KiDEr

I. What

This website is devoted to the (admittedly cranky and entirely self-imposed) task of creating a "macintosh-like desktop" in Linux. To do this, I combined Mlvwm (the Macinitosh Like Virtual Window Manager created and maintained by Takashi Hasegawa) with the KDE filemanager, Kfm. While Mlvwm is not KDE-aware, it is not KDE-antagonistic and seems to have no obvious problems running Kfm. I have dubbed this project "KiDEr" (pronounced "sei.der"). In no way is this website motivated by a worship of (or even a concern for) the Apple Corporation.

II. Screenshots

NEW! KiDEr for LinuxPPC and Mklinux!
More details and special instructions to follow.

Latest screenshot
N.B. I have not written a Mlvwmrc for Mozilla, so none appears in the screenshot.

Running on a Pentium 166 (80 megs of RAM and 4 meg STB Velocity 128) under SuSE 6.2.

III. Why

Lots of 'window managers' (e.g., Enlightenment and WindowMaker) are feature-rich but, correspondingly, can take a deep hit out of your system resources. Almost all -- except the minimalistic ones -- present a simple choice between either launch-bars on the top or on the bottom and/or application docks on the left or on the right. The new 'desktop environments' (i.e., Gnome and KDE) expand upon these basic possibilities but are even more system intensive. However, they also offer important functionality such as global file-typing and drag-and-drop. And, they come much closer to the ideal of a complete graphical user interface (GUI) where both windows and files are managed in a uniform environment (GUI = window manager + file manager). Hence, the choice one faces is between the competing demands of speed and functionality (with an eye to the perfect compromise between the two).

Fortunately, Mlvwm is a very light window manager which, nonetheless, has many valuable features. I find Kpanel sluggish and the menubar in Mlvwm takes up far fewer (25) pixels. Hence, this solution reflects my chosen compromise, one which results, in part, from my conviction that the original screen layout of the desktop metaphor (present in the earliest Mac OS versions) has not been improved upon.

The ultimate goal would not be merely to blindly ape this layout but to expand (and possibly improve) upon the original idea. The end result is a familiar graphical environment with file-typing and drag-and-drop but, in addition, one now providing a) true multi-tasking, b) network transparency, c) command-line options, and d) multiple desktops. And, like Linux in general, it's pretty much crash-proof.

IV. How To

The steps below assume that you have already installed KDE subsequent to the required Qt libs. Of course, all this is much easier if you have an RPM-based system.

1. Install the "MacOS theme", if it is not already included in your package. Move the desktop icons to their appropriate positions and create new links (as needed) in "/root/Desktop/". Start the KDE Control Center, go to "desktop", then to "desktop icons", and reverse the icon foreground/background color (from white on black to black on white).

2. Install Mlvwm. I have been able to compile earlier versions from source only after modifying the files by hand. However, the latest version (0.9.1 - 27 June 2000) doesn't seem to have any problems. You might look for an RPM package suitable for your libs/distribution. (Unfortunately most of the RPMs are out of date.)

3. Place an .mlvwmrc in your home directory and modify it to your heart's content. I added an additional desk, changed the mouse focus, and made my own "Apple menu" (replacing the red pixmap with one of Tux). (Note that I have not inserted "Apple logos" and the like anywhere on the screen: the goal is to 'react' like the Mac not just to 'look' like it.)

4. Now you have three different options. (1) Create an .xinitrc in your home directory which follows the guidelines for integrating the Blackbox wm with KDE (of course, replacing the final line 'blackbox' with 'mlvwm'). You can probably eliminate the audio/sound options if you don't use a soundcard in Linux. If the file manager insists on opening a window you don't want, then insert '-d' after kfm in the .xinitrc file. (2) Alternately, place the KDE commands in the "initial function" section of your .mlvwmrc and have your .xinitrc consist of a single line "exec mlvwm". (3) Finally, backup your "startkde" script and modify it as follows: replace 'kwm' with 'mlvwm' and remove 'start kpanel'. N.B. You should only do one of these and always create backups of your original scripts (.xinitrc, .mlvwmrc, startkde, etc.) before modifying them in case you botch them. As you may discover, .mlvwmrc is very particular about order and syntax.

5. Add required programs to your menu (if you wish). Besides the excellent KDE apps, two mac-like ones are tkAbout and Tkchooser. In the pictures above, I am using Kgoodstuff as though it were DragStrip.

6. I have (for my own purposes) made one major change: I have taken the menu options from Mac OS X and bound them to the desktop/root window. Individual programs do not modify the menubar; instead, they add an (individually named) application menu next to Xeyes. When multiple applications are running, the one that displays is the window with focus. I then made some of the fixed main options work using k (a wrapper script) to activate Kfm functions.

V. Links

I see now that someone tried this with DFM. In fact, here is an entire article in Linux-Magazin (if you read German). You can use the earlier version of DFM (which relies upon Xforms rather than Gtk) if you don't have a libc6 system. The nice thing about Mlvwm is its minimal resource requirements. However, if you are trying to squeeze the last bit out of a underpowered system, you might try menu with your favorite light-weight window manager..

Here is another Mlvwm page.

Here is a solution which uses Kwm and Kpanel.

If you have horsepower to spare, you can run Enlightenment (with the Apple Platinum theme) and KFM (as the screenshots at the link demonstrate).

A very promising application is Xwf -- it has a mac-look and has its own Mlwmrc. It comes bundled with Xap and requires glib/gtk+. Right now it is only "beta" but one of the great things about it is the ample number of keyboard shortcuts. Here is a screenshot of Mlvwm and Xwf.

Of course, you can also run Mlvwm with Gnome. Here is (yet) another screenshot. One reason to prefer KDE is since Mlvwm is not Gnome-compliant, root window clicks will not work. An alternative is Gnome/Sawfish with the menu panel, Finder applet, Platinum themes, etc. This is what I do on my powerful new Duron homebuilt system.

If you are dying for some apple pixmaps, look here. Likewise, lots of cool icons (which have to be converted -- I use ico2xpm) here.

I've been collecting together Mlvwm screenshots. I got them from all over the web and lots have been renamed. I can't credit the original makers. If you want credit or otherwise object, contact me. These are of varying size, quality and interest: a lot are Japanese desktops. Also represented are operating systems such as IRIX and some of the BSDs.

P.S. Since I have experimenting with FreeBSD, I recommend the following article for those (like myself) far more used to Linux/System V.

VI. Update

Unfortunately there are significant changes in KDE2 that make this technique difficult. Likewise, the changes reflect a move toward a more Windows-like environment. The best alternative at present (barring the addition of Gnome support to Mlvwm) is Ximian Gnome. In 1.4, the menu panel approximates the Macintosh one in size, shape and features (it includes the task-switching facility in the correct place, etc). A nice light window manager to use (with Mac decorations) is "Oroborus." A final screenshot.