FVWM: Strange fvwm-related problems

From: Phil Stracchino <alaric_at_caerllewys.net>
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 17:37:11 -0400

I have a couple of curious fvwm-related problems which, after lengthy
examination, I am still unable to solve.


I use sirc as my IRC client, and icbm as my ICB client. Both clients
are written in Perl, and both have the ability (via Perl functions
loaded from their startup files) to launch external applications. In
particular, I commonly launch Xcoral, a graphical programming editor,
from both in order to edit their configuration files on the fly while
running (both can reload their configuration on the fly).

In icbm or sirc sessions started while running fvwm-1.24r, this works
perfectly. If I start the clients under fvwm-1.24r and then switch to
fvwm-2.4.16, I can still launch Xcoral from within either. But if the
clients were launched while fvwm-2.4.16 is running, all attempts to
launch xcoral or any other application that creates a window from within
either sirc or icbm silently fail, even if I switch bach to fvwm-1.24r
and try to launch them. However, executing any external command that
does not create a window still works.

Also, I use procmeter3 to monitor system status. If started from
fvwm-1.24r's InitFunction, it works perfectly. If started from an Xterm
while fvwm-2.4.16 is running, it works perfectly. If started from
fvwm-2.4.16's InitFunction, it loads and draws its window correctly, but
none of its modules ever receive any data.


I have dumped and diffed the environment of a login and non-login shell
under both fvwm-1.24 and fvwm-2.4.16, and there is no significant
difference. Witness the following diff:


babylon5:alaric:~:3 $ diff -U3 env*
--- env-fvwm1 Wed Jul 2 17:08:13 2003
+++ env-fvwm2 Wed Jul 2 17:09:52 2003
_at_@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 HOSTNAME=babylon5.babcom.com
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 TERM=dumb
+FVWM_USERDIR=/home/alaric/.fvwm
 HOSTDISPLAY=babylon5:0.0
 QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt
 USER=alaric
_at_@ -22,4 +23,5 @@
 LESS=-M
 MOZILLA_HOME=/opt/netscape
 LESSOPEN=|lesspipe.sh %s
+FVWM_MODULEDIR=/usr/X11R6/libexec/fvwm/2.4.16
 DISPLAY=:0.0


As you can see, the only difference is the addition of FVWM_USERDIR and
FVWM_MODULEDIR to the environment by fvwm2. The data for this
comparison was generated by the following two-line shell script, invoked
from InitFunction in each case:

#!/bin/bash
env > $1


Does anyone at all have any insight whatsoever as to the cause of these
problems? I like the features of fvwm2, not least that window gravity
seems to work properly in fvwm2, but functional problems like this that
actually break the functioning of totally unrelated apps are really on
the verge of driving me back to fvwm1. Sure, I like being able to have
marble-textured window decorations, but that's worthless if the
applications in the windows don't work because of something the window
manager is doing.

(Oh, and what's with fvwm2 on Solaris defaulting to utterly and totally
 ignoring ALL user window-manager configuration?)



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Received on Wed Jul 02 2003 - 16:38:57 BST

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