[shrek]

Is there still interest here for this sort of thing? I'm working on a Motif based desktop environment primarily for Debian but it should be portable to any Linux distro or BSD on any CPU architecture.

A few months ago I found out someone made a fork of MWM that adds support for UTF-8, Xinerama, and extended WM hints. This person also made a session manager, an IRIX-like Toolchest clone and a really nice image viewer called XImaging. The GitHub is here https://github.com/alx210

I did a bunch of configuration and I want to package it so others can easily install it. Right now there is no installer. I can only point people towards the source code and Debian repos and give them an archive with the configs and images.

>>> Download: old link removed (update coming soon-ish) <<<

Rename the file to .tar.gz or it will not extract right. Instructions are under EMWM-dist/emwm-conf/README

Features:
* Desktop Toolbox with user modifiable config.
* Minimal root menu with useful tools.
* Toolbox fail safe config in case you mess up the main one and a new Toolbox won't start.
* Hand made icons for minimized windows and for the Xfe file manager.
* Color schemes (GTK themes planned)

The Toolbox has entries to:
* Launch user programs
* Launch a run box for commands
* Suspend, lock, shutdown or reboot
* Change wallpapers
* Take screenshots
* Use a blue light filter (Redshift)
* Control display brightness (laptops only, needs extra Xorg config)
* Configure screen savers with xscreensaver

The desktop environment comes with apps like:
* Nedit - Text editor
* XImaging - Image viewer
* URxvt - Terminal emulator
* Xosview - Resource monitor
* DClock - Desk clock
* Xpdf - PDF reader
* Plan - Calendar
* XCalc - Calculator
* VLC - Media player
* Xfe - File manager
* Mgdiff - Compare files
* Rhinote - Sticky notes

I'm attaching two images. One is the default theme and the other is the almost finished dark theme.

[Raion]

Quite interested as I've said. I'd like to see us eventually bring this up to parity with IID but ~wishful thinking~

[shrek]

I'd like to see us eventually bring this up to parity with IID

Baby steps. The project is IRIX-inspired but not really a full clone of the Indigo Magic Desktop. MaXX already exists as to fill that niche.

The people who made the original IRIX desktop clearly had fun with it. I hope this project will recapture some of that joy so people can have a good time. I had a blast doing the configs and icons.

[Raion]

You know my disposition towards that liar.

It doesn't have to be an exact clone. Many of the design conventions that were used in the original are simply outdated.

[defaultrouteuk]

Hey shrek - I'd use it mate for sure. ATM I'm using open indiana on the desktop though so I'd have to see how mch mileage I can get. I'm not the best coder (echo Hello World!/n/r).

What you've done looks splendid. I've seen MaXX and it was impressive and I've spun up the mame IRIX machines if I need to scratch an itch when I'm not at my desk.But yeah, don't feel like your effort isn't appreciated. My personal lack of content creation for IN embarasses me. The more others do the more upset I'll get until I finally get off my arse.

All the best - love what you did
Rich

[shrek]

Hey shrek - I'd use it mate for sure. ATM I'm using open indiana on the desktop though so I'd have to see how mch mileage I can get. I'm not the best coder (echo Hello World!/n/r).

Thanks! No real programming experience is required to set it up. Even in the pre-alpha state you will at most have to compile the WM and a few utilities after installing the dependencies. The window manager and associated utils and the image viewer build with simple makefiles. You should not have to configure anything there by hand unless you want to change the install directory.

This is the package list I have for Debian I run on clean installs (excluding extra apps) to prepare them. The names might be a little different on OpenIndiana.

gcc make libc6-dev autoconf automake libmotif-common libmotif-dev libxm4 x11-utils xscreensaver libx11-6 libx11-dev libxt6 libxt-dev libxext6 libxext-dev libxrandr2 libxrandr-dev libxinerama1 libxinerama-dev libxss-dev libjpeg-dev libjpeg-tools libtiff-dev libtiff-tools libpng-dev libpng-tools

[Shiunbird]

I've never tested the maxx
Is it any good?

[Raion]

Maxx desktop is poorly engineered garbage and the developer who runs it is a grifter. Not only has he broken repeated promises but he keeps changing his story every time he gets caught in a lie.

I don't want to bring this up but the guy is not a good person and has done major damage with his product being treated like a good thing. He promised nearly 2 years ago to release the source. This has not happened and he has not ever brought it up again. He claims he had a restrictive license agreement that required him to publish it only for Linux/x86, but this agreement has never materialized.

The only people who are allowed in his communities such as his Facebook group or Slack are yes men. If you start peeling back his onion full of lies he will get rid of you.

[shrek]

I've never tested the maxx
Is it any good?

My two cents: The user experience is okay but very bare bones. It's closed source and the documentation is lacking.

The developer has also been teasing BSD and ARM builds + source releases for almost a year but he hasn't delivered on any of it. Sadly he wants to do a one man project and try to close off and commercialize software that only a few hobbyists are showing interest in.

Hopefully no one thinks I'm angry with Eric or anything. Any comparisons I make between this desktop and MaXX are not meant to be a dig at him or his project. I wish him well and I hope he changes his mind on some stuff.

[Raion]

It's ego, and something feels off with Maxx -- it's just not actually in the IRIX spirit. It has the looks, but not much else.

I only loftily said what I said out of admiration. Currently I have a C++ project that's eating up a lot of time, but should be interesting once done.