FVWM (2.4) on Ubuntu
====================
Today I started my old (but not so good) Dell Studio 17 laptop (1735, I think
but I don't remember where I can find the exact model). It has several issues -
it worked well in first two years but then there became some problems (the
right-bottom of the screen became white after some time; there loud ventilators
which cannot be replaced/cleaned as the device is glued and so).
The machine is not that bad: it's still one of the fastest PCs which I can
access to. Also it's keyboard is excellent (if a non-IBM notebook keyboard can
be described as the "excellent") and it has tons of ports. The problem is the
screen and the noise (and also it's software: there is $ Vista which results in
all ventilators running on full speed all time - even after I turned off near
everything which was possibble to be turned off...) and a several times
upgraded Ubuntu LTS install. The screen problem is probably related to the
use of OpenGL stuff (which modern desktops heavily do even for basic window
management tasks) - with the FVWM the things are much better and the fans are
quieter... So I assume there is some overheating related to the gfx chip.
I have used the box during summer holidays (in order to save better machines in
40+ C temperatures in the room) an it worked (sort of...). Today I tried tu
start it - well, it started but the Ubuntu interface (both the default Unity
and the Unity 2D) is somehat broken. The Gnome Classic one is broken, too
(maybe it actually work but I was not able to find any indicator nor interact
with panels), And the Gnome Shell is broken by design (otherwise it works).
Thus I did "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade". OK, it installed lot of ubdates
but the functionality remained exactly the same.
So I was forced to update my FVWM setup. There was a set of issues:
- no easy way to mount stuff
- no easy access to NetworkManager
- unconfigured keyboard
The first thing was to add the stalonetray [1] and define the ~/.stalonetrayrc
file:
background black
decorations all
geometry 1x4-0+66
icon_size 16
Well, the stuff has to be started elsewhere. I decided to use StartupFunction in the ~/.fvwm2rc (nm-applet, bluetooth-applet, evernote)
The next thing was the keyboard (in the same file and position, for example):
setxkbmap -layout "us,cz" -option "grp:alt_shift_toggle" &
An the last thing is mounting: I use the "nautilus --no-desktop" here (clicking
on an unmounted thing does the mount magic).
Reference(s):
[1]
http://stalonetray.sf.net
