Cygwin/XFree86 Files

Ice Window Manager 1.0.9-2

This is a binary distribution of IceWM 1.0.9-2 built for Cygwin/XFree86. Version 1.0.8 is also available.

I didn't do much special to build this. I got the source and applied the configuration file patch from Joshua Walsky. The only other change I made was a bug fix to misc.cc:

457c457
< const * basename(char const *path) {
---
> char * basename(char const *path) {


Installation

1. $ tar -xzvf icewm-cygwin-1.0.9-2.tar.gz -C /
2. Edit /usr/X11R6/bin/startxwin.sh.
   • Make sure that /usr/local/bin is added to the PATH.
   • Replace reference to twm with icewm
3. Start the X server by running startxwin.sh (see Notes)

The first thing that you will notice is that you can't launch an xterm from the IceWM menu. There is a bug in Cygwin and/or XFree86 xterm. In any case, here is xterm.exe built with the fix.

XTrek 6.1

What good would an X server be without games? Here's a classic ported to Cygwin/XFree86.

Notes

• All work done on W2K XFree86 4.1.0(157)
• For some reason I can't launch IceWM from a .bat file. When I try I get the following:
       0 [main] icewm 2564 handle_exceptions: Exception: STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
     1198 [main] icewm 2564 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to icewm.exe.stackdump
To get around this I launch everything from a shell script. I have a shortcut on my desktop with the following target:
       C:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe --login /usr/X11R6/bin/startxwin.sh
  
  Jirko Cassuben added the following:
  I think I found the reason, why IceWM doesn't start from the startxwin.bat. (That is: it does for me :-). IceWM needs the USER and HOME environment variables and they are not set by default on a windows system. I'd consider that a bug in IceWM, because there is no real guarantee that the variables are set on unix systems, either. At least that means it's easy to workaround the problem in XFree/Cygwin. Just set USER and HOME in the batchfile.
• I commented the line: eval `ssh-agent` out of startxwin.sh This process was consuming lots CPU even when nothing was happening.
• If I run the X server full screen and <alt><tab> away to a native Windows application, when I return to the X server, the xterm/bash that had focus when I left is hung. I have no idea what that's all about.
• If I run the X server in a window and <alt><tab> away to a native Windows application, when I return to the X server, the focus has shifted to the next X client.
• I was having problems with IceWM not coming back if I tried to switch themes. I haven't been switching themes lately, so I did not follow up.
• Others have reported a problem with icewm.exe hanging on W2K systems during start. The problem appears to be with the default theme (Infadel2) on those systems. To work around this problem use a different theme, such as the win95 theme, when starting icewm, either the -t command line switch or a change in a preference file (see icewm-15.html for info) seems work.
• Occasionally the keyboard driver seems to miss a keyup event. The last key pressed repeats until another key is pressed. I _believe_ that this is related to native W2K windows grabbing focus while I have a key depressed in a Cygwin/XFree86 window.

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