EMWM is a fork of the Motif Window Manager with fixes and enhancements. The idea behind this is to provide compatibility with current xorg extensions and applications, without changing the way the window manager looks and behaves. This includes support for multi-monitor setups through Xinerama/Xrandr, UFT-8 support with Xft fonts, and overall better compatibility with software that requires Extended Window Manager Hints.
Additionally a couple of goodies are available in the separate utilities package: XmToolbox, a toolchest like application launcher, which reads it’s multi-level menu structure from a simple plain-text file ~/.toolboxrc, and XmSm, a simple session manager that provides session configuration, locking and shutdown/suspend options.
↫ EMWM homepage
I had never heard of EMWM, but I immediately like it. This same developer, Alexander Pampuchin, also develops XFile, a file manager for X11 which presents the file system as it actually is, instead of using a bunch of “imaginary” locations to hide the truth, if you will. On top of that, they also develop XImaging, a comprehensive image viewer for X11. All of these use the Motif widget toolkit, focus on plain X11, and run on most Linux distributions and BSDs. They need to be compiled by the user, most likely.
I am convinced that there is a small but sustainable audience for a modern, up-to-date Linux distribution (although a BSD would work just as well), that instead of offering GNOME, KDE, Xfce, or whatever, focuses instead of delivering a traditional, yet modernised and maintained, desktop environment and applications using not much more than X11 and Motif, eschewing more complex stuff like GTK, Qt, systemd, Wayland, and so on.
I would use the hell out of a system that gives me a version of the Motif-based desktops like CDE from the ’90s, but with some modern amenities, current hardware support, support for high-resolution displays, and so on. You can certainly grab bits and bobs left and right from the web and build something like this from scratch, but not everyone has the skills and time to do so, yet I think there’s enough people out there who are craving for something like this.
There’s tons of maintained X11/Motif software out there – it’s just all spread out, disorganised, and difficult to assemble because it almost always means compiling it all from scratch, and most people simply don’t have the time and energy for that. Package this up on a solid Debian, Fedora, or FreeBSD base, and I think you’ve got quite some users lining up.
>There’s tons of maintained X11/Motif software out there – it’s just all spread out, disorganised, and difficult to assemble because it almost always means compiling it all from scratch, and most people simply don’t have the time and energy for that. Package this up on a solid Debian, Fedora, or FreeBSD base, and I think you’ve got quite some users lining up.
Not Motif-based, but Window Maker Live (https://wmlive.sourceforge.net/) exists and is up to date on a Debian stable base. Screenshots from the latest release are less than a week old. Grab a ThinkPad with a classic keyboard or a pre-Retina MacBook and live in computing bliss.
> There’s a market out there for a modern X11/Motif-based desktop distribution
How do you define a market?
> XFile, a file manager for X11 which presents the file system as it actually is
What Linux file managers do not present the file system as it actually is?
> I am convinced that there is a small but sustainable audience …
An audience that would do what? Install this distro on an old laptop their child gave up on? Or use it as a daily driver and have enough motivation and time to create one of the few non-commercially-supported distributions? Or are you hinting that it could be commercially-supported?
I think that the levels of “it sounds cool to me therefore it most be a viable idea” are through the roof with this post, and I’m not sure if it’s coming from misunderstanding of how most people think and choose their OS, or misunderstanding of what it takes to maintain a Linux distribution. Or both…
Opening the GTK+ file chooser, I immediately see:
* A breadcrumb ish button thing which does not allow me to edit the physical path.
* A fake link to a “Desktop” folder which does not reflect anything real in X11 or Unix.
* Support for a trash folder, which does not reflect anything real in X11 or Unix.
The file chooser in not a file manager, but:
– Both in my GTK3 and GTK4 there’s a text input field in which I can write a normal path. In Nautilus (GNOME’s default) one can just click on the path bar, or use Ctrl+L, to write their path.
– Both the Desktop and the Trash folders are just links to very real Unix paths. What makes it a “fake link”? What’s the issue with shortcuts? Is `ln` bad too? Is a file manager only good if it starts with `/` even though in 99% of the cases you’d be doing stuff in $HOME ?
Problem is, they aren’t “just links to very real Unix paths”, most file managers treat those links as a special case and display the path in a special way when you visit the path from the link (for example, instead of showing the full path to the trash directory, they show something like “Trash” as the path, as if “Trash” is its own root).
