HOWTO: IceWM Basic Configuration

[Arnie]

XFCE is a lot less light than IceWM. But if possible I'd like to see "Etch IceWM" and "Lenny XFCE" compared too?

[llivv]

XFCE is a lot less light than IceWM. But if possible I'd like to see "Etch IceWM" and "Lenny XFCE" compared too?

Interesting request [...].and just thinking about it I realize I probably couldn't build either of them the "same exact way" as they are put together on my machine anyway. <I could grab stats from two different sarge installs on this machine though. ATM I'm running Sid KDE LiveCD andit boots using something close to 489MB iirc and with Konquueror runining it's listing 515048KB in top

[llivv]

I did a lot more checking of memory use on all 4 installs. It looks like lenny is running the lightest the way I have things setup.

I checked my two installs of sarge and the "commandline only" install seems to leak memory, to the tune of 120k/minute while top is running. It slows down to a few k /minute when nothing is running. At login top shows initial memory use at 56,980k edit: I have a lot of stuff removed and am only using 348MB of disk space...

With my original Sarge install using enlightenment e16 from the sarge repos, at commandline login top reports 108,904k
than after starting e16 it reports 162,296k
with firefox started it says 216,136k
and after loading the forum in firefox it reports 218,480k

If it seems like I'm slow, I'm trying my best not to rush. Remembering how things work in each of the repos takes a while

[mr4thjuly]

I want to disable the right click menu for IceWM. Where in the preferences or keys files can I disable or add an entry to disable my right click menu.
Thanks in advance.

[llivv]

Any recommendations for getting sound operational in ice ?
alsaconf looks like it configures the intel sound hardware correctly. Although none of the other sound packages I have installed are finding the sound hardware. I haven't been able to find a mixer that will give me a volume control yet, either.

I'm doing my best to install light packages so far becasue I don't want use sound packages that bring gnome dependencies along with them.

[Arnie]

Does it work when you're root? If so, your user needs to be added to the sound usergroup (could be called audio, not sure)

[llivv]

Does it work when you're root?

Not yet, even as root the alsa speaker-test can't find the sound hardware.
edit 16 oct 2007 I managed to get sound working a few days after I posted above. Now my headset only works sporadically when I mess around with the wires
I'm still using icewm although I've added fluxbox and compiz. what an assortment of config issues I have now

[Lou]

I get rid of the title bar because it's a waste of real estate, i can do everything with the keybindings (C-w to shutdown a screen, C-q to quit certain apps or just F4, A-F10 to maximize, etc).

To shutdown the apps with just F4 instead of A-F4 (default) edit this file and leave it looking like this:

$ jpico .icewm/prefoverride
KeyWinClose="F4"

C= control
A= alt

I like my taskbar at the top a la Gnome.

In order to get rid of the titlebar i edit the theme in question (ElsberBlue in my case):

$ locate icewm (to find the theme)
$ sudo jpico to edit it:
$ sudo jpico /usr/share/icewm/themes/ElbergBlue/default.theme

and leave the following line looking like this:

TitleBarHeight=0

save/exit
restart:
Win key + Delete + r
that's it!

To have the Elsberg theme, install the app 'icewm-themes'.

FWIW, here are my configurations:

$ jpico .icewm/preferences

OpaqueMove=0
OpaqueResize=0
SmartPlacement=1
MenuMouseTracking=1
ModSuperIsCtrlAlt=1
UseMouseWheel=1
QuickSwitch=1
AutoReloadMenus=1
ShowProgramsMenu=1
ShowThemesMenu=1
ShowHelp=1
TerminalCommand="aterm"
ShutdownCommand="sudo halt"
RebootCommand="sudo reboot"
WorkspaceNames=" 1 ", " 2 "


ShowTaskBar=1
TaskBarAutoHide=0
TaskBarShowClock=1
TaskBarShowAPMStatus=0
TaskBarAtTop=1
TaskBarShowAPMStatus=0
TaskBarShowAPMTime=0
TaskBarShowMailboxStatus=1
TaskBarShowWindows=1
TaskBarShowShowDesktopButton=0
TaskBarShowTray=1
TaskBarShowWindowIcons=0
TaskBarShowCPUStatus=0
TaskBarShowNetStatus=0
TaskBarShowCollapseButton=0
TaskBarWorkspacesLeft=1
TimeFormat="%a %d %b %R"
TaskBarShowShowDesktopButton=0
TaskBarShowWindowListMenu=0
TaskBarShowMailboxStatus=0
NormalTaskBarFontName="-*-sans-medium-r-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*"
NormalTaskBarFontNameXft="sans-serif:size=10"
ActiveTaskBarFontName="-*-sans-r-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*"
ActiveTaskBarFontNameXft="sans-serif:size=10"

