Some projects are built with code. Others are built with memories, passion, and dreams that refuse to fade.

My journey with Linux began many years ago, with Slackware and Window Maker. I still remember the feeling of discovering an entirely new world: the freedom to explore, customize, learn, and create. Window Maker wasn't just a window manager to me. It was my first connection to something that would become a lifelong passion.

Years passed, technologies evolved, and Linux became an essential part of who I am.

For more than five years, I've had the privilege of contributing to BigLinux, a Brazilian Linux distribution with over 22 years of history. Throughout those years, I made countless attempts to bring one of my oldest dreams to life: creating a version of BigLinux powered by Window Maker.

There were experiments, failures, challenges, and moments when the dream seemed too distant. But some dreams simply don't let us give up.

Today, with tremendous emotion and pride, I present Big WindowMaker. 🚀

This project is more than nostalgia. It's a bridge between the Linux that made me fall in love with open source and the Linux we continue building today. A tribute to simplicity, elegance, performance, freedom, and the incredible creativity that defined an entire generation of computing.

It is also my personal tribute to Alfredo Kojima, the Brazilian developer who created Window Maker. His work inspired me at the very beginning of my Linux journey, and decades later, that inspiration is still alive.

Alfredo, thank you for creating something that meant so much to me and to countless Linux enthusiasts around the world.

To everyone who believes that great ideas deserve to live on, no matter how much time passes: this project is for you, too.

From my first steps with Slackware to years of contributing to BigLinux, it feels like I've finally come full circle.

And perhaps the most beautiful part is that this isn't the end of the journey.

It's a new beginning.

🐧 Welcome to Big WindowMaker.

🇧🇷 Made in Brazil. Inspired by the past. Built for the future.

🔗 https://github.com/big-windowmaker

#BigWindowMaker #WindowMaker #BigLinux #Slackware #Linux #OpenSource #NeXTSTEP #OPENSTEP #MadeInBrazil #LinuxCommunity

WM is great. I like the NEXTstep look & feel. I use it as my daily driver for several weeks now. But I am not sure how to handle different monitor setups especially when working on notebook. I use autorandr with matching profiles. But WM doesn't recognize the switch correctly and "loses" windows out of monitor range, so I can't reach them. Also dock and app icons get messed up on the screen. Restarting WM mostly brings dock and app icons back into position but windows get stuck somewhere.

And, when starting WM I also cannot get the right monitor setup from beginning. I have to run autorandr afterwards and this will need a restart of WM also. I would like to automate this.

How do you handle this?

Kinda stumped since this has been an ongoing issue for a while now. But I'm currently using dual monitors with a native resolution of 3840x2160. I can't use WM with this resolution though, because all the applications are extremely small. Using "Option "PreferredMode" "2560x1440" in xorg.conf doesn't seem to have any affect. And attempting to use xrandr doesn't help much because while everything scales up, it becomes extremely buggy.

For example, my screens wrap around each other for whatever reason and since I have to use xrandr to make adjustments, If I accidentally go off-screen then my cursor disappears and all applications launch on the outside if that makes sense? It's as I'm zoomed into a small part of my screen and my applications are opening outside that view. However, I usually end up having to reboot since my cursor reappear.

I followed the instructions here since I use Gentoo:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Xorg/Multiple_monitors

But nothing seems to work unless I keep my resolution at 3840x2160

I currently have a wayland session for my main de, but I really wanted to try windowmaker. I managed to set up a wm session under x11, but the only issue I'm experiencing is a weird stutter/lag when focusing other windows on the screen. Any idea what could possibly cause that?

I did an update as usual last night on my Arch. Everything seemed to go smoothly with no problems. Fired up the pc this morning and all my Dock and Clip min icons have disappeared.

Only the Dock and Clip show on the desktop. Funny thing is I have given them both a customised graphic, an Arch logo, and they are both showing that.

If I open up a program that used to be attached to the Clip and minimize it I can not add it to the Clip.(xterm,pcmanfm)

After investigating it seems some program icons can be attached to the Clip (keepasssxc,firefox).

