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KyleKL
n00b
Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Posts: 33
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 Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:38 am Post subject: FVWM Noob. |
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Hello all,
I'm new to FVWM and am just at the stage of playing around with it. I'm ready for some changes and want to load in some custom themes. I'm currently running fvwm-crystal.
In particular I want to load up a kick-ass theme I found while browsing for FVWM guides. I'm not sure how to integrate it into my system properly.
http://box-look.org/content/show.php/Lethe?content=91022
I thought if I figure out how to load in a pre-made theme like this I should learn a few things in the process and by tweaking it.
Currently I have the following setup:
fvwm - emerged
fvwm-crystal - emerged
/home/user/.xinitrc has "exec fvwm-crystal"
/home/user/.fvwm-crystal has 2 folders - "preferences" "wallpaper-thumnails"
/home/user/.fvwm - I don't know if this existed before. I think this was created when I extracted the new theme. It has "config""images""ownfiles""preferences""wallpapers".
/usr/share/fvwm - has a heap of configx files and fvwmscriptsx files.
/usr/share/fvwm-crystal/fvwm has "Applications""components""decorations""locale""recipes""wallpapers""colorsets""config""icons""preferences""scripts"
Any usefull information or links to guide etc. would be greatly appreciated! |
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mikegpitt
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Joined: 22 May 2004
Posts: 3224
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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It's great to see a new FVWM user! By far the best place to gather information is the FVWM Forums (http://fvwm.lair.be/). You can view a decent amount of other users configs there and get some ideas.
To use the theme you linked to you don't need to mess around with FVWM Crystal. All you need to do is unpack the tarball in your home directory, which should create a new ~/.fvwm directory. His config is the file in the .fvwm directory called 'config', and it should be renamed to '.fvwm2rc' (no quotes). |
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KyleKL
n00b
Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Posts: 33
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:45 am Post subject: |
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Ahh, thank you!
Yes, I have signed up for the forum, just waiting on the admin to approve me.
I tried copying that config file in the archive over the top of the one in fvwm-crystal (lol). It loaded the basic look of his config, though none of those rounded corners etc were in it (none of the links worked either).
I'd seen people talking about the .fvwm2rc file and was wondering what it was. I guess this is the user config as mentioned in the line "include userconfig" in the system wide config file?
My other question is, patches. In the link I gave you there is another link to a heap of fvwm patches that are apparently required to get this theme working properly. How do I apply these to fvwm? Same question for the taskbar I suppose, I have downloaded the archive, but not sure where to extract it.
Sorry if these are very basic questions, I can't seem to find much info around. |
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mikegpitt
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Joined: 22 May 2004
Posts: 3224
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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| KyleKL wrote: | | My other question is, patches. In the link I gave you there is another link to a heap of fvwm patches that are apparently required to get this theme working properly. How do I apply these to fvwm? Same question for the taskbar I suppose, I have downloaded the archive, but not sure where to extract it. |
No problem at all, and they are good questions. FVWM can be a pretty complex environment, but if you learn it well you can make some really beautiful desktops. Many people start with taviso's config, which you can find by googling. His .fvwm2rc is very well documented, and includes many nifty features that you can use, learn from, or change to your needs. My current config for my desktop and laptop started from his config about 4 years ago and evolved from that.
Also, on the FVWM forums Thomas Adam is an extremely good resource, and will undoubtedly end up answering a question for you over time. Read his threads -- he knows what is talking about.
Now onto patches. Most of the FVWM patches need to be compiled into it's source, unless it is an external module. To do that you will need to either download, patch, and compile FVWM yourself, or move the FVWM ebuild to an overlay on your Gentoo box and add the patches yourself to the ebuild. Doing that is fairly straight forward using a call to epatch in the ebuild.
You probably won't need any patches to use most people's configs. I did notice the rounded borders patch was uses in the config you linked to in your OP, but the config should work without rounded corners. |
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KyleKL
n00b
Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Posts: 33
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| Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 3:37 am Post subject: |
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Thanks allot for your replies. I'm still not sure on how to patch exactly though it is allot clearer now. I'm guessing that config uses more than rounded edges because there are some display elements missing when I use it.
I was hoping you could do me a favour. Can you send a message to Thomas Adam (it looks as though he is the forum admin) and ask him to hurry up and approve my registration!! Not quite in those words. |
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taipan67
l33t
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Posts: 866
Location: England (i'm told...)
