Fabulous Virtual Window Manager Sees First Release in Five Years 'Linux News'

Apr 20, 2011  By Susan Linton

After five years, a new stable release of FVWM has finally been announced. FVWM is a lightweight and fast window manager still used by a few distributions and offered as an option on several. This landmark release brings several new and improved features.
Some of the new features include:

• Extended Window Manager Hints support allows the use of docks, widgets, and such.
• Colorset used to define color, gradient, transparency, etc. in specific areas of themes, backgrounds, icons, etc.
• WindowStyle command used to segregate styles to individual elements
• Unmanaged command used to separate any window from FVWM control
• FocusStyle allows focus stealing
• Window states can be used to perform functions on similar groups
• XFT font are support
• Module dynamic actions allow changes while running
• Menu now uses XDG specifications
• PNG/SVG support for icons
• Mouse gestures and window-specific key / mouse bindings
• Lots of new style options for themers
• A new script to upgrade FVWM 2.4 configuration files
• Support for Xinerama, XRender, and Xcursor

FVWM 2.6.0 was released April 15 and a follow-up bugfix, 2.6.1, was released April 16. F doesn't really stand for Fabulous. Tradition says F used to stand for Feeble, but the actual meaning has been lost. Today F doesn't stand for anything. Austrumi is one distribution that relies upon FVWM for its desktop.
Helpful links:
FVWM Homepage
FVWM FAQ
FVWM Forums
Full Release Announcement



Default FVWM 2.6.0 desktop

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Susan Linton is a Linux writer and the owner of tuxmachines.org.