Then you have removable media shown as their own root (when you click on their desktop shortcuts) instead of their mount path being shown.
Windows does something similar, showing the “Desktop” folder as a magic folder that includes all drives on your system. And of course showing Recycle Bin as its own root (and with the directory hierarchy flattened).
It makes you wonder if all this magic helps new users more than it confuses them. How many new users know when you save a file to Desktop, it occupies space in the “C” drive?
Clarification: Windows shows the “Desktop” folder as a magic folder that includes your entire PC (“This PC”), which implies that the “Desktop” folder includes all drives on your system.
Anyway, back on topic, the whole point of XFile is to always show the real paths, no imaginary roots (save for “~” which is a well-established convention in Unix land).
> It makes you wonder if all this magic helps new users more than it confuses them
I’m sorry, do you really wonder about whether **new users** would be more confused by “Trash” or by “/home/$USER/.local/share/Trash” ?
This whole thing is simply strange. Did you see the XFile screenshots (https://fastestcode.org/xfile.html#screenshots) ? Do you think a new user would be rather find their removable media by navigating into “/media” (or is it /mnt ?), or by clicking on “USB Stick 16GB” on the left sidebar?
Lastly – the Trash, Desktop etc are also conventions. It’s part of the xdg/freedesktop specs.
Look at the big picture for a moment: New users have no clue that Trash and Desktop are directories somewhere inside the main drive, so it’s fair to assume they are separate storage spaces with their own free space. I mean, Android had separate storage spaces for apps and user files once, each with its own free space, even on devices without a MicroSD slot, so it’s not a far-fetched assumption to make. So yes, I think “/home/$USER/.local/share/Trash” is a better choice, it may not be as pretty but it promotes understanding of the system. Don’t get me wrong, the shortcut can be called “Trash”, but when you click it, the real path should be shown.
Even in Windows, there are users who think that saving a file to the Desktop or Documents sends a file to a separate storage space from “C”, because Windows makes every effort to hide the fact these directories are directories inside the “C” drive.
About removable drives, I don’t like the inconsistency of removable drives being shown both as their own root and as subdirectories of the main drive (if the user tries to explore the main drive aka the “/”, they will notice the inconsistency and it can be confusing). Just make up your minds already file manager authors, if you want to show removable drives as their own root, then hide the mount path (advanced users can still see it using the terminal).
The paths are part of the xdg/freedesktop specs, but presenting them as their own roots isn’t, it’s an arbitrary design decision found in some file managers. Also, the whole point of XFile is to be universal to X11, so it doesn’t have to care about xdg/freedesktop specs.
But anyway, I guess it’s a matter of opinion, to return to your original question:
Some Linux file managers such as Nautilus do not present the file system as it actually is, they will present imaginary roots such as “Trash” or present removable drives as their own roots that simply don’t exist on the file system (which has only one root: “/”).
However, even XFile doesn’t present the filesystem as it actually is, as it shows home as “~”, but I guess that’s expected in Unix land since forever. So, I guess a correct phrasing is that XFile presents the file system more realistically compared to other file managers such as Nautilus, but still not 100% “as it actually is”.
> New users have no clue that Trash and Desktop are directories somewhere inside the main drive, so it’s fair to assume they are separate storage spaces with their own free space
But that’s anyway not how it works in Unix, as the whole concept of mous mean that /any/path/could/be a different storage with its own free space. Showing that it sits under ~/.local/share/Trash doesn’t say anything about where the free space is.
~ isn’t a real path, but I use it all the time.
Sure, but that’s a well-established convention in Unix land, so it gets a pass. But now you have file managers displaying all kinds of imaginary roots, from “Trash” being shown as its own root to removable media shown as their own root (instead of their mount path being shown).
I recently got my first Silicon Graphics machine (there was a post here about it) and I was staggered how usable the IRIX desktop was, despite being from the mid 90s. So much better than CDE.
That then led me to find the Maxx Desktop (https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/books/misc/page/not-just-a-theme). It looks great and I want to try it out.
