# OpenCDE



## kpedersen (Feb 25, 2010)

Hello,

I am currently working on a project to create an open implementation of CDE (Developing it on FreeBSD so you guys will probably get it first )

I am using wxWidgets (wxMotif) for the GUI library and currently I have the bottom dock partially implemented and a simple CDE text editor (dtpad) finished. I am currently working on a file manager (dtfile) (might fork from bxfm).

I have a couple of questions which I thought I should ask here first...

1) Does anyone know if I create a public project website for OpenCDE, can the "Open Group" shut me down?

2) Ideally I want to use LessTif rather than open-motif for the gui system but I cannot seem to get wxMotif to compile using it. How "not quite open source" is open-motif? Will it suffice?

3) I am using Mwm for the window manager (not quite dtwm) but I need to modify the code a bit to make it CDE like. Does anyone know if the open-motif licence allows me to fork Mwm?

4) OpenCDE or FreeCDE? 

Any info would be greatly appreciated, I know this may not be the ideal forum to ask in but there are currently no CDE/Motif forums that I know of.

--> All I need now is a retro tiled FreeBSD tridant wallpaper and the whole thing will look pretty awsome


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## vermaden (Feb 25, 2010)

I would go for the OpenCDE name, but I am not able to help you with your other concerns


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## fronclynne (Feb 25, 2010)

*I believe the word is "whee!"*

Well, I have a bit of a cold, and I'm sipping some 101-proof cold remedy . . .


(these terrible images are hereby released into the public domain)


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## fronclynne (Feb 25, 2010)

As to number one, I would keep in mind that even if you are on legally firm ground, they can probably make things difficult if they want to.  My advice is to blithely use OpenCDE until they send a certified letter, but have a bunch of alternate names in the bag.


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## SirDice (Feb 26, 2010)

Some of your open-motif questions are answered here:
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/faq.html


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## yim (Feb 26, 2010)

I am new in FreeBSD world & using Mwm now. Although I am not able to help.
Just want to say ...
Openmotif with OpenCDE ---> sounds cool.


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## kpedersen (Feb 26, 2010)

Cool,

Thanks for the info guys.
And thanks very much fronclynne for the tiled wallpaper. It looks very authentic 

I will post a screenshot as soon as I work out how to use xwd. (xwd -out <file> gives some odd format)

I will also have a project page up shortly.


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## fronclynne (Feb 26, 2010)

`$ xwd -root | xwdtopnm | pnmtopng > file.png`
also:

```
> pkg_info -W xwdtopnm
/usr/local/bin/xwdtopnm was installed by package netpbm-10.26.63_2
```


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## kpedersen (Feb 28, 2010)

Early version

http://show.simpload.com/index.php?filename=02284b8aab284befd.jpg

Simpload converts from .xwd format to .jpg as you upload it.. How cool is that!

fronclynne: Dont get disheartened, I am still using your background... I just gray scaled it


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## bamdad (Apr 7, 2010)

is there any news on your project? i'm really interested. sadly i'm not much of a developer, but i'm willing to beta-test it anytime you wish. also, is there any sourceforge/github/something page for it?

thanks,
bamdad


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## kpedersen (Apr 12, 2010)

bamdad,

Thank you for your interest. The project is under active development and I have a small group of individuals who are also interested in helping out.

However, there is not yet a source repository for it but I do plan to have the website for it live within the week where you will be able to download the latest stable source.

We are planning on using google's code svn service at a later date.

I will keep you updated.


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## bamdad (Apr 13, 2010)

thanks again. it would be nice if it would be usable on linux, too (i've not switched permanently to freebsd yet). i'd be happy to test there as well, of course.

anyway, awesome work so far, looking forward to the first release.


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## kpedersen (Apr 13, 2010)

I have set up a website (kinda) at http://www.opencde.org

The website is pretty broken atm, I have been spending too much time on the software itself.

