Modern Debian-based Window Maker distribution

https://wmlive.sourceforge.net/

by Aldipower • 1 year ago

110 53 1 year ago

wmlive.sourceforge.net

indrora• 1 year ago

I've wished for a better WindowMaker experience for years -- and that more places would adopt the distribution solution that NeXT and its children adopted.

Is it perfect? No, but it's sure a step closer to an ideal than whatever .so hell that we came up with before.

wmlive5• 1 year ago

Development of Window Maker (as in the window manager) unfortunately seems to be almost abandoned. The last few years of it's development saw the inclusion of rather superfluous additional features (e.g., screen capture, hot corners) instead of concentrating on it's main purpose of being a window manager.

It's a pity no one ever tried to replace the WINGs widget set with actual GNUstep components, thus adding the full GNUstep themeability WINGs is not capable of, in order to finally get rid of that crufty NeXTSTEP look.

mikestorrent3• 1 year ago

Ultimately, the GNUstep project should have taken on the burden of porting whatever could be kept from Windowmaker into the GNUstep world, and made a complete solution to compete with GNOME / KDE with a chance of also making it easier to write an app for both OS X and Linux using much of the same underpinnings (Objective-C, etc).

A lot of really great work went into GNUstep but looking back... for what? It would have needed so many more resources than it had to ever have a chance at becoming something like the above.

Maybe with AI, one day it will be easy enough to pick some of these ideas back up and run with them.

anthk3• 1 year ago

NeXTSpace it's trying to do that.

badsectoracula5• 1 year ago

Development of Window Maker (as in the window manager) unfortunately seems to be almost abandoned. The last few years of it's development saw the inclusion of rather superfluous additional features (e.g., screen capture, hot corners) instead of concentrating on it's main purpose of being a window manager.

Hot corners is a great feature and it is in fact part of being a window manager since providing means to move and resize windows is one of the core aspects of window management.

It's a pity no one ever tried to replace the WINGs widget set with actual GNUstep components

Uh, no, GNUstep is heavy, weird, doesn't look that good (all these smoothed out approximations of the NeXTSTEP look are ugly) and is incredibly buggy and unstable.

thus adding the full GNUstep themeability WINGs is not capable of

I'd rather see WINGs adopt themes itself than use GNUstep.

in order to finally get rid of that crufty NeXTSTEP look.

Some people actually like that NeXTSTEP look. In fact AFAIK historically Window Maker exists exactly because the original developer didn't like Afterstep not looking NeXTSTEP-like enough.

gryf734• 12 months ago

It's a pity no one ever tried to replace the WINGs widget set with actual GNUstep

It was by purpose at the beginning. Window Maker suppose to be lightweight window manager which resembles nextSTEP, nothing else. GNUstep people has decided to adopt wmaker as their window manager, not other way around.

esseph3• 1 year ago

sourceforge, can't believe it's still around.

ok123456• 1 year ago

It's all git based now. They've tried to turn it into a version of github that is just for public projects, and with a 2004 UI.

esseph3• 1 year ago

slashdot and sourceforge "feel" so weird these days, I really don't know how to describe it accurately. I know they sold off years and years and years ago, but it makes me feel like watching a zombie company.

pandemic_region• 1 year ago

I don't remember 2004 SF ui having such a treacherous download page. Is it downloading? Should I click this thing that does its best to not look like an ad? What about all these other banners I'm so lost crikey.

_fat_santa• 1 year ago

I wonder how well WindowMaker integrates with modern applications, I've always wanted to give it a try but was worried about this. Does anyone use it as their daily driver?

Aldipower2• 1 year ago

Yes, I use it daily and heavily in a professional audio studio. It runs perfectly with Reaper and Bitwig (both DAWs), both in window or fullscreen mode. The great thing is also the quick switching between the multiple virtual desktops to the signal routing and level applications, like hdspemix and so on. It is such a distract free environment.

badsectoracula5• 1 year ago

I've been using (and contributed to) Window Maker for years - in fact it was my first non-DE window manager back in early 2000s. I have used other DEs (most notably GNOME 2 around mid-2000s) and WMs but when i use Linux i always end up back to Window Maker and it has been my main window manager for the last ~10 years as well as the only desktop environment i've been using since ~2021 or so.

