The following is a set of instructions to install FVWM with the translucency patch. Before you start please consider the following: First off if your using gentoo the patch is already included and you don't need to install it yourself. If you are using another OS, please consider that the basic meathod introduced here will install FVWM from source and not nesicarally use the pacakge managment of your OS, so you will want to remove any FVWM packages provided with your OS. Also note that because of this you wont be able to manage the install or removal of FVWM with your package manager. My suggestion is if your new to installing softwear from source to consolte your OS first. As a final note if you use debian I provide instructions on how to make your own deb so you can use dpkg to manage the install and removal.

First you need is the following:

  1. fvwm-2.5.12 source from fvwm.org.
  2. The translucency patch.
  3. autoconf version 2.5x.
  4. automake version 1.7.x (I beilve 1.6.x will work as well).
  5. other development libraries needed to compile fvwm 2.5.10 from source.
  6. If you have debian you'll need fakeroot and deb development tools.

Next follow the instructions to compile FVWM with the translucency patch.

  1. Extract the FVWM source, 'tar xjvf fvwm-2.5.12.tar.bz2'.
  2. Apply the patch, 'cd fvwm-2.5.12' and then 'patch -p1 < ../fvwm-translucency.diff'
  3. Run 'autoconf' followed by 'aclocal' then 'automake'
  4. Run the './configure' script, and make sure all the options you want are included. If ya see something missing, you'll need to install the developers lib to get that support.
  5. Now its time to compile fvwm, there are three options you can use
    1. Traditional, 'make && make install' (note make install should be run as root)
    2. Make a custom deb, 'make deb-inplace release=X fullname=name' (note this requires you have the deb building files and fakeroot installed)
    3. Make a custom rpm, 'make release=X rpm-this' (I don't use rpm systems and have not tried this, so it may or may not work)
  6. Install the deb/rpm if ya used that method, then run fvwm, its now installed, don't let the 'ugly' default config scare you, and return to here to start learning how to configure it.