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<title>The Answer Gang LG #101</title>
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<H3>Contents:</H3>
<dl>
<dt><a href="#tag/greeting"
><strong>¶: Greetings From Heather Stern</strong></A></dl>
<DL>
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<dt><A HREF="tag/1.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>Compile on one, run on another machine</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="tag/2.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>Dedicated Linux application</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="tag/3.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>Diagnosing a Linux crash</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="tag/4.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>I blew out Fedora with yum and 2.62</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="tag/5.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>2c tip: filtering in-place</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="tag/6.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>framebuffer colors</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="tag/7.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>Mirror 2 web servers</strong></a>
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<A NAME="tag/greeting"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="../gx/dennis/hbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(¶) " border="0"
>Greetings from Heather Stern</H3>
<!-- begin hgreeting -->
<p>
Greetings, folks, and welcome to the world of The Answer Gang. It's
been a rough and tumble time here... I've got some hardware in a
shambles. It's just not my week. Just looking at all these scattered
parts makes me wonder if I could build a robot out of them. I've got
enough backups I've certainly my pick of linux flavors...
</p><p>
Then some folks in an IRC channel got into discussing what sort of
mayhem we would see if various window managers were thrown into a
gladiatorial arena and forced to duke it out, <em>mano a mano</em>, claw
to saw. "Fight! Fight!" cried our Weekend Mechanic -- as he cheerfully
<a href="../issue100/adam.html">added parts</a> to the house favorite --
and the battle was on.
</p>
<h4 align="center">WM-bot Wars</h4>
<p>
In our first round of the competition, we have the little guys. Heck,
you might have even heard of some of them. Aren't they so cute!
Minimal is the name of the game here. Let's weigh in, the advantage is
they're light, the disads are what features they left out - the
underpower crowd roars for these underdogs - here you have 'em
folks:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://ratpoison.sourceforge.net/">Ratpoison</a> - throw
that mouse away, kids.... and also menus.
<li><a href="http://www.red-bean.com/~decklin/aewm/">aewm</a> -
aesthetic? Maybe. But its place in the very brief
limelight has been taken by its many children.
<li><a
href="http://www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~sperling/prog/swm.html">sWM</a>
- a failsafe, just enough to manage windows - meaning where the events
go, and moving them - forget everything else.
<li><a href="http://www.nickgravgaard.com/windowlab/">windowlab</a>. You
Amiga fans out there might like this one. Slam that mouse around. Zip
across the screen. Whee!
</ul>
<p>The fight begins, with these and crowds of other small fry swarming to the
<a
href="http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=window+managers§ion=projects&Go.x=0&Go.y=0">freshmeat</a>.
<a href="http://www.taiyaki.org/amaterus/index.en.html">Amaterus</a>
makes a pretty good start but it <em>has</em> a menu - just a sucky
one. Someone hops a <a
href="http://www.ibiblio.org/propaganda/pogo/">pogo</a> stick and <a
href="http://offog.org/code/">virtual desktops</a> sprout.
Apps being executed everywhere. A <a
href="http://pypanel.sourceforge.net/">pypanel</a> confers, <a
href="http://www.oroborus.org/">Oroborus</a> nearly trapped against the
obscurity wall when <a href="http://oroborosx.sourceforge.net/">MacOSX</a>
rescues it. And the first round goes to the happy <a
href="http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net/">Blackbox</a> family, including
<a href="http://scrudgeware.org/projects/Hackedbox">hacked</a>, <a
href="http://icculus.org/openbox/">open</a>, and <a
href="http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/">flux</a> box for creative menu
tricks <a href="http://poundtemp.org/~char/menuRank/">ranking recently
used apps</a>.</p>
<p>The bell rings and we clear out a few smoking ruins - now for the
midsize mayhem.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.windowmaker.org/">WindowMaker</a> wades in - or
is that widowmaker - docks his jaws around <a
href="http://www.afterstep.org/">AfterStep</a>. Tiny <a
href="http://www.plig.org/xwinman/vtwm.html">Tom</a>'s wm escapes the
system spikes, but <a href="http://ctwm.free.lp.se/">Claude</a> has the
extra edge. <e href="http://www.icewm.org/">IceWM</a> is looking cool
until he hits the arena's flame trap "I wanna look like..." but won't
fall for that - escapes the pit! Menus click, swap thrashes, and catlike
<a href="http://www.fvwm.org/">fvwm</a> takes control of the mouse,
scripting rings around the others.</p>
<p>Now for a page from the masters. We know those flames are tough,
and it's time to let the survivors here get a chance to commit before
the next round... the big noisy battle of them all... Desktops.</p>
<p>Gnome and KDE both <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/">extend their
hints</a> against the competition, crushing smaller opponents. <a
href="http://www.enlightenment.org/">Enlightenment</a> upgrades to 16.6 and
stands its ground. FVWM laughs and sprouts modules to extend itself, while
<a href="http://flwm.sourceforge.net/">fast light wm</a> joins it in
pushing the brutes into the arena's <a
href="http://lwn.net/2001/0412/a/oom-patch.php3">OOM killer</a>. Parts are
flying everywhere! Chipping through the armor, flames are getting through
... ooh! FVWM escapes by shedding its modules again, while K is trapped.