Most applications work fine since there is little difference between WMs. That said there are two issues Window Maker has that nobody has fixed:

1. There is practically no RandR support. Sure, you can enable it (and i think it is enabled by default) during compilation but the "support" is really to restart Window Maker whenever the video mode or whatever else changes so that it uses the new resolution. However due to the way Window Maker seems to identify monitors (it seems to use the vertical resolution - probably a hack that worked for someone somewhere around the 90s or early 2000s and nobody bothered to update to use something less hacky) it also causes duplicate dock configurations. Also for some reason if the dock is larger than the vertical resolution anything that doesn't "fit" gets thrown away. Ultimately i've found it easier to just disable RandR support to avoid losing my dock configuration whenever some program changes the resolution.

2. While there is EWMH support, either there is some bug with how some parts are implemented or (most likely) there are subtle differences between Window Maker's implementation and other window managers (e.g. IceWM) that applications assumed would work like that cause issues with Window Maker. The most obvious of those is applications that want to "take over" window management and handle moving and resizing themselves - it either doesn't work (the applications do not move) or the move/resize happens erratically (e.g. Firefox with the titlebar disabled or Steam has this issue). Also many applications do not get the frame size (this is probably some race condition because Window Maker does set the frame size hints properly) correctly, causing them to get wrong sizes and when combined with them trying to handle sizing and position themselves, they can end up flickering by constantly trying to set the "correct" size and/or moving and sizing themselves whenever their UI updates (often becoming smaller and smaller because they assume some frame size of 0). This is most common with applications running under Wine, but some other applications have issues too because of that (e.g. Virtualbox).

I've tried to figure out the #2 (for #1 i just don't care that much since i'm using a single monitor anyway) but from what i could tell Window Maker seems to be doing everything properly. I didn't spent that much time on it though. At some point (and assuming nobody else does, though it has been like that for years) i'll try and compare what Window Maker does and what IceWM does (which works fine) and where their behavior differs. My guess is some race condition, perhaps Window Maker sets the hints too late or something, though this is just a guess. I'll need first to write a small X11 program that replicates the issue.

As a workaround for #2 i've been using a feature i added to Window Maker years ago to ignore any decoration changes for windows (it is in Attributes -> Advanced Options -> Ignore decoration changes), essentially forcing all windows to have a resize frame and titlebar, ignoring any requests for hiding them. This lets me move around and resize, e.g., Steam (and also use all window management functionality that Window Maker provides - like rolling the window up/down using the mouse wheel - instead of whatever Valve thought i'd need).

One other issue with Window Maker (though it isn't really a Window Maker issue per-se) is that since Window Maker is not a (desktop) compositor, Gtk4 applications that assume a compositor will use black colors for whatever would be beneath a window - this mainly means that popup menus with rounded corners will actually get black corners. This is really a side-effect of Gtk4 assuming a compositor is there and not having a fallback for when there isn't one and would be an issue with other window managers too, but it should be solvable (if you care about it, i don't) by using a dedicated compositor (i think compiz or something like that may work).

gryf734• 1 year ago

I'm still using wmaker starting from late 90s (also had couple minor contributions)

1. There is practically no RandR support.

It is awkwardly implemented yes, as internally wmaker will restart, although changing resolution works for me most of the time. Wmaker doesn't identify monitors, it talk with xlib to get the layout when new display is detected or removed.

As for double dock - never have double dock issue. Sometimes I ended up with lossing it's configuration, especially in a cases when resolution set for the display is too low. That might happen when no display is detected/connected, then resolution is set to 64x64 pixels by X.

2. While there is EWMH support, […]

It's partially implemented, and indeed it lacks of handling self-managed application. Some apps are working fine (AFAIRC GTK3 based) and some don't (steam client), but in general for those which are not cooperate modifier key can be used to move such window around and keyboard shortcuts (which I'm mostly using anyway) to resize. Or to force window to use wmaker decorations as you mentioned.