So far it is 100% compatible with Linux and FreeBSD, and I intend to keep it that way.

I am not sure what I am going to do with regards to the build system yet though.

So you can find a little bit more information about the project there. The website will have more content (and the software itself) soon.

You should be able to have something to play with by the end of the week though!


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## kpedersen (Jul 8, 2010)

Hello,

First release is out,

http://www.opencde.org/download.php

If anyone has some time on their hands, could they please try out the FreeBSD binary (should also work on versions other than 8.0-RELEASE)

Required packages are:

xli
sudo
open-motif

I have not made OpenCDE into a package yet because I want to try and make it so that OpenCDE can be drag and dropped anywhere and still work.

Thanks,

Karsten


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## sk8harddiefast (Jul 8, 2010)

Well i like CDE and project is really good but seems like to be too old window manager 
That don't means that i will not use it! Is a very good try and well done!
Just if could be more "hitech"


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## kpedersen (Jul 8, 2010)

If you want a modern looking desktop, then Xfce or even gnome is fine for you.

OpenCDE is for those of us infected with nostalgia 

The fact that it is very fast and light is a bonus.

(If OpenCDE is compiled against wxGTK2 rather than wxMotif, it looks pretty modern, but does have a few glitches.)


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## sk8harddiefast (Jul 8, 2010)

ok. But also i like it as it is!


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## fronclynne (Jul 9, 2010)

Yeah, it wants libXm.so.3 (which I do, in fact, have).  Is it perhaps not friendly to 64-bit yet?


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## chalbersma (Jul 9, 2010)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> Yeah, it wants libXm.so.3 (which I do, in fact, have).  Is it perhaps not friendly to 64-bit yet?



+1
Getting the same prob

uname -a

```
FreeBSD beastie.westminster-mo.edu 8.1-RC2 FreeBSD 8.1-RC2 #0: Tue Jun 29 20:21:55 UTC 2010     root@mason.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64 lem.
```


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## fronclynne (Jul 9, 2010)

Okay, just built from source and it stops responding to the mouse & keyboard after a couple of clicks.  Had to ctl-alt-f2 & pkill it from the console.  Didn't get any error messages, though.

Anyway, it looks all sweet and retro.


```
> uname -a
FreeBSD thulcandra 8.1-RC1 FreeBSD 8.1-RC1 #0: Sat Jun 26 10:56:09 EDT 2010     root@thulcandra:/usr/obj/home/8/src/sys/EARTH81  amd64
```


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## kpedersen (Jul 9, 2010)

Hello guys,

Thanks a lot for the testing 

I only have provided 32 bit binaries, but I will compile some 64 bit ones as soon as I can get on an appropriate machine.

*fronclynne*, As to the not responding bug you have come across, I am at a loss to ideas or suggestions. I can only guess that the application is trying to read from standard input and thus blocking the execution of OpenCDE??

Did you compile wxWidgets against the OpenMotif (64bit package?) before you compiled OpenCDE? I cannot seem to reproduce it on 32 bit.

I will have a think


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## fronclynne (Jul 9, 2010)

I'll fiddle with it more later, but my first hunch is that dtpanel is hanging.  Is there a verbose mode or any way to capture or log messages?   I don't get anything interesting on the console or in /var/log/messages (nor /var/log/Xorg.0.log ).


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## kpedersen (Jul 10, 2010)

If there are any errors, they should show up on standard output (I think that goes to /var/log/message), but have a look using (ctrl-alt-f1) next time it freezes.

The majority of fatal errors should show up in a message dialog and then just abort the current event handler so OpenCDE *should* be pretty robust.

If you have time, use .xinitrc to...


```
[opencde path]/bin/dtwm &
xterm
```

and then manually start *[opencde path]/bin/dtpanel* using xterm.

and tell me any errors that come up in the xterm. Also let me know if it is trying to take input in the xterm (as that is the only way I know it can freeze like that whilst using sudo in the shutdown / restart functions).

