IceWM reaches version 3 after a mere 25 years
- Reference: 1664965750
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/10/05/icewm_version_3/
- Source link:
The world of Linux desktop environments is full of sound and fury, with a constant stream of new developments and new versions. Lots of them [1]duplicate each others' work and functionality , sometimes just using slightly different tooling. All too often, ambitious or promising projects never reach version 1.0. Either they get abandoned or simply become moribund, and new updates stop appearing.
It's easy to be distracted by this constant background noise and forget that there are simpler alternatives to a complete desktop, without going full Luddite and living at a console prompt. A trendy way to do this is with a tiling window manager, and alongside established favorites – for example [2]awesomewm , [3]i3 , and [4]ratpoison – there are lesser-known ones that are exploring new functionality such as [5]bspwm , [6]herbsluftwm , and [7]Qtile . Lots of new tiling window managers are arriving on Wayland like [8]cagebreak , [9]dwl , [10]newm , and [11]river .
[12]
IceWM 3 balances being lightweight with useful core functionality
IceWM is an prime example of that simpler middle ground, a traditional stacking window manager allowing you to open, move, and resize windows. It's relatively simple, easy, and quick to learn. By default, it also provides an app launcher and an app switcher, using the familiar Windows 95 model: a hierarchical start menu and a taskbar.
If you do a minimal install of openSUSE, you get IceWM. It's also one of the defaults in the lightweight [13]antiX and [14]Absolute Linux distros.
[15]You thought you bought software – all you bought was a lie
[16]Big changes coming in Debian 12: Some parts won't be FOSS
[17]Amazon lets you rent Ubuntu Pro. Yes, it's Linux on the virtual desktop
[18]HDD Clicker gizmo makes flash sound like spinning rust
With such a relatively simple remit, it's good to see that development is still going on. Version [19]2.0 appeared late in 2020, removing a legacy protocol and adding a new image rendering engine.
Now version [20]3.0 is out with a whole new feature: tabbed windows. Reminiscent of one of The Reg FOSS desk's favourite OSes, the [21]late and great Be OS , tabbed windows turn the title bar into a tab that is less than the full width of the window. In IceWM 3, this allows you to attach windows together to form one entity that can be moved and sized in a single operation – but the contents of the different windows can be accessed individually using each one's tab. In other words, it works like browser tabs, but the different windows don't need to be from the same parent application.
[22]
IceWM isn't the only window manager still in development. [23]FVWM is even older, dating back to 1993, but version 3 is in active [24]development . Joe's Window Manager, [25]jwm , reached 1.0 in 2005 and so is a comparative youngster, but also got a new release this year.
[26]
IceWM's new tabbed windows are the sort of relatively simple improvement to the very well-established metaphor of window management that this vulture really likes to see: small, elegant, and yet helpful. We feel that there's plenty more room for improvement within this space. For instance, very few window managers offer the choice of where the title bar (or tab) is located; on a widescreen, placing them on the side, as [27]wm2 and [28]wmx do, would save valuable vertical pixels. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/17/linux_desktop_feature/
[2] https://awesomewm.org/
[3] https://i3wm.org/
[4] https://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/
[5] https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm
[6] https://herbstluftwm.org/
[7] http://www.qtile.org/
[8] https://github.com/project-repo/cagebreak
[9] https://github.com/djpohly/dwl
[10] https://github.com/jbuchermn/newm/
[11] https://github.com/riverwm/river
[12] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/10/04/icewm3.png
[13] https://antixlinux.com/
[14] https://www.absolutelinux.org/index1.html
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/you_cannot_buy_software/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/03/debian_12/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/30/ubuntu_amazon_virtual_desktop/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/30/hdd_clicker/
[19] https://github.com/ice-wm/icewm/releases/tag/2.0.0
[20] https://github.com/ice-wm/icewm/releases/tag/3.0.0
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2007/01/30/forgotten_tech_beos/
[22] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yz2qIIPNGaJg4BOdUIsRIQAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[23] https://www.fvwm.org/
[24] https://github.com/fvwmorg/fvwm3
[25] https://joewing.net/projects/jwm/
[26] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yz2qIIPNGaJg4BOdUIsRIQAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[27] https://www.all-day-breakfast.com/wm2/
[28] https://www.all-day-breakfast.com/wmx/
[29] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Impressive
Well, practically no-one out of ... billions? ... is still an awful lot of users, for whom plenty of fruit is borne. As one of those users I'm extremely grateful to the effort still going into development of these desktops.
FWIW, I've been mostly using another stalwart WM for decades - Fluxbox (which appears still to be under active development, although no releases have appeared since around 2015). The killer feature of Fluxbox for me, as it happens, has always been tabbed windows. For that reason, I may well give the new IceWM (which I used a bit back in the day) a spin - although Fluxbox is rather more elegant*, in a minimalist kind of way.
