Old Slackware fvwm config

March 22, 2007 11:53 PM

Trying to locate a .fvwmrc file from an old Slackware distribution

I recently installed Cygwin with X and fvwm2 on a computer at work, and have been experiencing a bit of nostalgia for the minimal desktops of yesteryear. My favorite desktop of all time is from an early Slackware distribution downloaded off the net and installed via floppy (all pre-CD), and I'd like to recreate it as closely as possible by locating and adapting the .fvwmrc file

With allowances made for my poor memory, I believe the primary colors were blue and red: blue for the root desktop, and red for the window frames. When it started up, there was a single xterm and a 9-desk pager (in 3x3 format) in the lower right-hand corner. Nothing else. No taskbars, icons or other junk. The only menu was a pop-up.

Can anyone else recall this configuration? I can probably rebuild a .fvwmrc file from scratch, but it would be easier to just use an existing version, if one still exists.

posted by Ritchie to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Do you remember the Slackware Version?
posted by donut at 2:43 AM on March 23, 2007

Unfortunately not. Can't even remember the linux kernel version. I think it was just before the change from aout to elf binaries.
posted by Ritchie at 3:04 AM on March 23, 2007

The .fvwmrc file I use today started with the one you describe. When I first saw it was in Slackware 3.2, circa 1997. Try this file from their archive.
posted by roue at 6:36 AM on March 23, 2007

Before ELF? That's a long time ago, would have put you right at the top of 1995. If you had the most recent slackware then that'd be 2.1.
posted by fvw at 8:28 AM on March 23, 2007

Scratch that, slackware itself didn't switch to ELF until 3.0 in september '95.
posted by fvw at 8:29 AM on March 23, 2007

Somewhere in my CD collection, I believe I have an absolutely ancient Slackware. If you can't get it from their archives, post back and I'll see if I can scare up that old CD. No promises, but I think I have it.
posted by Malor at 9:11 AM on March 23, 2007

Update: after going through a lot of documentation, and examining old and not-so-old fvwm configs, I've realised that even if I find the correct file, it's going to avail me very little. Apparently the config syntax for fvwm1 is different from fvwm2, so I would need to re-write it anyway. About the only thing that would be useful from the file would be the exact colors, and possibly the window decor.

So I've been writing my own, relying on memory. When I'm satisfied with the result I'll post a link to the file here, and a screenshot, on the off-chance that in future someone might want to do exactly the same thing I do.

On a slightly different note, I've become hugely impressed with the power of fvwm, and I'll probably end up replacing KDE when I've come up with a config I like.

Thank you to everyone who responded. It was very much appreciated.
posted by Ritchie at 6:10 AM on March 26, 2007