This issue I've tried to solve couple of years ago[1], found culprit, but I've failed to do so. I've also spend a large chunk of time to compare it with PekWM, where those things are working as intended, but stuck on event handling.

As for composition. You might consider to use standalone one (xcompmgr, compton, picom, etc) just to get the effects.

[1] https://github.com/window-maker/wmaker/issues/20

aflag• 1 year ago

Probably not worse than other DEs. Aren't modern applications just a bunch of SPAs?

daantje• 1 year ago

Yes, for ~20 years on Ubuntu.

Nice startup time, and just works -- especially if all you use are terminals and browser windows. Things like firefox look a little out of place, now that they are pushing their UI chrome into their own title bars.

Koshkin• 1 year ago

Window Maker looks alien to me as a Unix user. CDE is good, but I like TWM which is the default window manager in Slackware (if you want someting more Windows-like, you can switch to MWM).

fullstop• 1 year ago

I used WindowMaker from 1997 until about 2005, so it doesn't look too foreign to me. I kind of want to try it again to see how it holds up, but perhaps that kind of desktop is best left in my memories.

Aldipower2• 1 year ago

NextStep, where WindowMaker derivated, is also a Unix-like OS. For me it perfectly fits to Unix. But yeah, this a a matter of taste of course. :-)

gigel82• 1 year ago

Oh wow, sourceforge, can't believe this site survived after it started introducing malware into binary distributions.

phendrenad2• 1 year ago

Pretty sure it's under new management and they have nothing to do with the scummy behavior of the past.

wmlive5• 1 year ago

Is there any better alternative site for easy and free bulk data distribution of ISO images?

I really wouldn't want to host my stuff on any Microsoft controlled sites.

anthk3• 1 year ago

Bittorrent and a personal page.

karmakaze• 1 year ago

Having used both NeXTSTEP and Window Maker, the weirdest thing for me was the left-side scrollbars especially on the file/column browser where there's 3 side by side. Great to see this still alive and kicking.

indigodaddy• 1 year ago

Would this work for touchscreen/tablet I wonder :)

mikestorrent3• 1 year ago

It's hard to make it work really well even on a normal workstation these days. Heck, I have an RPi 5 and I can't even get good enough 2D X11 acceleration to use it performantly; basically forced to use Wayland on there.

kev009• 1 year ago

The NS UI looked really odd to me until relatively recently having grown up on Mac OS Classic, Win9x. Now I look at that and think, damn.. that aged well.

runjake3• 1 year ago

It's probably lost to history now, but portions of Windows 95 drew partial inspiration from earlier versions of NEXTSTEP, such as the window buttons and titlebar.

ksherlock3• 1 year ago

A couple years later, NeXT released OpenStep for Windows NT 4 which included Windows NT/95-style artwork for the UI elements.

I'm sure it's long gone now but it used to be included with OS X (along with other NeXT-era artwork):

https://www.theregister.com/2008/09/02/mac_images/

Then about 10 years ago, MicroSoft (more likely somebody's 20% project) tried to do it again, this time based on iOS.

https://github.com/microsoft/WinObjC

wmlive5• 1 year ago

wmlive maintainer here.

In fact, this should rather be considered a Window Maker based Debian/Bookworm distribution instead the stated reverse. Certainly more then 95% of the shipped packages are plain Debian/Bookworm packages, with only a few additional packages contributed by yours truly.

The main merit of wmlive is providing the necessary glue to properly preconfigure Window Maker with an out of the box usable environment (unlike Debian's crude/primitive Window Maker configs) and make it the default GUI.

The other merit is to make the supplied software complete enough to serve as a standalone system without the immediate need to connect to the internet to install more useful packages than are normally supplied by distributions in their quest to provide an initial system too generic to be really useful by already experienced users. This is not meant for beginners,

While some work went in homogenizing the overall looks with Window Maker's own WINGs widget set, no efforts were wasted with further eye candy stuff. The themeability of the WINGs widgets are limited to that crufty NeXTSTEP look everybody either loves or despises, being the least common visual denominator. Not being particularly enamored of these visuals, but this was the only way to find some common ground for the look and feel.

