Arlun (2008) is a resource-efficient, widget-deficient, wallpaper-, keyboard-, and console-centric recipe for FVWM-Crystal and FVWM — [Li|U]nix window managers that, themselves, tend to be resource-efficient, widget-deficient, and wallpaper-, keyboard-, and console-centric. This recipe is authored by Leyli Cecil; licensed under the GNU General Public License; and publicly, freely downloadable.

• Download Arlun here!

Dependencies

Arlun requires FVWM, at least; and FVWM-Crystal above that, optionally.

If FVWM-Crystal is installed, this recipe leverages that to auto-populate its root menu, minimally decorate window frames, and enable other esoteric, mostly aesthetic functionality.

Features

Arlun is optimized for low-memory, -speed, and -throughput desktop systems — or, quaintly, that old, piece of junk laptop lying in its own dusty, silicate waste in your room’s disheveled corner. It was developed on and for, specifically, its author‘s first-generation iBook G3 (300Mhz) — on which it runs, to this day, dutifully stably and fast.

This recipe, being a streamlined speed mongrel, emphasizes:

1. Desktop pages (i.e., virtual desktops).
   1. A 3x3 matrix of 8 desktop pages.
      1. This is a collection of distinct “virtual desktops,” navigable by keyboard or mouse, where each such “virtual desktop” has its own (randomly rotated) wallpaper; its own kuake (Quake) console; and its own set of application windows — distinctly, uniquely separate from all other “virtual desktops.”
   2. Per-desktop page kuake (Quake) consoles.
      1. This associates each desktop page with one kuake (Quake) console — mimicing the full-screen, psuedo-transparent, command-line console first bundled with Quake.
   3. Per-desktop page wallpaper rotation.
      1. This associates each desktop page with one distinct collection of wallpaper images and, at some pre-defined, scheduled interval, randomly rotates one wallpaper image from each such collection onto the associated desktop page for that collection. (Thus, for imaginative example, your ‘first’ desktop page could randomly rotate images from ~/pub/images/oceanic-tides-at-sunrise/, while your ‘second’ images from ~/pub/images/sunset-girls-and-gladness/).
      2. This bundles the FVWM-specific code for that scheduled rotation into the recipe file, itself — and doesn’t, therefore, need installation of external other cronjobs or files.
2. Keyboard mnemonics (i.e., shortcuts).
   1. Keyboard-driven application launcher.
      1. This is one desktop page-wide bang (!) bar console — mimicing the single-line, psuedo-transparent, command-line console first bundled with Windows Blinds.
      2. This launches applications with, typically, a minimum of keystrokes (and devout avoidance of all mouse and trackpad work). (For minimal example, by binding focus of the bang (!) bar to <WindowsKey-Spacebar> and launch of Mozilla Firefox to the word firefox, you can launch that application with but nine keystrokes: <WindowsKey-Spacebar>firefox<Enter>.)
   2. Keyboard-driven window manager manipulation.
      1. This (mostly) obsoletes mouse and trackpad work, and strenuous repetitions of working that, by implementing keyboard commands for (mostly) all window manager operations — namely, desktop page navigation, recipe manipulation, window manipulation and destruction, and window session destruction.
      2. These are Vi(M)-inspired, Dvorak-specific keyboard commands; and therefore suitable for keyboard-fluent aficionados of either mnemonic.

Etymology

“Arlun” is Welsh for “painting” — and so’s this recipe.

Paint on, hubris-fed
Speed painters!