$ jpico .icewm/keys

key "Ctrl+Alt+c" aterm
key "Ctrl+Alt+e" xfe
key "Ctrl+Alt+x" xchat
key "Ctrl+Alt+z" xzgv
key "Ctrl+Alt+Print" aterm -e scrot -c -d 10
key "Ctrl+Alt+m" sylpheed
key "Ctrl+Alt+o" opera
key "Ctrl+Alt+f" firefox

key "Alt+Ctrl+KP_Divide" aumix -v -5 # lower volume
key "Alt+Ctrl+KP_Multiply" aumix -v +5 # raise volume

Control + Alt is the same as the "Windows" key, it saves you a stroke.

$ jpico .icewm/winoptions

aterm.startMaximized: 1
sylpheed.startMaximized: 1
xchat.startMaximized: 1
xzgv.startMaximized: 1
firefox.startMaximized: 1
xfe.startMaximized: 1

good luck!

Screenshot:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2262/161 ... 22de_o.png

[Lou]

This is icewm-lite with opera.
It comes with no taskbar a la Openbox, i took out the title bar a la Ratpoison (i alt-tab to go to different screens) uses only 2 MB ram instead of 5 MB for the regular IceWM. It works great! No frills, no bs, just works. I added the little app 'dclock' for the time/date and added it to my .xinitrc, (dclock &) no themes are necessary.

Screenshot
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2227/172 ... c24a_o.png

To restart it:
$ killall -HUP icewm-lite

I use fbrun as my Run box.

[Lux]

I recently faced the challenge to set up an old computer to use Debian (lenny). So I needed a window manager that doesn't hog too much RAM, and then I remembered this howto where Lou recommends icewm for old computers. I have never used icewm long enough to get to learn it properly, but now that I've studied icewm for a couple of days, I'm really starting to like it.

I noticed that the default icewm "keys" file expects the user to have the application "aumix" installed. Instead of "aumix" I prefer to use "amixer" that is included in the alsa-utils package. To use "amixer", I added the following lines into ~/.icewm/keys:

Code: Select all

key "Ctrl+Alt+KP_Subtract"      amixer set Master 1-
key "Ctrl+Alt+KP_Add"           amixer set Master 1+

After editing that file and restarting icewm I can hit the "Ctrl+Alt+KP_Subtract" to lower the sound volume and "Ctrl+Alt+KP_Add" to raise the sound volume.

In ~/.icewm/preferences I changed the CPUStatusCommand to this: "urxvt -e htop", and the NetStatusCommand to this: "urxvt -e sudo /usr/sbin/iftop". Urxvt is my preferred X terminal program and both the htop and iftop programs can be installed via apt-get (or aptitude). Iftop needs to be run as root, so I used the "visudo" command (as root) to give my normal user the privilege to run /usr/sbin/iftop without password (you need to have the sudo package installed to be able to use visudo). Now clicking the CPU monitor in the task bar with the mouse pops up a terminal showing htop, and clicking the network monitor pops up a terminal with iftop.

I also installed a calendar program, called "osmo" (available in lenny and sid, but not in etch), and then changed the ClockCommand in ~/.icewm/preferences to this: "osmo -cal". (However, you probably want to start osmo without the "-cal" option first, so you can change the calendar settings in the "Options" tab.) Now clicking the clock in the task bar pops up the osmo calendar program.

The task bar in icewm has also a mail notifier that supports local mail boxes and remote mail checks of POP and IMAP accounts. The official icewm manual explains how the MailBoxPath can be configured in ~/.icewm/preferences. The same manual also explains that the location of the local mailbox should be determined by the $MAIL environment variable, which can be set in ~/.bashrc.

Some additional themes for icewm can be found here.

I also tried the development version of icewm (1.3.2; not yet packaged for Debian). The only difference to the current stable version that I noticed is that in the development version the tooltip for the CPU monitor in the task bar shows also RAM and Swap usage in addition to the traditional Unix-style CPU load average.

[Lou]

This is not that important, but i found in google how to take a screenshot with only the key "Print", the way i had it was keying Win + Print.

$ nano -w .icewm/startup

add the line:

xmodmap -e "keycode 111 = F13" &

save/exit

change your .icewm/keys to:

key "Print" aterm -e scrot -cd 10 (or whatever you use)

OR

key "F13" aterm -e scrot -cd 10

save/exit/restart icewm
voilà!

if it doesn't work, it's because your Print key is not 111, to find out what number it is, read this:

http://php.8ez.com/drsmall/blog/?p=210

happy trails...

