Subject: FVWM: Nice-to-have: relocatable installation

From: Gregg Dameron <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:00:54 -0600

2.4.5 on Solaris (soon to be 2.4.7).  The more I discover about this
wm, the better I like it.

I configure with the --prefix option so I needn't be root to
install.  I also have the configuration I need, so I no longer
require "ConfigFvwmDefaults".  If I relocate the installation to a
different directory, I get a runtime error at startup telling me
ConfigFvwmDefaults couldn't be found.  Everything still works, so
the error is benign, but it would be nice if I could suppress the
message.  (I can work around it with a symlink from the old prefix
to the new location, but I'm hoping for a more elegant solution.)  I
also tried putting in a "dummy" ConfigFvwmDefaults in $HOME/.fvwm
and in the old prefix area (the two locations it told me it
searched) but it didn't help.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

Gregg Dameron

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---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 19:45:57 +0000

> searched) but it didn't help.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

The file ConfigFvwmDefaults is searched in the "old" place, run
`fvwm-config --fvwm-datadir` to find which exactly.

But please don't relocate instalation manually, this is a source of hidden
problems. The only supported relocation method is, like with any non
trivial program, reinstallation using different ./configure arguments.
You should be using ModulePath that is not normally needed, because after
relocation fvwm can't find any module, not just ConfigFvwmDefaults.

You may think you don't need ConfigFvwmDefaults and never will. But, for
example, we added in 2.5.x several things to it, so that a user gets good
defaults for new features. I don't think you want to miss them. Just let
ConfigFvwmDefaults be what it was designed for, a read-only place where
developers place fail-safe-startup commands. Also, if you remove or change
this file, it is harder for developers to reproduce problems you may have.

Regards,
Mikhael.