Window Maker is just a highly compatible X11 window manager and is supposed to work as such. There is no interest to specifically integrate it with the provided GNUstep applications, as this is not supposed to be predominantly a GNUstep desktop. The included GNUstep applications are just an addon to give people a practical way to verify what GNUstep has to offer. In fact, wmlive would be perfectly usable without providing any single GNUstep application. The freedom and flexibility provided by an X11 window manager instead of the walled garden of a specific desktop system is much more preferable to many Linux users. NeXT nostalgists might want to look elsewhere. [1][2]

What most people don't seem to get is that there is much more to wmlive than just the visible desktop. Below the hood is a wide range of command line tools suitable for system rescue and repair when using it as a live system booted from an USB stick. Supposedly many youngsters who were yet to be born when we already grew up with Linux from day one have never learned to look beyond what's visually obvious.

If anyone who downloaded it does like wmlive, I'd appreciate a donation via the download pages. While i hate sounding like a beggar, given the current economic situation i could really use it. Thanks!

[1] https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace [2] https://github.com/onflapp/gs-desktop

mikestorrent3• 1 year ago

Thank you for this! I'm definitely going to try it out, I have a machine that it would be perfect for.

heresie-dabord• 1 year ago

Does Window Maker work with Wayland?

wmlive5• 1 year ago

You'd need something like Wayback[1] in Wayland to be able to use it. Being exclusivley an X11 window manager, there is no direct support for Wayland.

There is a Wayland compositor namend wlmaker[2] that tries to mimick Window Maker. But judging by its description it still appears to be a far cry from that Window Maker offers.

[1] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayback/wayback

[2] https://github.com/phkaeser/wlmaker

mercury4063• 1 year ago

big thanks for what you do. as a nextstep fan, this is the flavor of debian I've always been looking for.

zem• 1 year ago

windowmaker! now there's a nice bit of nostalgia. I always wanted to write a library to make dockapps in a nicer language than C but never got around to it and eventually switched over to other desktop environments.

chrsw• 1 year ago

Nice, I like seeing projects like this. In fact I always wanted someone to make a complete system based on GNUstep. Like a Mac but open source software and hardware. App store, customer support, all that.

felixding• 1 year ago

@wmlive has already brought these up, but I think they're worth highlighting again: check out these projects if you're interested in NeXTSTEP-like desktop environments:

https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace https://github.com/onflapp/gs-desktop

dspillett• 1 year ago

I used to use WindowMaker back when I regularly used Linux on the desktop¹, and as I'm about to pave a Win10 desktop & laptop and Linux them rather than being forced down the Win11 route² I'm considering trying it again.

Is it currently maintained though? The main page for it states “Latest source of stable version is 0.96.0, released on 2023-08-05.”. The previous couple of releases where a few years apart so this could just be because it is largely (entirely?) feature complete but still actually supported, or not…

--------

[1] I still use Linux a lot, but mostly server-side via CLI rather than anything GUI. Those few occasions when I've found myself using something in the GUI fold it is usually via X remoting (via SSH) or where I'm working more offline such as with a LiveCD I just use whatever the default is for the distro I'm interacting with.

[2] It won't even officially run on this desktop, and I refuse to use hacky tools to get around that so that I can regrade to something I don't even want, and Win10 has had a couple of issues on the laptop (wrt waking from sleep, or not) for a couple of years (it used to be fine, the issues started immediately after one of the big updates, I forget which, various firmware and driver updates since have had no lasting effect).

badsectoracula5• 1 year ago

Is it currently maintained though?

Yes, but there aren't any huge changes in it, so releases are sporadic. You can see that there is the occasional commit on git[0] though most patches posted in the developer's mailing list are for the dockapps (in a different repository), not WM itself.

[0] https://repo.or.cz/wmaker-crm.git/shortlog/refs/heads/master

danielktdoranie• 12 months ago

Hey ya, thanks for posting this. This is now my default distro for my older computers. Cheers.

Modern Debian-based Window Maker distribution

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