frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

Open in hackernews

Modern Debian-based Window Maker distribution

https://wmlive.sourceforge.net/
60•Aldipower•4h ago

Comments

indrora•4h ago
I've wished for a better WindowMaker experience for years -- and that more places would adopt the distribution solution that NeXT and its children adopted.

Is it perfect? No, but it's sure a step closer to an ideal than whatever .so hell that we came up with before.

esseph•4h ago
sourceforge, can't believe it's still around.
ok123456•3h ago
It's all git based now. They've tried to turn it into a version of github that is just for public projects, and with a 2004 UI.
esseph•3h ago
slashdot and sourceforge "feel" so weird these days, I really don't know how to describe it accurately. I know they sold off years and years and years ago, but it makes me feel like watching a zombie company.
pandemic_region•3h ago
I don't remember 2004 SF ui having such a treacherous download page. Is it downloading? Should I click this thing that does its best to not look like an ad? What about all these other banners I'm so lost crikey.
esseph•3h ago
Yeah I mean the page might have changed over the past... 21 years ;)
_fat_santa•4h ago
I wonder how well WindowMaker integrates with modern applications, I've always wanted to give it a try but was worried about this. Does anyone use it as their daily driver?
Aldipower•3h ago
Yes, I use it daily and heavily in a professional audio studio. It runs perfectly with Reaper and Bitwig (both DAWs), both in window or fullscreen mode. The great thing is also the quick switching between the multiple virtual desktops to the signal routing and level applications, like hdspemix and so on. It is such a distract free environment.
badsectoracula•3h ago
I've been using (and contributed to) Window Maker for years - in fact it was my first non-DE window manager back in early 2000s. I have used other DEs (most notably GNOME 2 around mid-2000s) and WMs but when i use Linux i always end up back to Window Maker and it has been my main window manager for the last ~10 years as well as the only desktop environment i've been using since ~2021 or so.

Most applications work fine since there is little difference between WMs. That said there are two issues Window Maker has that nobody has fixed:

1. There is practically no RandR support. Sure, you can enable it (and i think it is enabled by default) during compilation but the "support" is really to restart Window Maker whenever the video mode or whatever else changes so that it uses the new resolution. However due to the way Window Maker seems to identify monitors (it seems to use the vertical resolution - probably a hack that worked for someone somewhere around the 90s or early 2000s and nobody bothered to update to use something less hacky) it also causes duplicate dock configurations. Also for some reason if the dock is larger than the vertical resolution anything that doesn't "fit" gets thrown away. Ultimately i've found it easier to just disable RandR support to avoid losing my dock configuration whenever some program changes the resolution.

2. While there is EWMH support, either there is some bug with how some parts are implemented or (most likely) there are subtle differences between Window Maker's implementation and other window managers (e.g. IceWM) that applications assumed would work like that cause issues with Window Maker. The most obvious of those is applications that want to "take over" window management and handle moving and resizing themselves - it either doesn't work (the applications do not move) or the move/resize happens erratically (e.g. Firefox with the titlebar disabled or Steam has this issue). Also many applications do not get the frame size (this is probably some race condition because Window Maker does set the frame size hints properly) correctly, causing them to get wrong sizes and when combined with them trying to handle sizing and position themselves, they can end up flickering by constantly trying to set the "correct" size and/or moving and sizing themselves whenever their UI updates (often becoming smaller and smaller because they assume some frame size of 0). This is most common with applications running under Wine, but some other applications have issues too because of that (e.g. Virtualbox).

I've tried to figure out the #2 (for #1 i just don't care that much since i'm using a single monitor anyway) but from what i could tell Window Maker seems to be doing everything properly. I didn't spent that much time on it though. At some point (and assuming nobody else does, though it has been like that for years) i'll try and compare what Window Maker does and what IceWM does (which works fine) and where their behavior differs. My guess is some race condition, perhaps Window Maker sets the hints too late or something, though this is just a guess. I'll need first to write a small X11 program that replicates the issue.

As a workaround for #2 i've been using a feature i added to Window Maker years ago to ignore any decoration changes for windows (it is in Attributes -> Advanced Options -> Ignore decoration changes), essentially forcing all windows to have a resize frame and titlebar, ignoring any requests for hiding them. This lets me move around and resize, e.g., Steam (and also use all window management functionality that Window Maker provides - like rolling the window up/down using the mouse wheel - instead of whatever Valve thought i'd need).