[muskrat]

I used IceWM for a while, don't recall why I left it behind, but with Lou post I might put it back on one of my systems. Thanks Lou

[infinitycircuit]

I'm currently use icewm as my main wm. Here are a couple of tips I have:

1) if you want a prettier screenshot applet, try adding this to $HOME/icewm/keys:

Code: Select all

key "Print"  urxvt -g 70x2 -sh 0 -e scrot -cd 10

This will make a print dialog that's small, transparent, and still descriptive. I wish there was a command line switch to disable window borders for it but I don't know how.

2) I find the best run command to be dmenu. Install it and then run it like so:

Code: Select all

su root -c 'apt-get install dwm-tools'
exe=$(dmenu_path | dmenu -b -fn '"FONT"') && exec $exe

It runs very quickly and can scale to huge numbers of installed programs

3) if you want to have nice effects, use xcompmgr (it's in the experimental repositories) I use the following setup:

Code: Select all

xcompmgr -cCfF -r7 -o.65 -l-10 -t-8 -D7 &

This gives me fading menus and windows along with dropshadows

[pcalvert]

PREFERENCES

In order to configure and/or create apps shortcuts (key bindings), you
will have to copy the Preferences and keys files from Debian's global
address, but first find out if you got them by default.

$ cp /etc/X11/icewm/preferences ~/.icewm/preferences

$ cp /etc/X11/icewm/keys ~/.icewm/keys

$ cp /etc/X11/icewm/winoptions ~/.icewm/winoptions

Hmmm. My IceWM is different. I don't have any of those files. See:

Code: Select all

$ ls -al /etc/X11/icewm
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-10-05 14:31 .
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 2008-10-06 09:02 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3102 2006-11-20 04:54 menu
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7014 2008-10-05 14:31 programs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  298 2006-11-20 04:54 toolbar

I did a clean install of Etch just a few weeks ago. Could that have something to do with it? BTW, another thing I noticed is that iceme is now icemc.

Phil

[MeanDean]

Hmmm. My IceWM is different. I don't have any of those files.

might take a peek in /usr/share/icewm

[Lou]

$ locate icewm

[pcalvert]

might take a peek in /usr/share/icewm

Yup, that's where they're hiding:

Code: Select all

$ ls -l /usr/share/icewm
total 68
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2008-09-27 22:40 contrib
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2008-09-27 22:32 icons
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  1803 2006-11-20 04:54 keys
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2008-09-27 22:32 ledclock
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2008-09-27 22:32 mailbox
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   685 2006-11-20 04:54 menu
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 28632 2006-11-20 04:54 preferences
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 2008-09-27 22:32 taskbar
drwxr-xr-x 82 root root  4096 2008-09-27 22:32 themes
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   436 2006-11-20 04:54 toolbar
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  1045 2006-11-20 04:54 winoptions

Thanks.

Phil

[pcalvert]

$ locate icewm

Thank you, that's also helpful. Actually, I had to modify it a little bit:

$ locate icewm | more

I use that little "trick" a lot.

Phil

[gerry]

I'm trying Icewm, and read lots about it. One thing is that Lou starts off by installing iceme for configuring menus, but thats dead and gone, though I did find a tar.gz download, which I have not unpacked. Debian includes icemc, which is a gui for configuring menus etc.

My question is: which file do I have to edit to change the menus?? I've read all over, and tried editing various files as told, but the menu stays the same. In fact, the menu seems to not resemble any menu file that I can find.

So tell me: which file do I have to edit to customise the menus? Really.

And I'd rather not prompt you by saying which files I've looked at!

Using Lenny. And I tried Windowmaker, and the menu was EXACTLY the same as I get with Icewm, but again unlike any menu file. Where on earth do they get it from?

Gerry

[Lou]

iceme is gone, i use none of the others configuration apps.

Assuming you installed icewm, icewm-themes, menu:

$ sudo updatedb
$ locate icewm
$ cp /etc/X11/icewm/menu .icewm/menu

OR if you are the only user using icewm work on the original file /etc/X11/icewm/menu. Go to www.icewm.org and read the

IceWM FAQ and Howto pages

A superficial search in google.com/linux will give you all kinds of info on icewm/menus:

http://www.osnews.com/story/7774/IceWM_ ... ger/page3/

By pressing the "windows key" will give you a menu right away; i have my main apps linked to Fn keys (shortcuts, no icons, no menu editing).

Clear as mud?