[SUMMARY] Fvwm windows have no borders

From: Kevin Behrooz <behrooz_at_rudolf.nscl.msu.edu>
Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 08:35:40 -0400 (ADT)

last week I asked:

> Hello managers.
>
> I installed FVWM on an alpha 400 running DU 3.3D.
> When I specify fvwm as my window manager in .Xdefaults,
> the windows show up without borders and I can not move them.
>
> What I am doing wrong? Do I need to configure .Xdefaults any further?
>
> Any help is appreciated
>

Thanks for all who responded. It turned out that I had a few problems:
I had called the config file .fvwmrc instead of .fvwm2rc.
The module path was incorrect in .fvwmrc2

Again, thanks to the following kind people:

Murat Balci <balci_at_bornova.ege.edu.tr>
"G. Del Merritt" <del_at_intranet.com>
"Mahendra Vallabh (Mike)" <mike_at_lucy.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
"Gernot M. Fuchs" <gfuchs_at_golay.med.unc.edu>
"Kevin Oberman" <oberman_at_nersc.gov>
pobrien_at_draco.harvard.edu (Patrick O'Brien)
Andrew Sheaff <sheaff_at_eece.maine.edu>
aidan_at_cse.unsw.edu.au (Aidan Williams)


Here is the complete text of their mail.


From: Murat Balci <balci_at_bornova.ege.edu.tr>

        check .fvwmrc ir system file. It shuold be in the place compile
time, usually /usr/lib/X11/fvwm/system.fvwmrc or in your home as .fvwmrc
Sincerely.
murat.


From: "G. Del Merritt" <del_at_intranet.com>

You are seeing bare X windows with no window manager; fvwm hasn't started up
cleanly. I don't have specific suggestions, but do make sure that you start
things "right". Here's the contents of some of the .xinitrc I have on my
Linux box, where I use fvwm:

  ~$ cat .xinitrc
  # control-panel &
  xfm &
  exec xterm -C -title CONSOLE -geometry +0+0 -iconic &
  exec xterm -geometry +100+10 &
  exec xman -geometry +0-0 &
  exec xearth &
  exec fvwm

I haven't tailored much else there (just learning fvwm and Linux), so I
suggest that you start simple and proceed from there. For instance, fvwm
didn't come up when I had an ill-defined .fvwmrc (same symptoms you show).

-- 
From: "Mahendra Vallabh (Mike)" <mike_at_lucy.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
Don't configure .Xdefaults.  Configure your .fvwmrc file.
Read the man page on fvwm.  It's pretty good and tells you exactly what to
put into your .fvwmrc file.
Mike
From: "Gernot M. Fuchs" <gfuchs_at_golay.med.unc.edu>
Hello,
When the display is in the state you described, than you're most likely not
running any window manager but X only. This means in your setup is something
wrong, that prevents the fvwm to start up (path name?). X however comes up and
thats why you have no borders and no moving capabilities, since these are
provided by the window managers and not by X.
To find out what went wrong you may check out /usr/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-errors or
your $HOME/.xsession-errors.
Hope this helps a bit ...
--Gernot
From: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman_at_nersc.gov>
You are getting an error in starting fvwm and it is exiting. Is it in
your path? The path is normally set in .xsession. Maybe it can't find
some file it needs or something. Look for a ~/.xsession-errors file
for clues. Note that fvwm often looks for fvwm2... stuff.
How do you start fvwm? Is it in the .xsession file? That is the
"usual" way to start it up.
These are just a few of the things to look for, but I hope it gets you
where you want to go. fvwm is a very nice window manager!
R. Kevin Oberman
From: pobrien_at_draco.harvard.edu (Patrick O'Brien)
I don't know what you have to do to configure it, but the
fact that windows have no borders and cannot be moved
means that FVWM is not running, and no other window manager is
running either.
-Pat
From: Andrew Sheaff <sheaff_at_eece.maine.edu>
Kevin,
	Sounds fvwm starts and then exits or never starts.  After you
login see if fvwm is running - 'ps agx | grep fvwm'.  If it is not
then start it - '/usr/local/bin/fvwm' or '/usr/bin/fvwm' and see if you
get any errors.  Make sure the permission on fvwm are ok and
/usr/lib/fvwm and file in /usr/lib/fvwm are ok (755 and 644).
Andy
-- 
>From aidan_at_cse.unsw.edu.au Thu Apr 25 21:25:18 1996
Fvwm is broken.  If it can't find your config file, or the system default
config file, it goes zombie.
Make sure you have a .fvwmrc/.fvwm2rc in your home directory, or
make sure that your FVWMDIR has a .fvwmrc/.fvwm2rc.
system.fvwmrc can be installed into FVWMDIR by make install if you
choose it to be.
One approach could be to link FVWMDIR/system.fvwmrc to FVWMDIR/.fvwmrc
regards
	aidan

Received on Fri May 03 1996 - 15:46:38 NZST