https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/default_window_manager_switched_to
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September 28, 2020 posted by Nia Alarie
For more than 20 years, NetBSD has shipped X11 with the "classic"
default window manager of twm. However, it's been showing its age for
a long time now.
In 2015, ctwm was imported, but after that no progress was made.
ctwm is a fork of twm with some extra features - the primary advantages
are that it's still incredibly lightweight, but highly configurable,
and has support for virtual desktops, as well as a NetBSD-compatible
license and ongoing development. Thanks to its configuration options,
we can provide a default experience that's much more usable to people
experienced with other operating systems.
Recently, I've been installing NetBSD with some people in real life
and was inspired by their reactions to the default twm to improve the
situation, so I played with ctwm, wrote a config, and used it myself
for a week. It's now the default in NetBSD-current.
We gain some nice features like an auto-generated application menu
(that will fill up as packages are installed to /usr/pkg), and a range
of useful keyboard shortcuts including volume controls - the default
config should be fully usable without a mouse. It should also work at
a range of screen resolutions. We can add HiDPI support after some
larger bitmap fonts are imported - another advantage of ctwm is that
we can support very slow and very fast hardware with one config.
If you're curious about ctwm, check out the [41]ctwm website. It's also
included in previous NetBSD releases, though not as the default window
manager and not with this config. [......]
41. https://www.ctwm.org/index.html
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