One other issue with Window Maker (though it isn't really a Window Maker issue per-se) is that since Window Maker is not a (desktop) compositor, Gtk4 applications that assume a compositor will use black colors for whatever would be beneath a window - this mainly means that popup menus with rounded corners will actually get black corners. This is really a side-effect of Gtk4 assuming a compositor is there and not having a fallback for when there isn't one and would be an issue with other window managers too, but it should be solvable (if you care about it, i don't) by using a dedicated compositor (i think compiz or something like that may work).

aflag•2h ago
Probably not worse than other DEs. Aren't modern applications just a bunch of SPAs?
daantje•2h ago
Yes, for ~20 years on Ubuntu.

Nice startup time, and just works -- especially if all you use are terminals and browser windows. Things like firefox look a little out of place, now that they are pushing their UI chrome into their own title bars.

Koshkin•3h ago
Window Maker looks alien to me as a Unix user. CDE is good, but I like TWM which is the default window manager in Slackware (if you want someting more Windows-like, you can switch to MWM).
fullstop•3h ago
I used WindowMaker from 1997 until about 2005, so it doesn't look too foreign to me. I kind of want to try it again to see how it holds up, but perhaps that kind of desktop is best left in my memories.
Aldipower•3h ago
NextStep, where WindowMaker derivated, is also a Unix-like OS. For me it perfectly fits to Unix. But yeah, this a a matter of taste of course. :-)
gigel82•3h ago
Oh wow, sourceforge, can't believe this site survived after it started introducing malware into binary distributions.
phendrenad2•2h ago
Pretty sure it's under new management and they have nothing to do with the scummy behavior of the past.
wmlive•2h ago
Is there any better alternative site for easy and free bulk data distribution of ISO images?

I really wouldn't want to host my stuff on any Microsoft controlled sites.

karmakaze•3h ago
Having used both NeXTSTEP and Window Maker, the weirdest thing for me was the left-side scrollbars especially on the file/column browser where there's 3 side by side. Great to see this still alive and kicking.
indigodaddy•2h ago
Would this work for touchscreen/tablet I wonder :)
kev009•47m ago
The NS UI looked really odd to me until relatively recently having grown up on Mac OS Classic, Win9x. Now I look at that and think, damn.. that aged well.
wmlive•4m ago
wmlive maintainer here.

In fact, this should rather be considered a Window Maker based Debian/Bookworm distribution instead the stated reverse. Certainly more then 95% of the shipped packages are plain Debian/Bookworm packages, with only a few additional packages contributed by yours truly.

The main merit of wmlive is providing the necessary glue to properly preconfigure Window Maker with an out of the box usable environment (unlike Debian's crude/primitive Window Maker configs) and make it the default GUI.

The other main merit is to make the supplied software complete enough to serve as a standalone system without the immediate need to connect to the internet to install more useful packages than are normally supplied by distributions in their quest to provide an initial system too generic to be really useful by already experienced users. This is not meant for beginners,

While some work went in homogenizing the overall looks with Window Maker's own WINGs widget set, no efforts were wasted with further eye candy stuff. The themeability of the WINGs widgets are limited to that crufty NeXTSTEP look everybody either loves or despises, being the least common visual denominator. Not being particularly enamored of these visuals, but this was the only way to find some common ground for the look and feel.

Window Maker is just a highly compatible X11 window manager and is supposed to work as such. There is no interest to specifically integrate it with the provided GNUstep applications, as this is not supposed to be predominantly a GNUstep desktop. The included GNUstep applications are just an addon to give people a practical way to verify what GNUstep has to offer. In fact, wmlive would be perfectly usable without providing any single GNUstep application. The freedom and flexibility provided by an X11 window manager instead of the walled garden of a specific desktop system is much more preferable to many Linux users. NeXT nostalgists might want to look elsewhere. [1][2]

What most people don't seem to get is that there is much more to wmlive than just the visible desktop. Below the hood is a wide range of command line tools suitable for system rescue and repair when using it as a live system booted from an USB stick. Supposedly many youngsters who were yet to be born when we already grew up with Linux from day one have never learned to look beyond what's visually obvious.

If anyone who downloaded it does like wmlive, I'd appreciate a donation via the download pages. While i hate sounding like a beggar, given the current economic situation i could really use it. Thanks!