I can it seems reinstall all my Dock apps as I have done so with wmbright. That would be a real pain in the butt. It would not help with the program icons for the Clip.

Has anyone else had any problems with WM lately ?

I have no idea as to what to do ??? :-(

This took me 3 hours and 2 minutes btw

(The attempt was to a NeXTSTEP 3.0 Rice on Window Maker accuracy)

As you can tell I like old stuff that still works in the modern age. I swapped out gogglesmm for audacious

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Audacious

took me some time to find a skin

https://skins.webamp.org/?query=lain

to match the akia.themed

You can find the theme by following the link. reddit would not let me post a direct link.

Enjoy :-)

A few more themes for Window Maker I found while surfing the world wide web

Raddit will not allow me to post the direct link so just follow the links to get there.

Perhaps, do you know maybe any good sources of old wallpapers or old tiles that I can use..? Thank you in advance and have a good time!

I have libxft2 installed, but whenever I run ./configure while trying to install windowmaker, it just spits out the error "libxft2 not found"

hi, i was looking at a mid 2000s japanese site that gave wmaker themes, and these are a few of them. the thing is, they all had desktop shortcuts in addition to docked apps, and the last two screenshots also showcase something like a taskbar. as far as ive tried, ive never been able yo use desktop shortcuts on wmaker, how is this even possible ?

Found another skin for audacious that almost exactly matches my home made theme over at ,

https://skins.webamp.org/

https://audacious-media-player.org/

https://github.com/audacious-media-player/audacious

https://9to5linux.com/audacious-4-6-media-player-released-with-file-browser-plugin-many-improvements

Still not quite right but getting there. 😄

Found a skin for audacious that almost exactly matches my home made theme over at ,

https://skins.webamp.org/

https://audacious-media-player.org/

https://github.com/audacious-media-player/audacious

https://9to5linux.com/audacious-4-6-media-player-released-with-file-browser-plugin-many-improvements

:-)

After installing I was met with the usual screentearing that I'd expect with X11, however the usual fix, picom with --vsync, seems to conflict with windowmaker, specifically with the background, which turns black. Is there another compositor or solution that works best for windowmaker?

Absolutly phenomenal desktop enviroment!

im using windowmaker for the fisrt time ever rn on debian and i am trying to set a custom icon for firefox for my dock but for some reason it only works whenever firefox isnt open, then as soon as i open firefox the icon switches to the regular modern firefox icon even when i delete it, idk why

Just wanted to make something retro looking this time no fancy modern stuff.

Dockapps: https://codeberg.org/andre_nho/wmdockapps

I was searching the link to doom dockapps and i finally found it
http://www.linuxave.net:80/~bac/src/wmdl/wmdl-1.3.7.tar.gz

Two issues i have currently:

• The slider and scrollbar wells of GNUStep need to have the same bitmap background that the sliders & scrollbar wells of WINGs.

• More minor, but getting WINGs to see the GNUStep Menu window and dress said Menu window like a "native" WINGs app's Menu window would be great.

Hello; i found another WINGs-using app that i thought was lost to time, so i decided try and compile it on my Pi400… however the .autoconfig file for wterm seems to not be set up correctly for modern systems. If there is a way to fix it, what line numbers do need to be changed? i'm willing to go in and get my hands "dirty" to get wterm up and running.

Source of WTerm: https://sourceforge.net/projects/wterm/

I'm playing Dead By Daylight on CachyOS, when using Window Maker (X11), i can't miniaturize the window of the game (even in window mode or fullscreen), i have mapped "miniaturize all windows" to ctrl+alt+d, but nothing works, what to do???

Hi everyone,

I'm running Window Maker as my desktop environment on CachyOS. After about three restarts of the computer, I noticed a major issue: nothing seems to be clickable or actionable. It feels like everything has frozen, and no matter what I try, nothing responds, except for the mouse cursor which still moves freely.

Has anyone experienced this specific behavior with Window Maker on CachyOS? Any ideas what might be causing this?

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I found a fix, just crate a ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/autostart file, it will be empty, but after restarting a Window Maker it will write in this file something like xset 0/10, just remove that and that's a fix for that!!!