*That does require a little work, admittedly.
Re: Impressive
IceWM still gets a lot of use in the embedded space, especially when you are dealing with display hardware that only supports 2D acceleration. We used it for our ARM and X86 devices till 2021 before we switched our stack over to wayland
You can have have a minimal desktop and terminal in < 40 MB RAM
Re: Impressive
Pretty much 1/4 of the way to macOS. That is actually quite outstanding for desktop usage!
It is now even starting to interact. Check out the slight fall in macOS in July 2022 and the slight increase in Linux as a result.
I would also be interested in knowing what "Unknown" is. My guess is a fair proportion of that will be Linux with various user-agent masks.
Re: Impressive
Nobody should take anything that "Statcounter", and similar sites, say particularly seriously.
Anyone with any sense (and the necessary nous) is likely to set up their browser + add-ons to refuse to load content from tracking/spyware sites (or, indeed, their browser might already be set up this way by default), and it is more than likely that many, if not most, Linux users probably do this (ornery contrarian types that we often are), and so are never known nor counted by such sites.
(In fact, is Statcounter even much used these days? I don't tend to see it show up in NoScript's list of sites, on any given website that I visit, very much these days; it mainly tends to be Google, Adobe, (Demdex, Omniture, Tealium), Cloudflare(?) and assorted nefarious social networks that I mostly see in the list these days. Wikipedia seems to agree that [1]Statcounter isn't used very much at all these days , it rather sounds like it is living subsisting on a Yahoo-like former "glorious" reputation?)
It's quite likely that desktop Linux usage could be at least twice what these sites think it is, and even if Linux has a somewhat smaller usage share than MacOS, it is still an OS which very much fills a need for a considerable number of people. A relatively small percentage of a very large number is still quite a large number!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StatCounter
going full Luddite and living at a console prompt
I'm probably 50% Luddite. My X desktop has 8 windows open by default, only 4 of which are (multi-tabbed) terminals.
[In answer to the obvious question: Firefox, Thunderbird and 2 emacs.]
Re: going full Luddite and living at a console prompt
I am pretty much the same, just xterms and tmux.
I used to be very passionate about desktop environments, contributing to many. Unfortunately when Gnome 2 died, it really did show that hard work can be rendered useless in an instant. I know Mate has tried to pick up the slack but I personally feel this is more just delaying the inevitable. Things like Gnome 1 and KDE 3.5 (via TDE) are still very difficult to maintain.
But travelling light and getting comfortable with the terminal had some real benefit. For example, whether Wayland succeeds or not or if X11 does ever get replaced with an X12, it really doesn't matter. There will always be terminal emulators, my environment will never need to change. I could finally focus on more important things.
Still using it.
I think that I started using icewm when it first came out in 1997. Still using it (desktops and laptops). Never thought that I would live to see version 3.
Best wishes.
Bob
Old and really powerful Window Managers often overlap
About 25+ years ago I used to use olvwm (OPEN LOOK Virtual Window Manager) for 4x4 desktops. It was amazing how much work you could get done with 16 desktops each of which was at the very most only 7 key presses away. I may have even used 4x5 or 6x6 at one stage. Old and really powerful window managers often overlap. They make up for lack of eye candy (bloat) with speed. At the end of the day a window managers job should be to use minimal resources while providing rapid access to what you need for your task at hand, and get out of your way fast - but always be there when needed again.
Screenshot of olvwm with a 3x2 virtual pager [1]http://www.xwinman.org/screenshots/olvwm-matt.gif
I raise a pint to all who have created WM's.
[1] http://www.xwinman.org/screenshots/olvwm-matt.gif
widescreens
Several times I see a statement like: "on a widescreen, placing them on the side, as wm2 and wmx do, would save valuable vertical pixels."
But I don't understand them. Once you have two or three windows side-by-side, it isn't vertical pixels that are valuable. Tabs on the side waste an awful lot of space. e.g. I have six tabs in this browser, so that's either one row of text across the top or 20 characters by six rows on the side plus maybe another hundred rows of blank space underneath them (I haven't counted them). As somebody who regularly tries to juggle the blank thirds of windows offscreen (where the designer thinks the adverts will be, or where the visual artist just thought some white space would be 'balanced'), I find horizontal space is always something I want more of.
Re: widescreens
Tabs on the side waste an awful lot of space. e.g. I have six tabs in this browser, so that's either one row of text across the top or 20 characters by six rows on the side plus maybe another hundred rows of blank space underneath them
Did you look at the linked screenshots? The tabs for wm2 & wmx are turned sideways (like flwm) so they're one line of text horizontally and as many characters vertically as they need.
Impressive
It's astonishing to read how much work is being done on a desktop environment that [1]practically no one uses .
Hopefully, these efforts will bear fruit when Windows is finally relegated to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.
[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide