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FVWM-95 (2001)

fvwm95.sourceforge.net

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Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#11

Post by BeetleB »

I have fond memories of FVWM. I don't know where this was (Slashdot?), but back in the mid 2000's, someone posted a "Why are people not using FVWM? It's one of the most flexible window managers?", and linked to various people's FVWM setup. This led to a lot of folks (including me) switching to FVWM. I used it until switching to AwesomeWM around 2011.

You can see some (fairly old!) screenshots here: https://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net/screenshots/

Glad to see it's still around.

Edit: Here's the thread (Gentoo Forums): https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=80517

The thread ran a total of 121 pages over 7 years.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#12

Post by cosmic_cheese »

ajross wrote: post #6

This was a kludgey hack that never managed to land upstream, yet utterly dominated (for a brief moment) the headspace of the early linux desktop. It's funny how quickly things were moving at the time. In the mid 90's, GUI design elements were still in their infancy. Even basic stuff like "what do windows do?" was in flux. Traditional X window managers hadn't settled on anything like a regular usage model: twm was sti…

> Then Windows 95 landed like a bomb: there was a CLOSE button in the corner of the window finally! And there was a start menu and a little status bar! And that's what we all decided we wanted, really badly. So it got cloned and picked up pervasively. Basically everyone not already part of one of the X11 camps was running this.

Huh? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but Mac windows had close buttons even as far back as System 1.x in 1984. Multitasking didn't land until System 5 with the optional MultiFinder in 1987 (made standard in System 7), but window close buttons were absolutely not a Win95 innovation.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#14

Post by fragmede »

Does anyone remember MPX? It was a set of patches on top of X11 that let two people use one computer at the same time. Two mouse pointers for two mice, and two keyboards for input. It was super fun in a dorm environment (I was at Random hall at the time) to browse the Internet with friends. I wonder what it works take to revive it for Wayland.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#16

Post by ajross »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #12
ajross wrote: post #6

This was a kludgey hack that never managed to land upstream, yet utterly dominated (for a brief moment) the headspace of the early linux desktop. It's funny how quickly things were moving at the time. In the mid 90's, GUI design elements were still in their infancy. Even basic stuff like "what do windows do?" was in flux. Traditional X window managers hadn't settled on anything like a regular usage model: twm was sti…

> Then Windows 95 landed like a bomb: there was a CLOSE button in the corner of the window finally! And there was a start menu and a little status bar! And that's what we all decided we wanted, really badly. So it got cloned and picked up pervasively. Basically everyone not already part of one of the X11 camps was running this. Huh? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but Mac windows had close buttons even as far back as S…

Mac UI as generally understood didn't involve moving windows around yet, not really[1]. "Window management" at the time was limited to the paradigm you'd see on the mac plus screen where you'd have one app window and some dialog boxes. Yes, you had a button to close it, but the paradigm didn't match the needs of the big workstation screens on which X11 evolved.

[1] These were the dark days of the mac. It was falling behind rapidly and the failure was accelerating. Jobs would walk back in the door within months of this moment too! Again, Windows 95 isn't felt to be notable in this community of true believers, but it was absolutely a bomb in the market as a whole. It changed everything, instantly.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#17

Post by jeroenhd »

ajross wrote: post #6

This was a kludgey hack that never managed to land upstream, yet utterly dominated (for a brief moment) the headspace of the early linux desktop. It's funny how quickly things were moving at the time. In the mid 90's, GUI design elements were still in their infancy. Even basic stuff like "what do windows do?" was in flux. Traditional X window managers hadn't settled on anything like a regular usage model: twm was sti…

The close button has always been there, you double clicked the top left menu button. That worked all the way until Microsoft started redoing window decorations in desktop mode with Windows 8.1, and even for a short period after.

This was also copied into other X window control styles. Even today, a Motif replicates the Windows 1.0-3.11 top-left menu+close button.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#18

Post by MisterTea »

incanus77 wrote: post #8

There's a nice theme for XFCE, Chicago95, that looks a lot like this as well and is quite good! https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

I use this on my desktop. Started out as a curiosity but stayed once I realized it brought back more familiar icons such as the notepad and terminal icons. Clean start menu design too.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#19

Post by cosmic_cheese »

ajross wrote: post #16
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then Windows 95 landed like a bomb: there was a CLOSE button in the corner of the window finally! And there was a start menu and a little status bar! And that's what we all decided we wanted, really badly. So it got cloned and picked up pervasively. Basically everyone not already part of one of the X11 camps was running this. Huh? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but Mac windows had close buttons even as far back as S…

Mac UI as generally understood didn't involve moving windows around yet, not really[1]. "Window management" at the time was limited to the paradigm you'd see on the mac plus screen where you'd have one app window and some dialog boxes. Yes, you had a button to close it, but the paradigm didn't match the needs of the big workstation screens on which X11 evolved. [1] These were the dark days of the mac. It was falling…

On the Mac Plus and other Macs in a similar chassis, yes, there wasn't much room to move windows around, but it was still possible. Apple also released several larger Mac displays (around 16 by my count) prior to 1995, including two 21" models (in 1989 and 1991, respectively). Workstation-like window management absolutely happened on Macs in the late 80s and early 90s.

Re: FVWM-95 (2001)

#20

Post by gldrk »

fragmede wrote: post #14

Does anyone remember MPX? It was a set of patches on top of X11 that let two people use one computer at the same time. Two mouse pointers for two mice, and two keyboards for input. It was super fun in a dorm environment (I was at Random hall at the time) to browse the Internet with friends. I wonder what it works take to revive it for Wayland.

It's part of XInput 2.0 and works as well as it ever did with upstream X.org. The more popular approach to multiseating these days involves logind, udev and two video cards (or drm-lease-manager). Then the two display servers are completely independent from each other, which may or may not be what you want.
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