{"slug": "fvwm", "name": "FVWM", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.57, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2025-11-14", "latest": "2026-08-14", "why": "", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.fvwm.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["FVWM", "fvwm"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 788858704, "item_id": 49303669, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49303669", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-08-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "switch to FVWM or use some tool like mimalloc", "excerpt": "The Computational Beauty of Nature it's similar and it has the code of the book there: https://github.com/gwf/CBofN Some tools might crash X under CWM for OpenBSD, switch to FVWM or use some tool like mimalloc. On Lisp, the book basically builds integers based on conses, kinda like Peano Axioms.", "context": "", "use_case": "window manager alternative to CWM", "switched_from": "CWM", "story": "G\u00f6del, Escher, Elisp: The Beauty of Macros"}, {"id": 740667152, "item_id": 46291697, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291697", "by": "BeetleB", "date": "2025-12-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have fond memories of FVWM.", "excerpt": "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-theme", "context": "", "use_case": "window manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "FVWM-95 (2001)"}, {"id": 734885216, "item_id": 45930326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930326", "by": "jmclnx", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "after months I went back to fvwm", "excerpt": "I still do not understand why people like Tiling WM, maybe I should give it another try. In the old 4:3 days I used ratpoison for a while, but after months I went back to fvwm. On 4:3 it seemed to work great, but I tend to think on these 16:9/16:10 monitors it could be a PITA. I believe I would need to move my head to the right a lot. On 4:3 no such issue. FWIW, via fvwm I force all my main applications to place them", "context": "", "use_case": "window manager", "switched_from": "ratpoison", "story": "Moving Back to a Tiling WM \u2013 XMonad"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["window manager", "window manager alternative to cwm"], "compared": [{"slug": "awesome", "name": "awesome", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "cwm", "name": "cwm", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49175067", "title": "G\u00f6del, Escher, Elisp: The Beauty of Macros", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291172", "title": "FVWM-95 (2001)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928873", "title": "Moving Back to a Tiling WM \u2013 XMonad", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 788858704, "item_id": 49303669, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49303669", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-08-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "switch to FVWM or use some tool like mimalloc", "excerpt": "The Computational Beauty of Nature it's similar and it has the code of the book there: https://github.com/gwf/CBofN Some tools might crash X under CWM for OpenBSD, switch to FVWM or use some tool like mimalloc. On Lisp, the book basically builds integers based on conses, kinda like Peano Axioms.", "context": "", "use_case": "window manager alternative to CWM", "switched_from": "CWM", "story": "G\u00f6del, Escher, Elisp: The Beauty of Macros"}, {"id": 740667152, "item_id": 46291697, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291697", "by": "BeetleB", "date": "2025-12-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have fond memories of FVWM.", "excerpt": "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-theme", "context": "", "use_case": "window manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "FVWM-95 (2001)"}, {"id": 734885216, "item_id": 45930326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930326", "by": "jmclnx", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "after months I went back to fvwm", "excerpt": "I still do not understand why people like Tiling WM, maybe I should give it another try. In the old 4:3 days I used ratpoison for a while, but after months I went back to fvwm. On 4:3 it seemed to work great, but I tend to think on these 16:9/16:10 monitors it could be a PITA. I believe I would need to move my head to the right a lot. On 4:3 no such issue. FWIW, via fvwm I force all my main applications to place them", "context": "", "use_case": "window manager", "switched_from": "ratpoison", "story": "Moving Back to a Tiling WM \u2013 XMonad"}]}