put the effort into it they could. I only work in Pascal though so I certainly won't be messing with it, someone who is handy with C though could.

Edit:
John H. Robinson, IV (jaqque @ debian.org) would probably know better the exact history IIRC he was the one that was reviving it in 08, at least I think that is who it was.

Last edited by Val_B (2011-05-17 00:11:34)

My mate Palemoon has a WindowMaker based distro called Liquid Lemur http://liquidlemur.org/

He is in contact with the Window Maker devs and gets the latest verisons.

We created a custom Wmaker/Fluxbox distro together a while back, and I have to say that Palemoon is pretty awesome with Wmaker, so check it out.

Liquid Lemur has been built the same way as Crunchbang so i'm pretty sure he'd help you if you wanted to get the latest Wmaker as your default Crunchbang desktop.

Oh I like this!  I'm gonna try it out as soon as the torrents go back up.  I started a Fluxbox thread here:

http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … ngfluxbox/

and there is a Joe's Window Manager thread here:

http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … wm-config/

You've probably already seen them but just in case. 

Last edited by ElderV.LaCoste (2011-05-17 13:30:03)

@ElderV.LaCoste: Thank you for the suggestions. I actually tried Fluxbox for a little while this morning. I like it a lot, and it has support for WMaker-like dockapps in the slit, I also liked how easy it was to transfer the applicable entries from my Openbox autostart.sh to the Fluxbox startup file. However, one little thing kind of bugged me. Chrome doesn't fully maximize in Fluxbox, unless there's a setting I missed that would fix it. I'm going to go back into it later and see if I can't figure out how to configure the UI a little bit.

@Val_B: Thanks for the links. That's good news. Perhaps they'll release 0.95 or something this year. I, for one, will definitely be checking out the Liquid Lemur beta this Friday. In the meantime, I will probably install the ancient 0.92 version from the Debian repo to play with.

Hmmm... That kind of sucks. I hate the way Chrome looks with any system titlebar/border combo. I suppose it's not a huge issue, though.

Thank you for the answer. I knew there had to be a way. Unfortunately, it's an ugly, clunky-looking solution. Oh, well. It's not the end of the world.

Edit: I missed the word "try". Sorry. I'll have to try that when I have time. I was kind of hoping it would be a Fluxbox setting.

Last edited by EndlessDissent (2011-05-17 18:57:41)

Go for it, Ed (Palemoon) has been working his ass of on Lemur, and I know that Corenominal and omns have helped out as well with advice, scripts etc. I've got it running on one of my laptops, and although i'm not a huge WMaker fan like Ed, I have to say it's really well put together.

I wouldn't mind seeing a Crunchbanged-up Wmaker, that would be pretty awesome. I nearly made a Fluxbang last year, but i'm hooked on openbox now and my distro-building days are over

Hi Val_B,

You are correct. I use the sources from Carlos. The last patch was on 17 FEB 2011. And yes, it has been mostly bug fixes. Although, there has been a new feature or two added since 0.92. IIRC, Carlos wants to get all the bugs squashed and all the current features working, before adding more to it.

The mailing lists have not been as active this year. Not sure why that is...school maybe? Anyway, things are still progressing. The version in Lemur is 0.94-crm, which is a huge improvement over 0.92.

Just FYI, I had two other WMaker distros in the past. The first was DreamStep (based on Dreamlinux)...which I killed off when I left the Dreamlinux team. I then had HEKA OS, that was a Debian Live type project. Corenominal and Omns provided much support and advice for HEKA. Liquid Lemur was to be a Xfce distro only, but I'm not ready to give up on Window Maker just yet. So, I brought it back with Lemur as the base.

Ed

That's a lot of great information there. That helps a lot. I can't thank you enough for dropping by and posting all those great links. I've added the the-little-red-haired-girl repo, and I'm about to install Window Maker again. I would have added your Liquid Lemur repo, but I upgraded to testing yesterday, and I'm not sure how well it would work. I am definitely planning on grabbing at least one of your Liquid Lemur isos on Friday, though. Whether it's the 32 or 64-bit version will depend on whether I use my laptop or desktop. I might even check out both just to see if there's a noticeable difference. I stopped by your forums to check them out last night, and I was impressed with the interface and organization. It looked like you put a lot of time and effort into the site. If your distro is similar at all, and I assume it is, I will most likely fall in love with it on Friday. Whether or not it replaces Crunchbang will most likely depend on if I'm feeling too lazy to backup all my data and go through another installation. I haven't even had Crunchbang installed for a week on either computer.