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| Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 11:27 am Post subject: |
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That is a very nice theme - it's making me think again about getting seriously into fvwm. 
I wanted to raise one point that doesn't appear to be covered by your original post; The 'drop-shadows' that make everything seem to float above the desktop are nothing to do with fvwm or any of the patches applied on that Arch-linux version - you need x11-misc/xcompmgr installed to achieve them, as hilighted in the StartFunction of the theme's config-file... | Code: | | + I Exec xcompmgr -Cc -O-10 -t-3 -l-4 -r4 & |
You will therefore also need Xorg's 'composite-extension' loaded - this is the default for Xorg-7.4 (server-1.5), but for Xorg-7.2 (server-1.3) you need to call it from xorg.conf with:- | Code: | Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "true"
EndSection |
...You can check whether 'composite' is enabled with the x11-apps/xdpyinfo utility - look at the "number of extensions" section. 
_________________
"Anyone who goes to see a psychiatrist should have their head examined!" |
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mikegpitt
Advocate
Joined: 22 May 2004
Posts: 3224
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| Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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| KyleKL wrote: | | Thanks allot for your replies. I'm still not sure on how to patch exactly though it is allot clearer now. I'm guessing that config uses more than rounded edges because there are some display elements missing when I use it. |
It could have something to do with patches, but more likely it is because you need to tweak things for your own setup.
| KyleKL wrote: | | I was hoping you could do me a favour. Can you send a message to Thomas Adam (it looks as though he is the forum admin) and ask him to hurry up and approve my registration!! Not quite in those words. |
Be patient and wait a little longer. You still should be able to browse the wealth of information in the forums. I don't know Thomas personally, but if he doesn't approve you in a few days I'll send him a PM on the Fvwm Forums. I'm sure he will get around to it sooner rather than later. Chances are he is busy and hasn't gotten to it yet. |
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Leon_UK
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Posts: 128
Location: London
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| Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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I saw this thread as I was testing out wmii and thought I may as well try this too, along with the theme linked in the OP.
I did'nt do any patching or anything and I cant see much if any difference between mine and the one linked in the OP (i used same wallpaper for consitancy), I grabbed my fvwm from the devnull overlay a cvs build (x11-wm/fvwm-9999)
| Code: | fvwm -V
fvwm 2.5.28 (from cvs) compiled on Mar 27 2009 at 18:53:15
with support for: ReadLine, Stroke, PNG, SVG, XShm, SM, XRender, XCursor, XFT, NLS |
All I had to do was untar the theme and restart the wm all was working, I had everything that was needed for transparency because my main wm is fluxbox.
Ovbiously I stripped the Archlinux logo's in favour of Gentoo's
And the conf that comes with the theme will need heavy modding to strip/amend all of the menu items/commands since they are based on a different distro and you probably do not have half of what is listed there.
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AMD 7750 BE (@3.0ghz) || pci-e 7600GT (@650/800)Nvidia-drivers || 4gb ddr2 || ~amd64(funtoo) ||gentoo-sources-2.6.35-r1 |
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ThomasAdam
Guru
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Posts: 448
Location: England
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| Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon_UK wrote: | I saw this thread as I was testing out wmii and thought I may as well try this too, along with the theme linked in the OP.
I did'nt do any patching or anything and I cant see much if any difference between mine and the one linked in the OP (i used same wallpaper for consitancy), I grabbed my fvwm from the devnull overlay a cvs build (x11-wm/fvwm-9999) |
So check your .xsession-errors log then.
-- Thomas Adam |
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Leon_UK
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Posts: 128
Location: London
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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| ThomasAdam wrote: |
So check your .xsession-errors log then.
-- Thomas Adam |
for what?
Sorry if my post was misleading, I have no problems I was just posting to say using the fvwm ebuild from dev-null and the theme linked in the OP was a success, I also should have phrased the patching part as I did not have to *manually* patch since this is done via the ebuild. also i have no .xesession* files but it is irrellivant since I have no problems and everything is running smoothly.
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AMD 7750 BE (@3.0ghz) || pci-e 7600GT (@650/800)Nvidia-drivers || 4gb ddr2 || ~amd64(funtoo) ||gentoo-sources-2.6.35-r1 |
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