Subject: FVWM: using .fvwmrc

From: ajam <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 22:50:40 -0400

Hi,

I have a small problem that, although it is not impeding me from
starting or using fvwm, I really would like to find the answer for.
Okay, for whatever reason I had in my mind that day, I bought the new RH
5.1, and upgraded my setup.  Everything was nice and perky with the
default installation (upgrade).  Well, even though I had been using KDE
for the past year, I decided not to use KDE, nor the default X setup
that comes w/ RH.  Instead, I wanted to go back, and give a try to fvwm
again.  Fvwm is so customizable that I didn't feel like I was missing
anything.  Well, this is my problem.  I setup .xinitrc by copying it
directly from xinit.  Xresources was already setup in my home
directory.  No problem up to now.  I ran 'startx', and everything seemed
fine.  I had virtual desktops, and all the functions that were setup in
.xinitrc.   But then I decided to also setup .fvwmrc.  I copy it
directly from system.fvwm,  and now when I start fvwm I don't get the
applications that I had set up in .xinitrc.  It is kind of funny that
system.fvwmrc is under /usr/lib/X11/fvwm2, instead of
/usr/lib/X11/fvwm.  My only conclusion is that fvwm was not reading
system.fvwm in the first place.  If .fvwmrc is not present, I get the
virtual environment (pager) and GoodStuff, which appear in .xinitrc, and
I get the default menus when I click the left (1) and right (3) buttons
of my mouse.  If .fvwmrc is present, I don't get a virtual environment;
the programs that were started within .xinitrc do not appear; and I can
only get, by clicking the right mouse button, the "icon manager".  Once
I exit fvwm, I see that there were many errors when the .fvwmrc file was
read.  Any suggestions will be more than appreciated.

Thanks, ajam

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---

From: ajam <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 22:41:40 -0400

Thanks for your response.  Actually, I just did what you suggested.  I got
rid of every wm that came with the RH distribution, and only reinstalled
fvwm.  Again, if I don't have ~/.fvwmrc, all the programs specified in the
~/.xinitrc will appear when I start fvwm.  Once I set up ~/.fvwmrc, the
originally programs specified in ~/.xinitrc disappear w/ the exception of the
main root window color (xsetroot) and the position and size of the xterm.
My confussion is that if I don't have ~/.fvwmrc setup, fvwm is supposed to
look for "system.fvwmrc".  Thus, having a ~/.fvwmrc equal to "system.fvwmrc",
should not change a thing!?  Either way, thanks again for your interest

Regards, ajam
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

www.ajam.org

Toy Keeper wrote:

> ajam wrote:
> > ...
> Whenever I install a RedHat system, the first thing I do after
> installation is get rid of its default X config.  I also recompile fvwm
> from an official distribution instead of using the modified RedHat
> version.  However, your milage may vary.  :)
>
> Usually, I go into /etc/X11 and rewrite most of the scripts there.  The
> most important ones are /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc, /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession,
> and /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients.  You may find the answer to your problem
> somewhere in these files.
>
> Another handy thing to try is using ".fvwm2rc" instead of ".fvwmrc".  It
> may or may not make a difference.
>
>  _  _ _  _ ___ ___  -----------"Use the source, Luke!"---------
> ( \/ ( \/ (__ (__ ) | ~  Scott Scriven (Toy Keeper / XYZZ)    |
>  \  / \  /  //  //  | mailto:[email-masked]           |
>  /  \ / /  //_ //_  | mailto:[email-masked]         |
> (_/\_(_/  (___(___) | http://www.vis.colostate.edu/~scriven/  |

---

From: ToyKeeper <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 20:56:57 -0600

ajam wrote:
> ...
> reinstalled fvwm.  Again, if I don't have ~/.fvwmrc, all the programs
> specified in the ~/.xinitrc will appear when I start fvwm.  Once I set
> up ~/.fvwmrc, the originally programs specified in ~/.xinitrc
> disappear w/ the exception of the main root window color (xsetroot)
> and the position and size of the xterm.
> My confussion is that if I don't have ~/.fvwmrc setup, fvwm is
> supposed to look for "system.fvwmrc".  Thus, having a ~/.fvwmrc equal
> to "system.fvwmrc", should not change a thing!?  Either way, thanks
> again for your interest

Hmm, there's something else I forgot to mention.  The version of Fvwm2
which comes with RedHat is modified, and seems to be broken in various
ways.  I'd suggest renaming the RedHat fvwm to fvwm.redhat, and
installing Fvwm2 from the original sources, probably from
fvwm-smr-2.0.46.tar.gz, if you can find it.  This will let you configure
the default places the program looks for config files, and thus
partially bypass the RedHat desktop setup (which is also IMHO broken).

It's also probably worth browsing through your /etc/X11 directory to see
what you can fix there.  Much of the RedHat setup is designed so that
newbies can configure things without knowing much about the system; but
it also tends to get in the way for more experienced users.  Often
times, the only way to get things to work "right" is to rewrite the
scripts which run everything.  The RedHat system is very nicely done
(especially with some of the gui configurators), but there seems to be
no option to revert to "normal unix" mode; and changing the system
behavior often involves breaking the RedHat setup.

Instead of using a .xinitrc file, you might want to try using a
.Xsession file.  That way, you can get the normal setup used by the
global xinitrc, and have your own X programs start too.  With the setup
I'm using, both the global xinitrc and the global Xsession execute
~/.Xsession for automatic user-specified X programs, and figure out
which window manager to use via a ~/.wmrc file.  Fvwm is set up so that
the global config file is customizable via a ~/.fvwm2rc.extra file. 
That way, users can customize things without losing the benefits of a
frequently-updated global config.

BTW, please don't use HTML format for email messages.  It usually
bothers people.  :)