Basic FVWM Installation in Arch Linux

1. Pre-Installation (The X Window System)

After the base Arch Linux system is installed, complete the steps at the end of the Arch Linux Beginners' Guide for the underlying X Window system.

 
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-server-utils xorg-client 
pacman -S mesa 
pacman -S xf86-video-vesa 
pacman -S xorg-twm xorg-xclock xterm 
pacman -S ttf-dejavu 

You may also have to install drivers for your video (as described in the Beginners' Guide). For example, for i915 video

 
pacman -S xf86-video-intel 

For laptops with a keypad, and for touchscreens in general:

 
pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics 

At this point you can go through the procedures in the Beginners' Guide for attempting a trial run of X using twm. If it works, great. If it doesn't, then you've probably got video driver issues (see the Beginners' Guide for help).

The test of X in the Beginners' Guide involves running it with the "twm" window manager (a very, very old, simple window manager). To exit it, click the left mouse button on the screen background to get a menu, and then select Exit from the menu.

However, you might not want to try it at this point. I've found in several instances that X and twm failed to start, but X with fvwm (or xfce4, which I was using for a while) worked fine. So waiting until you have FVWM installed will work as well, or better. Also, whether or not X starts successfully, twm often fails to exit gracefully when you're done (hanging instead). This can be alarming if it's your first try.

If twm does hang, try to get a different virtual console by using Alt-Fn (where 'Fn' indicates the various numbered function keys). Sometimes you need to do ctrl-alt-Fn. In the virtual console, log in and, as root (sudo) do:

 
killall xinit 

2. FVWM Installation

Once the X Window System is installed and working with your video hardware, a plain, standard installation of FVWM in Arch Linux is easy.

To get to Arch Linux's FVWM page, either click on "Window Managers" at the end of the Beginners' Guide and select "FVWM" from the Arch Linux "Window Managers" page, or go directly to [Arch Linux] FVWM.

Then just follow the instructions.

 
sudo pacman -S fvwm 

Then in your home directory create an .xinitrc file with the line:

 
exec fvwm 

Then try it (I would very much suggest not running X as root. Run it from your user login.)

 
startx 

It is possible to configure X and FVWM to start automatically at boot, but I prefer to boot into a text-mode console and start is manually.

When you start X with FVWM, with no additional configuration present, your screen will simply go blank. This is correct. FVWM is by default very minimalist. Minimal is elegant, and basic black goes with everything.

Click the left mouse button (or tap the screen) to get a popup with a default menu of basic commands (including the two most basic: start an xterm and exit FVWM/X).

3. The Next Step

At this point you can:

• Proceed to FVWM Configuration and Tweaking.
• Keep the stock FVWM for now and go on to Arch Linux package installation to make a more complete system.
• Keep the stock FVWM for now, delay package installation for a while (presumably because you already know what you want), and go on to understanding several basic principles of user interface design violated by modern interfaces such as Gnome (GTK) and programs such as the GIMP .