TWM

The most humble of window managers, TWM, is a little akin to those sample photographs you get when you buy a picture frame. It's basic, almost just a bare-minimum proof of concept that Xorg ships with the X11 Windows System to demonstrate that a desktop can indeed be created for a GUI. Some distributions treat it as a fallback window manager that could be launched in a pinch, should a user break their usual desktop and needed a terminal just long enough for repairs. Now that Xorg is basically bulletproof and moving aside for Wayland, TWM sometimes isn't even included at all. And yet, amazingly, TWM has some fun features and configuration options.

Timeless Window Manager [IMG]

Your distribution may already discreetly include TWM as a fallback window manager. Otherwise, you are likely to find it included in your software repository, and you can also get it from the

Freedesktop

Git repository. If you're already running a different desktop, it's safe to install TWM on the same system, because TWM doesn't include any bundled applications aside from a few configuration panels.

After installing, log out of your current desktop session so you can log in to your new desktop. By default, your session manager (KDM, GDM, Lightdm, or XDM, depending on your setup) will continue to log you into your previous desktop, so you must override that before logging in.

With GDM:

Selecting your desktop in GDM [IMG]

With KDM:

Selecting your desktop in KDM [IMG]

Desktop tour

The basic configuration of TWM is usually unspectacular. Here's TWM on my Slackware system, and the only reason it has a background is because it didn't bother refreshing the screen after KDM passed control to it:

TWM by default [IMG]

You can get a pop-up menu with a left-click on the desktop. By default, it has one application listed: xterm. When you launch xterm, the outline of a window appears until you click to place it on the desktop.

More actions are available with a right-click or a middle-click either on the desktop or the title bar of a window. For instance, to resize a window, you can middle-click the title bar and select **Resize**, which places you into resize mode so you can drag your mouse across the edge of the window you want to make smaller or larger. Click again to confirm the new size.

When you right-click the icon in the upper-left corner of any window, the window is minimized into a desktop icon (a precursor to the OS X dock). You can drag this icon anywhere on your desktop, and right-click on it to restore it back to a full-sized window.

These are all old UNIX conventions; tricks of the visual interface long-time users of UNIX remember fondly, but utterly baffling at first to new users. You can learn to love them by using TWM, but if you do that, then you'll no doubt want something a little prettier to look at, and something tailored to your daily workflow.

TWM configuration

One of my favourite sites is

Linux Questions

, a tried-and-true Linux support forum. I stumbled across a post there about TWM: user `rkfb` was, apparently in all seriousness, praising TWM as his favourite lightweight window manager. What's more, he had

the config file to prove it

.

I downloaded the sample `.twmrc` file and discovered that there were a surprising number of options and features in TWM. Like other "building block" window managers, such as FVWM or Mlvwm, there's a lot of work to be done to customize it and bring it up to modern expectations. And there's the usual laundry list of applications you can add to it. For instance, you could run

tint2

or `XFCE-panel` to provide a traditional taskbar and other applets, or

stalonetray

for a system tray, and

vdesk

to provide virtual desktops, but then again, it's not meant to be a *modern* window manager, but a *timeless window manager*. You may not want to make it too modern.

There are *lots* of options and definitions in the config file for TWM. Two of my favourites are `RandomPlacement` (an option to activate random placement of windows, so you don't have to manually click to set the location of each window you launch) and `ShowIconManager` (displays a vertical taskbar).

Syntax to define the contents of the menus is pretty easy understand:

menu "Shells" {
   "Shells"	f.title
   "rxvt"		f.exec "urxvt -fg cyan -bg black -cr white &"
   "Konsole"	f.exec "konsole &"
}

Color themes are similarly intuitive from the sample file.

You can set a background using `feh` (you probably need to install it first):

$ feh --bg-fill ~/christopher-burns_unsplash.jpg 

Old TWM is New TWM

TWM looks and feels like an artifact of a bygone era, when desktops were simpler in design but complex in configuration. It's probably not the best or the most flexible window manager available, but it's surprisingly configurable. You can use it as the foundation of a customized desktop consisting of all your favourite desktop bits and pieces. You can spend the time to make TWM something you enjoy using, and you'll learn a lot about interface design, UNIX history, and pixmap bit depth along the way. Give TWM another look, and make that look beautiful.