BeetleB
stevekemp
I used it until I switched to GNOME2 at some point, and I also have fond memories. Just seeing the title of this post recalled the desktops I had had over the years.
My linux days started around 95/96, and I was always using low-resource environments due to necessity. Other than FVWM95 the other system I recall using for a long long time was IceWM which was something I switched to around 1999/2000.
incanus77
There's a nice theme for XFCE, Chicago95, that looks a lot like this as well and is quite good!
MisterTea
I use this on my desktop. Started out as a curiosity but stayed once I realized it brought back more familiar icons such as the notepad and terminal icons. Clean start menu design too.
CGMthrowaway
Oh man the teal text background brings back so many memories
bayindirh
That blue Microsoft Keyboard background... Oh man...
Narishma
Related: https://xclass.sourceforge.net/index.html
A C++ GUI toolkit with the Windows 95 look and feel.
pjmlp
The original fvwm was my first window manager in Linux back in 1995, I was not a fan of the evolution into fvwm-95, though.
By then I was already into other window managers.
sombragris
IIRC fvwm95 was not meant as a next-gen fvwm, but as a customization of the existing fvwm desktop.
jonhohle
Beautiful. I miss the late 90s aesthetic of these window managers. KDE 2 was particularly nice. Motif was ugly, but I look at it fondly now.
This looks a little too Windows 95, but the dock is a nice reminder that it’s X Windows.
guestbest
This was a good one, but icewm was one better. FVWM2 went on to FVWM3, and FVWM95 was encouraged by power users and developers to stop being used in favor of FVWM3
sombragris
fvwm is still one of the default graphical environments in Slackware (even in -current), and fvwm95 came packaged for some time, too. Now fvwm95 is no longer part of the basic Slackware distribution but there's a SlackBuild for it:
https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0/desktop/fvwm95/
I like the Win95 aesthetic, but I like a close relative, KDE1, better; and I have configured my Plasma 6 setup along these lines. Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/Q9Gfs08
Back into FVWM, Slackware also has a SlackBuild for the next-gen fvwm3. FVWM configurability could be amazing, although it can be a challenge.
d1l
I still use it (shout out taviso iykyk).
https://github.com/zy/zy-fvwm/blob/master/fvwmrc/taviso.fvwm...
Someone made a full cde style desktop with fvwm: https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE
It’s too bad tech seems so much to take away this kind of configurability in the name of “we know better”. There’s so much to be said for software that can last so long, as opposed to the constant treadmill of forced updates.
Fuck gnome eternally for destroying gtk and fuck Wayland.
iku
I have used a version of this called Qvwm, and even had branched it off at some point to fix some bugs... https://ahinea.com/en/tech/qvwm/ (I don't think github existed at the time or maybe I didn't know about it.)
P.S. Oh, there is the official Qvwm page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/qvwm/files/qvwm/
erickhill
"Page last updated: Nov 26, 2001."
That page even looks a tad dated for 2001!
BastienSANTE
Insane homepage pull vro
It's incredible how much charm there was in these interfaces, specifically in the bitmap fonts. Were GUI applications more or less graphically diverse than now ?
jandrese
The fact that almost anybody could make a Window Manager on X lead to a tremendous amount of experimentation and variety. Almost all of them were half baked and faded to obscurity, but it was a lot of fun to try them out. Also, if your bar is "better than TWM" then it's a pretty easy target to hit. These days the level of effort to even get to the baseline is way higher, one dude in a weekend can't try out some crazy idea.
Nullmoment
Bit of a mix, but less diverse depending on the platform. Apples Skeuomorphic Era, was likely the height of "anything goes" in the mainstream.
dvh
I'm on JWM since Ubuntu switched away from gnome 2x in 2012 (13 years) and my desktop is unchanged every since.
I don't update OS to relearn basic controls every 2 years, I update OS to get latest versions of apps.
bayindirh
I'm using KDE since 3.x days, and still use the same setup, same controls and same workflows in KDE 6.x. It's just more modern and hardware accelerated.
KDE is a powerhouse. I probably replace 10-15 applications just by using what's built-in to that.
I have fond memories of FVWM. I don't know where this was (Slashdot?), but back in the mid 2000's, someone posted a "Why are people not using FVWM? It's one of the most flexible window managers?", and linked to various people's FVWM setup. This led to a lot of folks (including me) switching to FVWM. I used it until switching to AwesomeWM around 2011.
You can see some (fairly old!) screenshots here: https://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net/screenshots/
Glad to see it's still around.
Edit: Here's the thread (Gentoo Forums): https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=80517
The thread ran a total of 121 pages over 7 years.