This manual is for WINDOW MAKER window manager, version git#next.

Copyright © 2015 The Window Maker Team.

     This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

     This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program, see file COPYING for details.

Window Maker Compilation and Installation
*****************************************

A guide to configure, compile and install WINDOW MAKER from sources.

This manual is for Window Maker, version git#next.

Prerequisites
*************

Supported Platforms
===================

  - Intel GNU/Linux Systems in general, ix86 and x86_64 but other architectures should work

  - BSD systems

  - Solaris, at least on release 10 and 11

Patches to make it work on other platforms are welcome.

Software Dependencies
=====================

The following software is required to use WINDOW MAKER:

  - X11R6.x

     Window Maker can be compiled in older versions of X, like X11R5 (Solaris) or X11R4 (OpenWindows) but it will not work 100% correctly. In such servers there will not be application icons and you'll have trouble using the dock. Upgrading the client libraries (Xlib, Xt, etc.) will help if you can't upgrade the server.

The following is required to build WINDOW MAKER:

  - Basic obvious stuff

       * gcc (or some other ANSI C compiler, supporting some C99 extensions)

       * glibc development files (usually glibc-devel in Linux distributions)

       * X development files (XFree86-devel or something similar)

  - Xft2 and its dependencies

     Dependencies include freetype2 and fontconfig. You will also need the development files for them (xft2-devel). Sources are available at: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/Xft/

Note: WINDOW MAKER is known to compile with gcc and clang; the code source is mostly ANSI C (also known as C89 and C90) but is uses very few of the C99 novelties; it also uses a few attributes introduced in the C11 standard but those are detected automatically, so most compilers should work.

Special Dependencies
====================

If you want to compile using the sources from the git repository instead of the distribution package, you will also need:

  * git

  * autoconf 2.69

  * automake 1.11

  * libtool 1.4.2

Optional Dependencies
=====================

These libraries are not required to make WINDOW MAKER work, but they are supported in case you want to use them. Version numbers are indicative, but other versions might work too.

  - libXPM 4.7 or newer

     Older versions may not work!

     Available from http://xlibs.freedesktop.org/release/

     There is built-in support for XPM files, but it will not load images in some uncommon encodings.

  - libpng 0.96 or newer and zlib

     For PNG image support, http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html

  - libtiff 3.4 or newer

     For TIFF image support, http://www.libtiff.org/

  - libjpeg 6.0.1 or newer

     For JPEG image support, http://www.ijg.org/

     Note that if you don't have it, configure will issue a big warning in the end, this is because JPEG images are often used in themes and for background images so you probably want this format supported.

  - libgif 2.2 or libungif

     For GIF image support, http://giflib.sourceforge.net/

  - GNU xgettext

     If you want to use translated messages, you will need GNU gettext. Other versions of gettext are not compatible and will not work. Get the GNU version from http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/

  - libbsd

     This library can be used by the WINGs utility library to make use of strlcat and strlcpy instead of using built-in functions if your system does not provide them in its core libc. You should let WINDOW MAKER's configure detect this for you. You can get it from http://libbsd.freedesktop.org/wiki/

  - Inotify

     If you have Linux's inotify support, WINDOW MAKER will use it to check for configuration updates instead of polling regularly the file. The needed header comes with the kernel, typical packages names include:

       * kernel-headers for Slackware and Fedora

       * linux-userspace-headers for Mageia

       * linux-libc-dev for Debian and Ubuntu

       * linux-glibc-devel for OpenSuSE

  - Boehm GC

     This library can be used by the WINGs utility toolkit to use a Boehm-Demers-Weiser Garbage Collector instead of the traditional malloc/free functions from the libc. You have to explicitly ask for its support though (see Configure Options). You can get it from http://www.hboehm.info/gc/

Building WINDOW MAKER
*********************

Getting the Sources
===================

The latest version of WINDOW MAKER (-crm) can be downloaded from http://www.windowmaker.org/

Alternatively, the development branch, called #next is in the git repository at http://repo.or.cz/w/wmaker-crm.git

If you want to use the git versions, you can get it with:

     git clone -b next git://repo.or.cz/wmaker-crm.git

then, assuming you have the dependencies listed in Special Dependencies, you have to type:

     ./autogen.sh

to generate the configuration script.