Thanks for your help! (also in desktop 3 and 4 you should see your background )

Best Regards


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## kpedersen (Jul 10, 2010)

Ok, I built OpenCDE on an amd64 8.0-RELEASE system and it seemed to work perfectly. This suggests that something installed on your setup is conflicting with the panel. Do you use hald, or do you use *Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"* in your xorg.conf?

I have added the amd64 binaries to the opencde downloads section, so my seggestion to to try them out. Perhaps you built wxWidgets (wxMotif) with the *--screwup-after-a-few-clicks* option...

As usual, just extract anywhere and add *<opencde directory>/bin/opencde* to your *.xinitrc* or *.xsession* files.

Delete *$HOME/.opencde* folder too just in case.

When I get time, I will look into adding wxMotif and OpenCDE to the ports collection

Cheers,


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## mghis (Jul 12, 2010)

*You done an excellent work!!* *Thank you!!*
I installed your DE on all my PCs! I love that old-fashioned feeling!

Another file manager that uses a Motif toolkit is XPLORE. It is really old but it looks very well on OpenCDE. Maybe you should change a bit of code and add it to OpenCDE. Xplore is released under GPL version 2 license. Another nice file manager is xfm. I hope you appreciate my suggestions.

*Thanks again!*


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## fronclynne (Jul 12, 2010)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Ok, I built OpenCDE on an amd64 8.0-RELEASE system and it seemed to work perfectly. This suggests that something installed on your setup is conflicting with the panel. Do you use hald, or do you use *Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"* in your xorg.conf?
> 
> I have added the amd64 binaries to the opencde downloads section, so my seggestion to to try them out. Perhaps you built wxWidgets (wxMotif) with the *--screwup-after-a-few-clicks* option...



Oh, uh, I'll try it without that option next time 

I use the *Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"*. I'll fiddle with it a little to-day using your dtpanel idea.  Thanks, by the way.


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## fronclynne (Jul 12, 2010)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> If there are any errors, they should show up on standard output (I think that goes to /var/log/message), but have a look using (ctrl-alt-f1) next time it freezes.
> 
> The majority of fatal errors should show up in a message dialog and then just abort the current event handler so OpenCDE *should* be pretty robust.
> 
> ...



I get

```
$HOME/opencde/bin/../bin/mwmext: bad desktop number '0'
```
when I try to start dtpanel manually and no window decorations, no panel.

Whoops, my bad, I was trying to start dwm not dtwm.  Duh.

It still refuses to accept input after some arbitrary number of clicks without printing any excuses.


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## kpedersen (Sep 2, 2010)

That freeze bug is due to a problem with mwm and xorg-7.5+

The latest version of OpenCDE has a hack to prevent this (sloppy focus)

I sent an email to the mwm devs (http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?p=100192#post100192)


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## DemoDoG (Apr 5, 2011)

Is there a workable package made for FreeBSD 8.2 32 bit?


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## sk8harddiefast (Apr 5, 2011)

The latest release works fine  Don't exist on ports right now, but is easy to install it  Download it from http://devio.us/~kpedersen/


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## kpedersen (Apr 5, 2011)

Yeah there is no port yet, but since OpenCDE is primarily developed on FreeBSD, it should all compile quite easily.

I predict that making a port might be quite tricky because of the fact that I am using suid bit binaries (dtauth) to run admin tasks (rather than a daemon such as dbus/hald etc...) so I am not sure how FreeBSD ports/packages allow that (I know OpenBSD complains)

Currently I am working hard on my university dissertation, but once this is finished, there will be many improvements in OpenCDE and it's port.


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## DemoDoG (Apr 7, 2011)

Does it work with openmotif from the ports or you recommend compiling the latest from them? Does that itself have any particular dependencies?


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## sk8harddiefast (Apr 7, 2011)

Yep. Me too, I installed openmotif from ports and openmotif has no other dependencies


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