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My Desktop

Johan Vromans
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My Desktop

I've been working with Unix X11 based desktop systems for over 30 years. Over that period of time I have developed a highly peronalized desktop setup.

Two programs play an important role in X11 desktop setups: the session manager and the window manager. The session manager controls the desktop services like panels, icons and such, while the window manager controls the look and feel of all windows.

PeriodPlatformWindow system SessionWindow Manager
1989-1993  Ultrix VAX, MIPS DECwindows X11   Mwm (Motif Window Manager)
Gwm (Bull Generic Window Manager)
Twm (Tom's Window Manager)
Vtwm (Virtual TWM)
Tvtwm (Tom's Virtual TWM)
Ctwm (Claude's version of TWM)
1993-1995Solaris 4 SparcX11 OpenWindows  Ctwm
1995-2004RedHat Linux i686X11 XFree86 Xorg  Ctwm
2004-2008Fedora Linux i686Xorg GnomeCtwm
2008-2011Fedora Linux i686Xorg GnomeOpenBox
2011-2015Fedora Linux x86_64Xorg GnomeOpenBox
2015-Fedora Linux x86_64Xorg MateOpenBox

This table is constructed from memory and may not be exact. It definitely is not complete.

At first, I did not use the session manager since it did not provide anything interesting. Hoewever, with modern, Gnome based desktop systems the session manager performs tasks that you would not like to miss. Unfortunately, Ctwm had become only loosely supported and could not really keep up with the requirements of the modern desktop.

Recently, after at least 15 years of happy cooperation, I traded in the Ctwm window manager for a new program: OpenBox.

Summary of my Ctwm setup

The new OpenBox setup

Another convert from CTWM to OpenBox: Aaron Sloman



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articles/MyDesktop/index.html last modified 13:35:48 14-Apr-2021