It will only change as I add new content..... (nothing like stating the obvious!)
Please note that currently I've just started laying out and learning how to layout the site. Many pages are "holder pages" and marked on this page by a hash #. The # will be removed once I consider it has enough content to thought of as "Interesting enough to read" Me being the Judge of that!
External links will be marked with a NorthEast Arrow ↗
Internal will not.
I like window managers. I like light weight and effecient window managers. catwm is very light, very efficent and very easy to use. Using it has made me think more about how I can do more by doing less
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I chose catwm after reading the thread in the arch forum. I realised that a chunk of the code was actually GPL'd quite early on (20100630 was the earliest reference I came across) after moetunes and milomouse hacked on it. moetunes then went on the make dminiwm (basically a very close catwm fork) and snapwm a much more feature rich version.Though he reverted to a lax license.
There were a lot of derivatives built from catwm. monsterwm frankenwm etc that have since lost momentum. Mostly as ricers seem to have moved to sucklesses ↗ dwm. dwm and dmenu are not my thing though I did like how ↗ wmii functioned ootb.
The moetunes gpl'd fork was kept alive here:
viyoriya's fork is the version I compiled from. There are only 2 issues I'd call bugs I've come across in catwm. 1:the odd ghost window which I noticed moetunes fixed in dminiwm. 2:A bit of a chore getting the window size correct with dual screens. To be honest I wouldn't recomend it if you want to run dual screens. It's just not what it's built for. ↗ NotionWM is great for that and that's what I switch to if I need the output to another screen or projector.
There was a bug noted somewhere about disabling cycling anti-clockwise but I found a fix in the arch thread and it's been fine cycling both cycling both clockwise and anti-clockwise for me.
Niggles: Not having dbus means that normal notifiers that expect it won't work. A workspace number notifier would be nice. I know the solution is possible with mkfifo but I failed to make it work with ↗ herbe. I tend to know whats where and if I do open something on an occupied workspace I just tab it through until it maximizes, in short I gave up and learnt a better system until I didn't need it. That system I call "The bedroom" as opposed to the "Desktop". In short I put things where they're meant to go just like in the bedroom. Socks in the sock draw, coats in the wardrobe, baffies (slippers) under the bed or on my feet etc. I don't have draws or wardrobes on my PCs but I do have workspaces
After 18 months of catwm being my main window manager i can up-date on what "That system is" I have all GUI (Graphical User Interface) applications from workspace 1 up and terminal application from workspace 0 down. The only hard and fast rule I have is file managers on workspace 1 and browsers on workspace 2. the rest get filled as I use them. intermediat windows are opened where ever I am and either closed after using them or sent down the stack or sent to the appropreate workspace
Gone on the desktop is fittstool and herbe. I do keep it on the laptop but really it's only for a bit of bling.
↗ fittstool only works at the top of the screen in the panel area as the open windows covers the activation area. It's a minor inconvenence as I just put my top 15 or so most commonly required action at the top and if I'm going to launch something it usually goes on an empty workspace where it's not an issue anyway. iirc dminiwm fixes this. Interesingly enough xdotool works fine as a fittstool replacement in this regard but it expects some things that don't exist in catwm.
catwm is not and does not try to be fully EWMH or freedesktop complient.
herbe intigration can be buggy. I don't require it but it's usefull while learning new setting and I have to admit the "bling" is fun. I've been using fittstool for years and it's very solid and I know what's in the hotspots. I'm not a fast typer and it's as quick for me to mouse-down in the top right corner to launch pinix to access my system info than try and recal a keybind.
mc (and hence mcedit), xterm, pinit, htop, wavmon, weather (wttr), ncdu, xtrlock, zzz, can all setup in fittstool should it be desired and it's very light
In short I have a good .bashrc with well configured aliases and see no need for a panel.
My main keybinds are:
There are more but I never/rarely use them. I did configure alt+letter (a to z) as application launchers but found I didn't use it so disabled it.
