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Annotation of wikisrc/projects/project/move-beyond-twm.mdwn, revision 1.3

1.1       dholland    1: [[!template id=project
                      2: 
                      3: title="Move beyond TWM"
                      4: 
                      5: contact="""
                      6: [tech-x11](mailto:tech-x11@NetBSD.org)
                      7: """
                      8: 
1.3     ! nia         9: done_by="Youri Mouton, Nia Alarie"
        !            10: 
1.1       dholland   11: category="desktop"
                     12: difficulty="medium"
                     13: 
                     14: description="""
1.3     ! nia        15: 
        !            16: ***Update***: This project is completed. ctwm was imported in 2015 by
        !            17: Youri, and Nia wrote a reworked config and made in the default in 2020.
        !            18: 
1.1       dholland   19: Right now if you install NetBSD with native X11 you get the same
                     20: default X session that X has shipped forever, complete with TWM. Just
                     21: like it's 1989.
                     22: 
                     23: Obviously this behavior can be improved after installation by adding
                     24: suitable packages and choosing a different window manager, or
                     25: installing one of the full desktop environments. Veteran NetBSD users
                     26: know how to do this. Veteran Unix and X users who aren't veteran
                     27: NetBSD users can figure it out pretty easily. Most such people have an
                     28: X setup they've been using for years that they can and do just plop
                     29: into place on a new machine.
                     30: 
                     31: This project does not affect those users, even the ones who for some
                     32: crazy reason *want* to use twm. It also does not affect users who just
                     33: want to install GNOME, KDE, or whatever other desktop.
                     34: 
                     35: The goal of this project is to provide a less knobby default X
                     36: environment for users who are willing to run plain X rather than a
                     37: full desktop but do not have their own X setup.
                     38: 
                     39: The project is: choose a window manager suitable for replacing twm in
                     40: base; import it into base; and update the default X config to provide
                     41: a decent default session using it.
                     42: 
                     43: Note that it needs to be a mainstream window manager; tiling window
                     44: managers and other exotica are not really suitable for the purpose. It
                     45: should also not depend on anything that isn't in base (that is, base
                     46: with native X), it should be smallish and not a bloatmonster, and
                     47: ideally it should be BSD-licensed.
                     48: 
                     49: Based on the window managers in pkgsrc, there are two chief
                     50: candidates: fluxbox and golem. Each has pluses and minuses. Some of
                     51: these are:
                     52: 
                     53: * golem is prettier and fully themeable
                     54: * golem is written in C, fluxbox in C++
                     55: * golem is a lot smaller (less than 1/10th the code size)
                     56: * golem currently needs some work, chiefly on the config system; fluxbox appears to be ready to go
                     57: * golem is just about dead upstream; fluxbox is not very active but is still getting occasional releases
                     58: 
                     59: Currently it looks like golem is a better choice, especially since
                     60: ideally we'd like to pick something that will run decently on
                     61: older/slower ports. But it requires more work.
                     62: 
                     63: Note that we could (AFAIK) become upstream for golem; this is not
                     64: necessarily a bad thing.
                     65: 
                     66: There might be other possible choices; these two are the ones in
                     67: pkgsrc that seem viable.
                     68: """
                     69: ]]