I thought I recognized the name Liquid Lemur. I remembered seeing it in a Distrowatch Weekly, in the "New distributions added to waiting list" section, but I wasn't sure until just now, thanks to Google. I didn't even think to look, though, because at the time, you were still using Xfce exclusively, and while I can't say I hated Xfce (I really didn't mind it at all when I tried it in Slackware), I definitely prefer WMaker and the *boxes. Good luck getting added to the official list. I'm not sure what the exact criteria are, but I think they said they were holding off adding new distributions until they proved themselves because of the sheer amount popping up and dying each day. It doesn't look like Liquid Lemur will be dying anytime soon, though, so I'll be watching the "New distributions added to database" section for "Liquid Lemur" and a big screenshot of WMaker (though, they'll probably use the Xfce version since it's more familiar to people).

I'm not sure how necessary of a suggestion this is since this seems like a given for any distro with WMaker installed, but I would suggest including WMakerConf in the default install. WMakerPrefs is fine, and it does its job, but WMakerConf is much more versatile, in my opinion. That is, unless there have been significant changes to Prefs or you have a config program of your own, anyway. Also, a selection of some basic dockapps in the default install or repo would be good, or perhaps a section in Easy Editions for them, or maybe just a link to dockapps.org in the docs. The dockapps, after all, are one of the main attractions to WMaker. Of course, ignore this paragraph if you're way ahead of me on this. Also, since Beta 2 is only a couple days away, if you haven't added these things yet, don't worry about rushing them into Beta 2. It's only the first Window Maker version, so I'll definitely forgive either omission and happily install that stuff myself.

Again, thank you for stopping by and providing all that info. It's greatly appreciated.

Are you using Fluxbox version 1.31?  I am not having any issues with chrome at all.  If you haven't already tried this you might try to stretch it (Chrome) out and then check the boxes for it to "remember" the size and position.

I think I see what you mean now.  I clicked on the wrench and went into preferences, chose "Personal Stuff" tab and from there selected "hide system title bar and use compact borders".  It works for me very nicely.  Hope you can get it working because Fluxbox is a great window manager.  Sorry if I am not understanding the problem.  The way it looks with the title bar gone is like this:  there is a tab(s) at the top on the left and window decorations on the right.  When it is maximized there is a minimize "_", two smaller squares, and an "X".  I found the directions here:  http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issue … l?id=82050

Last edited by ElderV.LaCoste (2011-05-18 13:27:40)

The Lemur repo should be okay with "testing" although I haven't tested it. The 64bit Window Maker in Lemur will lack a few dock apps. I can't seem to find the source so I can re-compile them for 64bit. Nothing critical though.

The Lemur site has gone through a few changes since Lemur started. I think I finally got it sorted now. Still some tweaking to do here and there, but I'm happy with it.

If you just want to add Window Maker to your current #! setup, I can send you the Lemur Window Maker bits to paste into your #!. Then you'll have the best of both worlds.

I'm not holding my breath with Distrowatch. lol I've seen many a distro still on the waiting list, that met their "criteria" long ago. Anyway, just being on the waiting list killed my server for 3 days. Thanks to corenominal's suggestion, I moved the ISOs to a torrent host. Lemur does not have a huge budget (in fact, it doesn't have a budget at all...lol) so I do what I can.

I've had two other Window Maker distros in the past (DreamStep and HEKA OS). I also did the Window Maker setup for Rich's TOTALinux distro. I killed DreamStep after I left the Dreamlinux team (it was based on Dreamlinux). Then I created HEKA (thanks to corenominal and omns for all the help there). I eventually killed HEKA. Mostly due to complaints about it being a DVD size Window Maker (which is apparently taboo). I went back to the Dreamlinux team for a bit and that's the other reason HEKA was pulled. The Dreamlinux gig didn't go as planned so I left again, and Liquid Lemur was born. Window Maker has always been my passion, but I felt the need to make a Dreamlinux-ish distro to fill the void. Now that I've done that, I'm back at tinkering with Window Maker.

I always include WMakerConf, as I like it more. However, there are changes in WPrefs that are critical to the Window Maker configuration (at least in 0.94.0-crm) that aren't in WMakerConf. I will eventually grab the source for WMakerConf and update it. Just need to find some free time. Anyway, Lemur has both WMakerConf and WPrefs installed by default.

I include a ton of dock apps in the default install (just ask Rich about the list of wm* apps I sent him for TOTALinux back when it was active!). The only problem will be the 64bit version, as I can't seem to find all the source code for the dock apps used. The Lemur control panel also has a button to take you straight to dockapps.org for getting your favorite apps.

Thanks for the feedback! So, maybe people are still interested in a Window Maker distro? That's good! I wasn't sure if I should mess with it anymore, but Rich keeps telling me to stick with it...and I guess he's right.

Again, if you want the Lemur Window Maker setup to add to your #!, just let me know and I'll package it up for you.

Ed

Thanks! I'm building the final ISOs now.