[1] https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace [2] https://github.com/onflapp/gs-desktop

Show HN: Make the Most of Python's ExceptionGroups

https://github.com/mawildoer/groupie
2•mawildoer•2m ago•0 comments

Tracking stealth fighters and birds near aircraft with camera phones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFiubdrJqqI
1•lifeisstillgood•7m ago•0 comments

Reliable by Design: Fast, Fail-Safe AI Agents

https://www.aimon.ai/announcements/ife-200ms-instruction-following-evaluation-for-agentic-reflection/
2•pjoshi30•8m ago•0 comments

Claim: Meta offered $1.25B over four years to AI hire – and were refused

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/abel-founder-claims-meta-offered-usd1-25-billion-over-four-years-to-ai-hire-person-still-said-no-despite-equivalent-of-usd312-million-yearly-salary
2•A_D_E_P_T•8m ago•0 comments

The surprising geography of American left-handedness (2015)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/22/the-surprising-geography-of-american-left-handedness/
2•roktonos•10m ago•0 comments

The Swamp of Negative Utility

https://ides.dev/notes/the-swamp-of-negative-utility/
1•edent•10m ago•0 comments

Automating Away Claude's Bad Habits with Hooks – Write-Ahead (B)Log

https://writeaheadblogg.ing/posts/claude-hooks-auto-fix-trailing-whitespace/
1•todsacerdoti•14m ago•0 comments

Exploiting Primacy Effect to Improve Large Language Models

https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.13949
1•hdvr•15m ago•0 comments

Turn your Raspberry Pi into a homelab gateway in 4 minutes (Twingate) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE9-K2SdDlQ
1•mmajzoobi•16m ago•1 comments

Compass Handheld CNC Router

https://www.compassrouter.com
1•cocoflunchy•16m ago•0 comments

The Cheapest LLM Call Is the One You Don't Await

https://inference.net/blog/asynchronous-requests-the-missing-mode-that-slashes-llm-costs
1•npmipg•17m ago•0 comments

In a Major Reversal, the World Bank Is Backing Mega Dams

https://e360.yale.edu/features/world-bank-hydro-dams
5•prmph•18m ago•0 comments

Overlooked climate-change danger: wildfire smoke

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/07/overlooked-climate-change-danger-wildfire-smoke/
1•gnabgib•20m ago•0 comments

A tool to visually sign PDF files on Linux

https://github.com/svenssonaxel/pdf-sign
1•axelsvensson•22m ago•1 comments

New Trump Immigration Policy: Ending the H-1B Visa Lottery

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/07/21/new-trump-immigration-policy-ending-the-h-1b-visa-lottery/
6•rayiner•23m ago•0 comments

Jane Jacobs Got Americans Stuck

https://www.riskgaming.com/p/how-jane-jacobs-got-americans-stuck
7•serviette•24m ago•1 comments

'CBS: The Tiffany Network' [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rv36XkQojM
1•Bogdanp•24m ago•0 comments

Houdini of FL: autistic savant sentenced for taking tools he inherited

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_DeFriest
5•felineflock•25m ago•0 comments

High-speed organic light-emitting diodes achieving 4-Gbps communication

https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/advanced-photonics/volume-7/issue-03/036005/High-speed-organic-light-emitting-diodes-based-on-dinaphthylperylene-achieving/10.1117/1.AP.7.3.036005.full
2•domofutu•26m ago•0 comments

Thesis Art

https://www.thesisart.de/
1•MakisH•27m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I Made t0ggles – Faster and More Efficient Than Jira and ClickUp

https://t0ggles.com/hn
1•nolimits4web•33m ago•0 comments

Why Apple dumped 2,700 computers in a landfill in 1989

https://hackaday.com/2025/07/21/why-apple-dumped-2700-computers-in-a-landfill-in-1989/
3•geox•35m ago•0 comments

Verify identity documents on the web [video]

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/232/
1•mooreds•36m ago•0 comments

AI-generated answers slash traffic, threaten funding for Dutch news outlets

https://nltimes.nl/2025/07/21/ai-generated-answers-slash-traffic-threaten-funding-dutch-news-outlets
2•belter•36m ago•1 comments

Dollar Trap or Empire by Invitation?

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-397-dollar-trap-or-empire
1•mooreds•36m ago•0 comments

Agentic AI Identity Management Approach

https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/blog/2025/03/11/agentic-ai-identity-management-approach
1•mooreds•37m ago•0 comments

Zawinski's Law

https://www.laws-of-software.com/laws/zawinski/
1•Bluestein•37m ago•1 comments

AlphaDec: A readable, lexically sortable time format for humans and AI

https://github.com/firasd/alphadec
1•firasd•38m ago•1 comments

Replit Wiped Production Database, Faked Data to Cover Bugs, SaaStr Founder Says

https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/07/21/1338204/replit-wiped-production-database-faked-data-to-cover-bugs-saastr-founder-says
2•felineflock•38m ago•1 comments

Speckle contrast optical spectroscopy for cuffless blood pressure estimation

https://opg.optica.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-16-8-3004&id=573500
4•PaulHoule•42m ago•2 comments