Eric's Big Blue-Steel Desktop
I used to use fvwm2, and
tuned my desktop design very carefully to get maximum use out of the
screen space. (Now I use GNOME + Enlightenment, which is just as
effective but harder to bundle up a configuration for). You may find it
useful if:
- You use a monster monitor capable of 1600x1200.
- The main thing you want from your X is as many lines of Emacs
buffer as can fit on the screen without causing eyestrain.
- You like to have your key tools (xterm, Emacs, web browser)
on a handy but unobtrusive toolbar along with biff, a clock,
and a load meter.
- You like to overlap windows as little as possible so you're
not distracted by panel-shuffling when you change windows.
- You find using virtual desktops tends to leave you disoriented
and wondering why everybody thought this was a neat feature.
- You don't need your desktop to make a fashion statement -- you
want a spare, clean design that gets the job done.
Eric's Big Blue-Steel Desktop is basically designed to treat your
screen as a two-page display, with Emacs on the right and a couple
of xterms (or a Web browser) and the toolbar and icon dock on the
left. Font sizes are carefully chosen to be as large as can be
consistent with this layout.
You can view a full-sized 1600x1200 screen
shot or a half-sized 800x600 screen shot.
Thanks to compression and a lot of solid-color areas, both are small
(less than 80K). Note: these are PNG images; if they're broken, get a browser that can view
PNGs
Here is the .fvwm2rc file that sets it up. It
has been commented, with relevant X resource settings explained, so you'll
find it relatively easy to modify. Here is the .xinitrc I used with it.
# Set up the X desktop
#
# The screen background
xearth -pos "orbit 3 70" -bigstars 20 -gamma 2.6 -label -nomarkers -night 15 &
#
# The window manager.
fvwm2
If you find you like this design, either as-is or as a basis for your
own hacks, drop me a line.
(I still use a very similar layout under GNOME + E).
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>