window manager switcher-(solved)

[rburkartjo]

is there such a pet. i have jwm and would like to try icewm which i download/tks

[ThruHammer]

This, then restart X.

[rburkartjo]

tks thru

[ThruHammer]

IceWM is less than stellar as a JWM replacement, huh?

Granted, with a bit of ingenuity Puppy can do most anything you wish. As for myself, I feel it's far easier to accept Pup "as is" rather than trying to make it something it was never intended to be; a main-stream distro.

Take the time to enjoy with reckless abandon the sheer possibilities Puppy and its layered squash file system has to offer.

There are FEW other distros as forgiving.

[ThruHammer]

Of course if you're REALLY lazy, you could grab this. No worries aboard Fossa.

[Grey]

Actually, Fossapup contains wmswitcher script out of the box. Version 0.19. It is located here: /usr/local/quickpet/checks/xfce/usr/bin/
It is initially not in main menu, but if you install at least one window manager, then it should start itself and appear in Menu>>Desktop

[foxpup]

What I usually do when I want to change to another window manager is:
. start with pfix=nox or drop out of X to the command line
. start the preferred wm with "xwin ... "
"..." can be the executable for the wm or the full path to the executable.
For icewm you may want to start icewm-session, or if you want to add options, you may want to make a script and start that.
If you save at shut down, next boot will be in the last wm.

My opinion on the different wm I've tried:
jwm is perfect for Puppy and should not be replaced unless you want something really different
icewm is not worth the effort of configuring (a lot of work), it is almost a clone of jwm
i3 is different enough and works out of the box, little configuration needed, tiling
twm is different enough and works out of the box, little configuration needed, floating, old school

I plan on trying dwm next.

[Grey]

I agree with previous speaker - jwm is the best.
But even heavy KDE Plasma can be installed. To do this, type kde 104 in PPM's search bar. Three KDE options will be displayed: minimal set(=468 MB), standard set(=751 MB), and full set(=1668 MB).
I wanted to write about this in "Fossapup Tips & Tricks" section for a long time, but I was too lazy

[mikeslr]

My take on window managers is this: Like desktop wallpaper, you only get to see them for the time it takes to open an application. It should be pleasant; but more important it should efficiently function in enabling you to open applications.

I don't understand what Microsoft was thinking when it devised Windows 10: perhaps it's an experiment to find out how much grief the average computer user will put up with. Windows 7's menu reminds me of xfce's Whisker Menu. Xfce is my choice of Window Managers for the 'Big-Boy' Linux distros I always install to a partition and almost never use. It's my choice since the 'Big-Boys' haven't had radky to enhance jwm.

Does jwm come with a 'slide-out/two pane' menu? or was that a configuration developed by Barry K.? At any rate, having to scroll thru dozens of applications to reach the one you want would be manifestly as dis-functional as Windows 10's menu system. A slide-out/two pane menu is fine for those applications you only occasionally use. But there's probably a half dozen applications you often use; with another dozen or so applications you use with some frequency. Being able to start them without spending a great deal of time and some guess work should be an objective of a good GUI.

Whisker menu with its Favorites category and search-box provides that. But panel launchers provides that even more efficiently. OOTB, however, jwm only facilitated having about 6 launcher's on 'THE task bar'*. [You can have more; but at the expense of some of the notifications and the virtual desktop switcher. I have to re-program myself to make greater use of that. ]. Radky's FbBox added a Favorites category to the Menu, (removable) favorites and bookmark launchers to the Taskbar; and the option to add a second panel. Perhaps if I had become accustomed to it before using xfce or lxde with lxpanel I might prefer it. But my familiarity with panel launchers came first. So I discovered that I was still using them rather than either version of favorites.

Radky's publication of JWMDesk manager provided a system corresponding to how I actually operate. It includes an optional, hide-able, 2nd panel with up to 18 launchers. With 6 launchers on the bottom 'Task-bar' and another 10 on a hidden-unless-moused-over Left-edge panel, weeks can go by without my ever having to navigate the Menu to open an application: just slide and click.

=-=-=-=-=-=-
* A couple 'supplemental panels with launchers' usable with JWM were published on the old-forum.

[Grey]

I don't understand what Microsoft was thinking when it devised Windows 10

Microsoft was thinking about money. A lot of money. So why is Windows 10 so scary in this case? Well, why bother and do well if a lot of people buy the product anyway. And then there's a strange pattern: good Windows, then bad Windows, then good again, and then bad - in other words, good and bad should alternate. Judge for yourself:
XP - good, lasted more than ten years
Vista - well, you know how long it lasted
7 - things started to improve
8 - heh-heh-heh
10 - it would seem that in theory it SHOULD be good (but we understand that this is actually Windows 9 )

[gychang]

I plan on trying dwm next.

I would be interested in how dwm works out...

[foxpup]

I would be interested in how dwm works out...

Hello @gychang
dwm works out fine actually. I am in it for a while now.
I've just done 2 patches: systray and center.
I changed the config.h to my likings, it is smaller now (!), but no major changes.

Since I've been changing wm a few times, I have gradually isolated a few features from the wm.
Not all these wm provide all these features.
For a menu I have setup xmenu.
I also use findnrun and dmenu to start programs.
For my own keybindings that are not specific to the wm, I use sxhkd.
Keybindings that relate to windows, desktops/tags or monitors are set in the wm.
If there is no bar that can have a systray, as is the case for twm, I use stalonetray.

Something I particularly like about dwm in comparison to other tiling wm:
When you open a new program, it opens in the master window.
With other tilers new windows open under the previous windows that become smaller and smaller.

[rockedge]

I use xlunch for the menu with DWM

[foxpup]

I use xlunch for the menu with DWM

That looks nice. It is like a desktop?

That reminds me: I forgot to mention that
Rox' pinboard with wallpaper and desktops icons and Rox' panels are still there.
But with tiling wm the Rox' pinboard is often behind the windows with apps that fill the whole screen;
that is what a tiling wm is meant to do.

[rockedge]

I saw that the rox pinboard remains which sometimes is okay. I can use xlunch either as the desktop or as a pop up. With rox pinboard and the xlunch window I find it works great for me when I am using a tiling windows manager.

Screenshot(94).png (225.43 KiB) Viewed 939 times

Screenshot(95).png (203.38 KiB) Viewed 939 times

[gychang]

I would be interested in how dwm works out...

Hello @gychang
dwm works out fine actually. I am in it for a while now.

Since I've been changing wm a few times, I have gradually isolated a few features from the wm.
Not all these wm provide all these features.
For a menu I have setup xmenu.
I also use findnrun and dmenu to start programs.
For my own keybindings that are not specific to the wm, I use sxhkd.
Keybindings that relate to windows, desktops/tags or monitors are set in the wm.
If there is no bar that can have a systray, as is the case for twm, I use stalonetray.

@foxpup I installed dwm and want to try it out, on upup-22.04-jrb-D1.iso. I have sxhkdrc from bspwm that I use in puppy so I would like to use the same in dwm. I would like to get tint2 bar, and rofi installed.
First prob: I can't login to dwm, edited /etc/windowmanager but goes to jwm..., problem likely is that dwm command in urxvt gives blank screen. dwm.desktop however is installed. What am I missing to login to dwm?