Twm - ArchWiki

# Twm

Twm is a window manager for X11. It is a small program, being built against Xlib rather than using a widget library, and as such, it is very light on system resources. Though simple, it is highly configurable; fonts, colours, border widths, title bar buttons, etc. can all be set by the user.

### Twm creation and name

Twm was written by Tom LaStrange, a developer who was frustrated by the limitations of uwm (Ultrix Window Manager)[[1], the only window manager around when X11 was first released. Twm supplanted uwm as the default window manager supplied with X11 from the X11R4 release in 1989wikipedia:UWM_(computing).

Twm has stood for Tom's Window Manager, Tab Window Manager and more recently Timeless Window Manager wikipedia:Twm.

## Installation

Twm is provided by the package xorg-twm.

## Start twm with X

In order for twm to be run as your window manager, edit the file `~/.xinitrc` so the final line is:

    exec twm

If you now type:

    startx

at the command prompt, X will start using twm as its window manager.

If you would like to configure X (and twm) to start on boot (or when you login), read the wiki page Start X at login to find out how.

## Configuration (editing your .twmrc)

By default, twm looks very dated and unintuitive. By creating the file `~/.twmrc`, you can customize twm to make it more friendly.

## Resources

- The twm man page gives full details of the commands which can be used in your `~/.twmrc` file. It can be viewed online or accessed once twm is installed by `man twm`.
- Many `~/.twmrc` files have been posted online. The site xwinman.org has several `~/.twmrc` files with screenshots which might provide inspiration. A Google search for "twmrc" can be used to find new ideas.
- More information about twm can be found on the twm Wikipedia page.
- There is a patched version, not in the repositories, with updated features such as transparency. A description and build script is available on the xorg mailing list. It can be tried out by installing xcompmgr, running the build script, putting the resulting `twm` and `dot.twmrc` files in a convenient directory, and editing the `~/.xinitrc` file so that the last two lines are

    xcompmgr -o 0.3  -c -r 8 -t -10 -l -12 &
    /path-to-directory/twm -visual TrueColor -depth 32 -f /path-to-directory/dot.twmrc

## References

1. Proffitt, Brian. "From the Desktop: Tom LaStrange Speaks!", LinuxPlanet, February 6, 2001. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
2. "UWM (computing)", Wikipedia. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
3. "Twm", Wikipedia. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
4. "Twm man page", linux.die.net. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
5. "Sample twmrc", custompc.plus.com. Retrieved August 12, 2013.
6. "Window Managers for X: TWM/VTWM", xwinman.org. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
7. "Google search for twmrc", google.com. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
8. Kask, Eeri. "TWM -- Revised Edition -- Again", lists.x.org, January 3, 2010.

Category:

- Stacking WMs