[NTLUG:Discuss] Suse 8.0 wm2 failure (and solution); wmx window manager

[kbrannen@gte.net]

 From time to time I try to evaluate my work habits.  Lately, I think I'm 
being hindered by KDE (slow and bloated).  KDE is nice in general (and my wife 
likes it when I have her try Linux), but I think it's slowing *me* down.  Time 
for a change...again... :-)

A mimimalistic window manager that I've demoed and liked before is "wm2".  I 
thought I'd try it out for a longer time.  Having a Suse 8.0 install with a 
wm2 RPM on the DVD, I thought this would be easy.  HA!  After I installed the 
RPM, I started it up, then tried to open a new xterm (from the root menu), X 
Window would just lock up (everytime) forcing a control-alt-backspace.  For 
anyone else in this boat, the answer turned out to be going to get the source 
(http://www.plig.org/xwinman/wm2.html) and compiling & installing.  Everything 
works just fine now.  I don't know why, but my guess is that I've downloaded 
some patch from the Suse site (my guess is libstdc++) and so the RPM version 
failed.

BTW, at that same link, it talks about a window manager called "wmx", which is 
like wm2, but has a few extra features.  I've started using it and have found 
it to be very nice.  If you have a small memory machine (I don't but I do run 
large apps) or you want a more spartan desktop, this is a window manager you 
should check out.

Thought I'd share...  Now back to trying to make a USB network device work...

Kevin