Is sawfish dead yet? #53
Comments
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I'd see Sawfish as pretty much feature-complete, therefor there aren't that many releases outside of bug fixes (that and the maintainers ain't got that much time, as far as I'm aware). Are you encountering a bug or problem that needs fixing? |
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On 2023-04-05 16:14:10, gtusr ***@***.***> spake thus:
If so, what's the next best option?
Nope, it's not dead. I know I'm not the only one using it daily -- quite
heavily, and on multiple machines. But it "just works", so there's not much
churn.
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Just wondering if there are any limitations to using Sawfish directly on top of Wayland without installing a full desktop environment like Gnome or KDE? |
Well, you got this wrong. You see, every Wayland advocate will happily tell you that "Wayland is just a protocol", and that's true. There's a "reference" compositor which is called Weston, which is bare-bones, and everything else is left to everyone else. To "support Wayland" one must implement a complete Wayland compositor, that includes implementing and handling of rendering, hardware acceleration, input, clipboard, window management, screenshots, capturing of the desktop for streaming and so on. In short, every Wayland compositor must basically implement all the functionality which is currently provided by the X.org server. In my opinion, the big Wayland motto is "It's somebody elses problem now", because that is exactly what it is, Wayland is just a protocol, everyone must implement everything. If there is no Wayland protocol for something, then the compositors are left to their own devices to implement that functionality, which means that all the Wayland clients (GUI frameworks) must implement that compositor specific function, and so on. Additionally, GNOME slightly disagrees on a few key functionalities (window decorations), which makes it a little bit worse for everyone. So the questions "when will Wayland support Sawfish?" or "when will Sawfish support Wayland?" are incorrect, the correct question is "when will someone write a complete Wayland compositor (including rendering, hardware acceleration, input, clipboard, window management, screenshots, capturing of the desktop for streaming and so on) which will behave like Sawfish?"...I guess we all know the answer to that one. |
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@op: Don't abuse issue trackers to chat. That will annoy developers. Use reddit or so instead. That said, how about qtile? It's written in python, and supports wayland. Other "configurable" and/or hackable wm/wayland compositor is xmonad/waymonad, but it's in haskell, not recommendable for most. Regards. |
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Is anyone using sawfish window manager here on debian 12?I have xfce as default desktop environment. I installed sawfish window manager.based on sawfish wikihttps://sawfish.fandom.com/wiki/User_Guide I need to add these lines:- xscreensaver -no-splash & |
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On 2024-09-15 10:10:32, L0n0n0k ***@***.***> spake thus:
Is anyone using sawfish window manager here on debian 12?I have xfce as
default desktop environment.
I'm using Sawfish on Debian, but I don't have any machines that are
are "pure" Debian 12.x. And I'm not using XFCE. Nevertheless, I'll
see if I can help you out.
The exact details will vary based on how you start X11. The below
assumes you boot into a Linux virtual console ("text console"),
login to your shell, and then type `startx`.
First of all, you can certainly use Sawfish as the window manager
when using the XFCE desktop environment. But are you aware that you
do not necessarily need a desktop environment? In other words, you
can run Sawish (or any X11 window manager) by itself, and avoid the
overhead and complexity of a "desktop environment" if you so wish.
I installed sawfish window manager.based on sawfish
wikihttps://sawfish.fandom.com/wiki/User_Guide I need to add these
lines:-
xscreensaver -no-splash &
sawfish &
xfce-mcs-manager
xfce4-panel &
exec xfdesktop
To /.xsession file. Where in xsessions file should I need to add? After which line?.Is the above mentioned the only step i have to do to make sawfish working with xfce?
I think those instructions are out-of-date. AFAICT, there is no
`xfce-mcs-manager` program in Debian any more.
Fundamentally, what you want to do is add lines to the file
`.xsession` in your `$HOME` directory. Create the file if it does
not exist:
```console
$ cd # changes to your $HOME directory
$ pwd
/home/YOUR_USER_NAME
$ file .xsession
.xsession: cannot open `.xsession' (No such file or directory)
$ printf '%s\n\n' '#!/bin/sh' >> .xsession
$ chmod 0750 .xsession
```
The `.xsession` file is a shell script that gets executed by the X11
startup machinery to control what programs run under X11. On Debian,
you can read about the X11 startup process via:
```console
$ man 1 startx
```
and:
```console
$ man 5 XSession
```
You can start any X11 apps you want from the `.xsession` file. Most
people will start at least one terminal app (e.g., 'xterm') so they
have at least one window in which they can issue commands, even if
the rest of the X11 session doesn't start correctly (for whatever
reason).
In the instructions you posted above, notice that most commands are
ended with an ampersand character (`&`). That has the effect of
running them "in the background", the same as if the commands were
run that way from a shell prompt. It is important that all of the
long-running commands (except for the last; see below) be launched
this way so that they will run concurrently. Without the
ampersand(s), the apps would run sequentially, one at a time, which
is not what you want.
The very last command in the script is special. It MUST NOT be run
in the background. The reason is that when the `.xsession` script
completes, that is the signal to the calling process (the X11
startup machinery) to say that X should shut down.
The window manager is a special application in X11. Historically, it
was the last program started from an `.xsession` file. To run
Sawfish as the window manager without a desktop environment, the
`.xsession` file could have the following as the last (and possibly
only) line in the file:
```sh
exec /usr/bin/sawfish
```
A "desktop environment" still needs a window manager (the default
window manager supplied with XFCE is called `xfwm4`), but then you
want to run the window manager in the background, and the desktop
environment in the foreground. A minimal example of that might look
like this:
```sh
/usr/bin/sawfish &
exec /usr/bin/xfce4-session
```
If that works for you, then you could add in other bits. E.g.,:
```sh
/usr/bin/xscreensaver -no-splash &
/usr/bin/sawfish &
exec /usr/bin/xfce4-session
```
You may need to do something else to prevent `xfce4-session` from
trying to start the default XFCE window manager. I'm not sure, but I
hope the above helps.
…-Al
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@salewski which desktop environment you use? |
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On 2024-09-29 09:57:26, L0n0n0k ***@***.***> spake thus:
@salewski which desktop environment you use?
I do not use a desktop environment -- just a window manager
(Sawfish, of course).
The last line in my '~/.xsession' file is (effectively):
```sh
exec /path/to/sawfish
```
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If so, what's the next best option?
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