Build and Install
=================

For a quick start, type the following in your shell prompt:

     ./configure
     make

then, login as root and type:

     make install
     ldconfig

or if you want to strip the debugging symbols from the binaries to make them smaller, you can type instead:

     make install-strip
     ldconfig

This will build and install WINDOW MAKER with default parameters.

If you want to customise some compile-time options, you can do the following:

 1. (optional) Look at the Configure Options, for the options available. Also run:

          ./configure --help

     to get a complete list of options that are available.

 2. Run configure with the options you want. For example, if you want to use the --enable-modelock option, type:

          ./configure --enable-modelock

 3. (optional) Edit src/wconfig.h with your favourite text editor and browse through it for some options you might want to change.

 4. Compile. Just type:

          make

 5. Login as root (if you can't do that, read the I don't have the root password) and install WINDOW MAKER in your system:

          su root
          make install

User specific configuration
===========================

These instructions do not need to be followed when upgrading WINDOW MAKER from an older version, unless stated differently in the NEWS file.

Every user on your system that wishes to run WINDOW MAKER must do the following:

 1. Install Window Maker configuration files in your home directory. Type:

          wmaker.inst

     wmaker.inst will install WINDOW MAKER configuration files and will setup X to automatically launch WINDOW MAKER at startup.

That's it!

You can type man wmaker to get some general help for configuration and other stuff.

Read the User Guide for a more in-depth explanation of WINDOW MAKER.

You might want to take a look at the FAQ too.

Locales/Internationalisation
============================

WINDOW MAKER has national language support. The procedure to enable national language support is described in the dedicated Enabling Languages support (README.i18n).

Configure Options
=================

These options can be passed to the configure script to enable/disable some WINDOW MAKER features. Example:

     ./configure --enable-modelock --disable-gif

will configure WINDOW MAKER with modelock supported and disable gif support. Normally, you won't need any of them.

To get the list of all options, run ./configure --help

--disable-gif
     disable use of GIF library

--disable-jpeg
     disable use of JPEG library

--disable-png
     disables use of PNG library

--disable-tiff
     disable use of TIFF library

--disable-xpm
     disables use of the XPM library even if it is available on your system.

--with-libs-from
     specify additional paths for libraries to be searched. The -L flag must precede each path, like:

          --with-libs-from="-L/opt/libs -L/usr/local/lib"

--with-incs-from
     specify additional paths for header files to be searched. The -I flag must precede each paths, like:

          --with-incs-from="-I/opt/headers -I/usr/local/include"

--enable-modelock
     XKB language status lock support. If you don't know what it is you probably don't need it.

--disable-shm
     disable use of the MIT shared memory extension. This will slow down texture generation a little bit, but in some cases it seems to be necessary due to a bug that manifests as messed icons and textures.

--disable-shape
     disables shaped windows (for oclock, xeyes, etc.)

--disable-motif
     Disable support for Motif's MWM Window Manager hints.

Miscellaneous
*************

Platform Specific Notes
=======================

  - GNU/Linux in general

     Make sure you have /usr/local/lib in /etc/ld.so.conf and that you run ldconfig after installing. Uninstall any packaged version of WINDOW MAKER before installing a new version.

  - RedHat GNU/Linux

     RedHat systems have several annoying problems. If you use it, be sure to follow the steps below or WINDOW MAKER will not work:

       * if you installed the WINDOW MAKER that comes with RedHat, uninstall it before upgrading;

       * make sure you don't have the LANG and LINGUAS environment variables set to en_RN;

       * make sure you have /usr/local/bin in your PATH environment variable;

       * make sure you have /usr/local/lib in /etc/ld.so.conf before running ldconfig;

  - PowerPC MkLinux

     You will need to have the latest version of Xpmac. Older versions seem to have bugs that cause the system to hang.