I'm no geek so no coder but I love window managers and hate bloat and I've tried around 40. I have a very nice twm setup but it's needs set up for each and every machine to display correctly also it can be a bit prone to an odd freeze. I very much doubt many are smaller and as usable as window managers as catwm ootb.
At the end of the day I'm a copy-left freetard. I accept that I have to use open-source but prefer free-software so start from that position, copy-left > lax > permissive. I try and stay in the copy-left & lax zones. It's my main worry about Hyperbola moving to Hyperbola-BSD.
Here is a list of my computers
My main work-station is a 2007 Dell
I was given this PC as it was considered to old and obsolete over 10 years ago. I removed the fancy graphic card Radeon HD 2600XT as it required non-free blobs. TBH I'm not sure if that's still the case. All I can say is it's still running fine. Certainly fast enough and no issues with video though I avoid H265 where I can
System:
Kernel: 5.15.161 arch: x86_64 bits
Desktop: catwm
Distro: Slackware 15.0
Machine: Dell Inspiron 530
CPU:dual core model: Intel Core2 Duo E6550 bits: 64
Memory: total: 3 GiB
My main Laptop is a 2012 MacBookPro
I have a love hate relationship with it. I love it was free. But hate how locked down it is and wouldn't ever buy an "Apple". Everything about it is hard work by design unless you install MacOS and I'd rather use a pen and paper and the MBP as the paper weight.
The specs are good as far as I'm concerned. It's easily the highest spec computer I own.
Spec below but 8GB ram and i7-cpu it has the dodgy dual gpu board which means that the external display isn't working
System:Kernel: 5.15.161 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 2.37-slack15
Desktop: catwm vt: 1 dm: startx
Distro: Slackware 15.0
Machine:Type: Laptop System: Apple product: MacBookPro8,2 date: 01/24/12
Battery:ID-1: BAT0 charge: 69.9 Wh (96.4%) condition: 72.5/75.2 Wh (96.4%)
CPU:Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-2720QM
Graphics:Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics
Monitor-1: LVDS-1 model: Apple Color LCD res: 1440x900 hz: 60 dpi: 111
Memory: total: 8 GiB
Slackware
Here is a quote from GNU's website:
What is GNU? GNU is an operating system that is free software—that is, it respects users' freedom. The GNU operating system consists of GNU packages (programs specifically released by the GNU Project) as well as free software released by third parties. The development of GNU made it possible to use a computer without software that would trample your freedom.
In short free and with liberty. The freedom to make choices and not be controled by third parties like Google, microsoft, Apple and the like
I love how GNU thanks to Richard Stallman used copy-right to protect copy-left. In short "You can have this software for free for any purpose" but if you release the code your modifications must also be shared under the same copy-left licence.
Most people take the easy road, no matter where it leads. We see this with the environment. Everyone is so protective of their children but seem quite happy to be slowly killing them by sysamatically distroying the very thing that gives them life. Bonkers by any logic. There is a sort of calmness a kind of spirituality in running ethical software and not worrying about converting the masses. The year of the Linux desktop
and the like only lets the hoards of poluters in to piss in the water. Those that want a Floss experiance will find a way
What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
An overview of web browsers types and their different benefits
↗ Web BrowsersWindow managers: My overview of the window managers I use and why.
I have used numerous window managers over the years, About 40. You can read about my default window manager catwm under the my Desktop
section.
I occationaly use these other window managers as well and have spent a long time (years) in all of the on my GNU/Linux journey. I've listed them in the general cronolodgical order though I do dip in and out for either technical reasons, nostalga or just for a change.
I also used a very heavily bastardised version of Windowmaker. And a very tweaked TWM (a very under rated window manager) for around 6 months. Booth of which, I may or may not write about.
This is about blackbox window manager
external links to screenshots of blackbox window manager and bbrun it additional run dialog
This is about icewm
This is about notionwm
This ia about catwm
external download links below