Maxx interactive desktop is more like a skin on Linux to make it look like IRIX. Sadly there’s no substitute for the real thing. I’d love it if someone made a complete IRIX desktop for Linux, but you would need to integrate configuration tools for RandR/Network-Manager/PulseAudio. and write a html renderer (IRIX system config was done through a HTML based configuration app) There are many desktop environments that could find a home on Linux, but all of them need to have those three things at a minimum and ideally a native integrated web browser to really be a complete desktop. I am currently using AI to try to add some of these things to GNUstep. I think a Mac-like desktop is achievable on Linux using GNUstep and a modern theme. All of these desktops have a major flaw though, in the main apps you’ll use won’t fit with them. E.g GIMP, Blender, Libreoffice. FreeCAD, Inkscape, Krita etc. Unless you do all your work in a terminal or a specific text editor, most of the desktop environments don’t integrate well with the major apps.
Or, just use Gnome or KDE.
*There’s a market out there for a modern X11/Motif-based desktop distribution*
Is there? I highly doubt it. First there is nothing modern about Motif nor X11. X11 has a very uncertain future, now that the serious money supporting it is shifting to Wayland. Motif fell by the wayside a long time ago.
This can be a retro distribution at best. Compute like in the 90’s. Nothing wrong with that, but it won’t be modern computing. Niche, not at the forefront, not firmly rooted in todays world.
For the sake of argument, let’s say a serious party ($$$) takes it upon themselves to take X11 and Motif and modernize it. What we will end up with will probably only superficially resemble X11/Motif. In which case it might be more efficient to take what is good about a Motif desktop and reimplement that on modern technologies with a future.
Nothing about Wayland changes MOTIF use cases. Nothing. At. All. It’s 100% compatible with Wayland already because Wayland implements 100% of Xlib. *sigh*
aliver,
I understand your point, but just a bit of pedantry: “Wayland implements 100% of Xlib” is technically wrong.
Even a classic like xeyes…
https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/alternative-for-xeyes-that-works-with-wayland/17997
Of course this is a silly example to get the point across, but I found that wayland actually did break a multi-window enterprise application that used external browser windows for workflow purposes. In that case they were targeting windows PCs anyways, but it does highlight the fact that wayland doesn’t support all the features that X had.
Yet every asshole under the sun swears X11 is dead and its time to do things “The Correct Way”, the fake modernity chasen by idiots who can’t decide between being purists or progresists, while knowing absolutely nothing at technical level.
Yeah, all the obvious active development of X11 is a clear sign of it being in a vibrant and current state. The widespread belief that it’s on life-support is clearly pro-Wayland propaganda.
A software project must be adding new bugs all the time to be usable, after all. I heard not getting a release announcement every 2 weeks causes hives.
There might be a market, but it will be very very very very very tiny. Like one of the tiniest ones out there. That is, you know that project or software that nobody knows, doesn’t work on 99% of systems? Yeah, that tiny.
With that said, I know a lot of people that have fun making dinosaur systems work, ones that have zero practical application. So… if you see this sort of thing as “fun”… go for it.
At one time, I owned an Amiga. And, there’s plenty of really cool stuff there. And… the market there is tiny today. Just the way it is.
But I would never write an article about “the market out there” for AmigaDOS. Just me I suppose.
Regardless, do have fun (I never thought of Motif as “fun” though, even back when it was “the thing”).
Careful, you might infect people with the truth.
Yup.
It is however bizarre how many people, who think of themselves as tech enthusiasts, hate any sort of progress in tech. And it is only after 1 decade or so, that whatever it is they hated becomes the “correct” approach to tech, according to them.
It’s a hilarious dissonance, between a field that moves so fast forward and a bunch of people who want to go as slow as possible. Almost feels like pain shopping in a sense.
There are so many people using computers that, honestly, every single good idea can find enough users to be relevant to its conceiver.
When it comes to desktop environments, as long as you are ok with very inconsistent widgets when running non-native applications, you are all set.
I am very happy in openbox land, even though I’ve been spending a lot of time in Windows with FreeBSD in a VM because of drivers.
Now we need to port Motif to Wayland for better performance.
There is no need to “port” MOTIF to Wayland. It already works 100% as it uses Xlib calls that are already 100% implemented in Wayland. Try it. It works like a champ, right now.
Oh, wow. They are not even going for CDE, they are going full retro with mwm.
I cannot believe that nobody has mentioned this:
https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE
And if you want to run it on Wayland…
https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/srb6km/labwcfvwm3_futureproofing_your_window_manager_a/
IIRC, CDE itself was made libre about a decade ago. I remember using it around OpenBSD 6.x timeframe. Not sure why it never gained traction.