Red Hat Linux 7 Unleashed

By William Ball

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Lead Authors
  • About the Contributing Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • I. Red Hat Linux Installation and User Services
  • Chapter 1. Introduction to Red Hat Linux
  • Chapter 2. Installation of Your Red Hat System
  • Chapter 3. LILO and Other Boot Managers
  • Chapter 4. Configuring the X Window System, Version 11
  • Chapter 5. Window Managers
    • What Is a Window Manager?
    • The GNOME X Environment
    • Features of the sawfish Window Manager
    • Features of the Enlightenment Window Manager
    • Features of the K Desktop Environment
    • Configuring KDE with the KDE Control Center
    • The fvwm2 Window Manager
    • The twm Window Manager
    • Summary
  • Chapter 6. Connecting to the Internet
  • Chapter 7. IRC, ICQ, and Chat Clients
  • Chapter 8. Using Multimedia and Graphics Clients
  • II. Configuring Services
  • Chapter 9. System Startup and Shutdown
  • Chapter 10. SMTP and Protocols
  • Chapter 11. FTP
  • Chapter 12. Apache Server
  • Chapter 13. Internet News
  • Chapter 14. Domain Name Service and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  • Chapter 15. NIS: Network Information Service
  • Chapter 16. NFS: Network Filesystem
  • Chapter 17. Samba
  • III. System Administration and Management
  • Chapter 18. Linux Filesystems, Disks, and Other Devices
  • Chapter 19. Printing with Linux
  • Chapter 20. TCP/IP Network Management
  • Chapter 21. Linux System Administration
  • Chapter 22. Backup and Restore
  • Chapter 23. System Security
  • IV. Red Hat Development and Productivity
  • Chapter 24. Linux C/C++ Programming Tools
  • Chapter 25. Shell Scripting
  • Chapter 26. Automating Tasks
  • Chapter 27. Configuring and Building Kernels
  • Chapter 28. Emulators, Tools, and Window Clients
  • V. Appendixes
  • A. The Linux Documentation Project
  • B. Top Linux Commands and Utilities
  • C. The GNU General Public License
  • D. Red Hat Linux RPM Package Listings

Features of the sawfish Window Manager

The sawfish window manager, formerly known as sawmill, is the default GNOME-aware window manager used by Red Hat Linux for X11 sessions. This is one of the newest window managers available for X11, and has been specifically configured to work well with the GNOME libraries.

The system-wide sawfish configuration files are stored under the /usr/share/sawfish directory, but you'll find a sawfish directory installed in your home directory the first time you use this window manager. This directory is used to store the custom settings, the past session, and window-management and decoration settings.

To launch sawfish's configuration tool, use the sawfish-ui client (shown in Figure 5.9). Another way is through the Configuration Tool button in the GNOME Control Center's Window Manager capplet. To start the sawfish-ui client, use the command line of a terminal window like this:

   # sawfish-ui &

After you press Enter, you'll see the sawfish configuration tool shown in Figure 5.9.

Just because sawfish is the default window manager for GNOME, does this mean you can't use sawfish by itself as a window manager? Certainly not! If you're tight on memory or computer resources or you don't need all the whiz-bang features such as desktop icons or drag-and-drop and a faster X11 session, simply create an .xinitrc file in your home directory with the following two entries:

exec xterm &
sawfish

Save the file, then use the startx command to start your X11 session. See The .xinitrc File in Chapter 4 for entries for other window managers. For more information about sawfish, see its FAQ under the /usr/share/doc/sawfish-0.30.2/ directory.

Figure 5.9 The sawfish configuration tool is a nearly complete window management editor for configuring window decorations and other settings.

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