  - Debian GNU/Linux

     If you want JPEG and TIFF support, make sure you have libtiff-dev and libjpeg-dev installed.

  - SuSE GNU/Linux

     If you installed the WINDOW MAKER package from SuSE, uninstall it before trying to compile Window Maker or you might have problems.

  - MetroX (unknown version)

     MetroX has a bug that corrupts pixmaps that are set as window backgrounds. If you use MetroX and have weird problems with textures, do not use textures in title bars. Or use a different X server.

Installing the extras package
=============================

Unpack WindowMaker-extra-<version-number>.tar.gz in /usr/local/share

You can get the file at http://windowmaker.org/pub/source/release/. This file is optional and only have a few icons, and themes. Look for the latest <version-number> available. Also there is a WindowMaker-extra.readme to instruct you where that package should go.

I don't have the root password :(
=================================

If you can't get superuser privileges (can't be root) you can install Window Maker in your own home directory. For that, supply the --prefix option when running configure in step 2 of building WINDOW MAKER. You will also need to supply the --with-gnustepdir option, to specify the path for WPrefs.app. Example:

     ./configure --prefix=/home/jshmoe --with-gnustepdir=/home/jshmoe/GNUstep/Applications

Then make /home/jshmoe/bin be included in your search PATH, add /home/jshmoe/lib to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable and run bin/wmaker.inst

Of course, /home/jshmoe is supposed to be replaced by your actual home directory path.

Upgrading
=========

If you are upgrading from an older version of WINDOW MAKER:

 1. Configure and build WINDOW MAKER as always

 2. Install WINDOW MAKER (but do not run wmaker.inst)

 3. Read the NEWS file and update your configuration files if necessary.

Troubleshooting
***************

When you have some trouble during configuration (while running configure), like not being able to use a graphic format library you think you have installed, look at the config.log file for clues of the problem.

Error with loading fonts, even if they exist
============================================

This is probably a problem with NLS (Native Language Support), you probably want to look at the Troubleshooting (README.i18n) or try rebuilding without NLS support, which is done with:

     ./configure LINGUAS=""

Error when configuring
======================

     ltconfig: unrecognized option `--no-reexec'
     Try `ltconfig --help' for more information.
     configure: error: libtool configure failed

remove the --no-reexec option from aclocal.m4 and reconfigure. Also make sure the autoconf, automake and libtool versions you have installed are in line with the versions listed in Special Dependencies.

configure doesn't detect libtiff, or other graphic libraries
============================================================

Delete config.cache, then rerun configure adding the following options to configure (among the other options you use):

     --with-libs-from="-L/usr/local/lib"
     --with-incs-from="-I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include/tiff"

Put the paths where your graphic libs and their corresponding header files are located. You can put multiple paths in any of these options, as the example of --with-incs-from shows. Just put a space between them.

configure doesn't detect libXpm
===============================

Check if you have a symbolic link from libXpm.so.4.9 to libXpm.so

Segmentation fault on startup
=============================

  * Check if the version of libXPM you have is at least 4.7

  * Check if you have an updated version of ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WindowMaker

If you're not sure, try renaming ~/GNUstep to ~/GNUtmp and then run wmaker.inst

"...: your machine is misconfigured. gethostname() returned (none)"
===================================================================

the host name of your machine is set to something invalid, that starts with a parenthesis. Do a man hostname for info about how to set it.

The root menu contains only 2 entries. ("XTerm" and "Exit...")
==============================================================

WINDOW MAKER could not read your menu definition file. You should check the output of wmaker for an error, it may be visible in the console or in the .xsession-errors file.

checking lex output file root... configure: error: cannot find output from true; giving up
==========================================================================================

Read the Software Dependencies.