Something's bound to <a
href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/wolk/">overload</a>... K's gears
grind slowly to a halt, while Gnome has the <a
href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.2/notes/rnwm.html">metacity</a> to pick
on E's <a href="http://enlightenment.org/pages/join.html"
>incomplete brother</a> which valiantly struggles to code up <a
href="http://enlightenment.org/pages/news.html">new features</a>
before timeout. <a href="http://www.xfce.org/index.php">XFce</a> zooms
into the fray - "wanna piece of me?" Then the commercial desktops enter
the fray, xig's CDE-like <a
href="http://www.xig.com/Pages/DeXtopGUI.html">DeXtop</a> rushing forward
only to wedge in the pit of interoperability. <a
href="http://www.rocklyte.com/athene/">Athene</a> constantly regenerates
but when the battle gets toe to toe, the obscurity spikes pin it down, the
<a href="http://themes.freshmeat.net/">theme of the day</a> turns <a
href="http://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net/">Fvwm's way</a> -- and it looks
like we've a champion.</p> </p>
<p>But what's this? The arena has been invaded. Who are these interlopers?
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/">screen</a> has taken to the
field, with <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/twin/">twin</a>
nipping at its heels. A growl from behind, but they squish <a
href="http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/projects/splitvt/">splitvt</a>
together, <a href="http://dtach.sourceforge.net/">dtach</a> another tiny
opponent, then turn back to each other -- only to wail
as <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">emacs</a> turns its
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/">Gnu</a>-like
head in their direction, establishing a sessions server...</p>
<p>Is it possible for there to be any more carnage than this? Probably.
Seen on alt.sysadmin.recovery:</p>
<blockquote>
I am now taking bets on when this planet will reach its window manager
event horizon. At some distant point in the future some sort of
alien life-form is going to land on this planet and find everything dead
except for a lone Sparcstation in an abandoned building waiting
for a consignment of small lemon-soaked <a href="http://w3.pppl.gov/misc/motif/MotifStyleGuide/en_US/OSFMotif_Widgets_and_Components_Correspondence.html">Motif widgets</a> to be loaded.
<br>-- Peter Gutmann
</blockquote>
<p>Ok, ok. That was overkill. I'm sorry, really sorry that I had to pub
late this month, but as you can see now, my place is a shambles. But I
did find something cool while finishing up... hooray! Someone in Ireland
actually *<strong>CAUGHT</strong>* a spammer. Better yet, got them
<a
href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/05/gardai_capture_alleged_419er/">hauled
away by the cops</a>. (Alleged, hah. Caught with everything but a
patsy present in person and teary-eyed.) Not even April fooling. Enjoy
your month, folks. I know I will.</p>
<p><img alt="[NOTE]" src="../gx/2002/note.png"><em>So that's it. Answers
by Jim Dennis, Ben Okopnik, Thomas, Faber, many others among The Answer
Gang... and you! If you've got some great Linux answers - <a
href="mailto:tag@linuxgazette.net">send them to us</a>. Ideally the
answers explain why things work in a friendly manner and with some
enthusiasm, thus </em>Making Linux Just A Little More Fun<em>! Good short
bits will probably go in Two Cent Tips, but truly juicy explanations,
especially those that get the Gang jumping in, could end up here. We don't
promise that we'll publish everything, though. Also - you can be
anonymous, either asking or answering - just tell us so, and Tux will eat
the herring we wrote your name on. We swear.</em></p>
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Published in Issue 101 of Linux Gazette, April 2004
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