Gimme that old time interface...

[VirginSnow at vfemail.net]

> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:30:06 -0500
> From: Star <nhstar at gmail.com>

> starting to visualize blood).  So I cracked open the man-pages,
> trudged through all of the forums that I could find (locating
> thousands of links that are years out of date) and have a great
> beginning on a working, functional desktop, and while plagiarized to

I've learned, both in computing and in the world around it, that if
you want something done right, you have to either:

   (1) do it yourself,
   (2) be rich, or
   (3) get really really lucky.

Fortunately, Linux lends itself well to the do-it-yourself approach.
I rally don't know what I would do without it.  (I'm neither rich nor
lucky!)

> My question here is this:  What are users here using if they shy away
> from all of the main-stream (can that be said with Linux yet?)
> desktops and go for that "One Off" style

The primary characteristics I look for in an X/wm configuration are:
(I'm feeling in a list-making kind of mood, this morning :)

  (1) virtual desktops
  (2) keyboard acceleration for everything (even moving the mouse)
  (3) low CPU/memory requirements, and
  (4) Xnest jails for jailing apps running on tainted data

I also run multiple X servers, and the root window of each server
(whether a real X server or an Xnest window) is set to a solid,
eye-pleasing, color.  These backgrounds, in turn, are color-coded to
indicate the privileges available in a given X session.

The window managers which I prefer to use include fvwm and sawfish.
Unfortunately, sawfish has some trouble managing Xnest windows, so the
window manager used in my nested servers tends to be fvwm.