Window Maker Live CD

Window Maker Live CD is an open source, live and installable distribution of Linux based on the award winning Debian GNU/Linux operating system and built around the Window Maker window manager.

Available for download as 64-bit/32-bit Live CDs

The distribution is available for download as a Live CD ISO images, designed to support the 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. While the 32-bit edition will boot on both 32-bit and 64-bit machines, it will only support 32-bit applications. On the other hand, the 64-bit edition boots only on 64-bit computers and supports both 32-bit and 64-bit software.

Boot options

While the bootloader of the Live CDs has been highly customized, you can immediately notice that it is based on a Debian distribution. It will allow the user to start the live session for the respective architecture (see the above section for details) or permanently install the operating system on a local drive.

Old-school graphical desktop environment powered by Window Maker

As its name suggests, Window Maker Live CD is an operating system system distributed as a Live CD and built around the Window Maker project, which is its default graphical desktop environment.

Window Maker is one of the strangest desktop environments/window managers ever created. It does not feature any panels, but only some sorts of launchers, called docklets. To access the main menu and launch applications, one must right click anywhere on the desktop.

Default applications

Default applications include the Pidgin multi-protocol instant messenger, Mozilla Thunderbird email and news client, Seahorse password manager, Mousepad text editor, FileZilla file transfer client, Thunar file manager, Geeqie image viewer, Rhythmbox music player, SMPlayer video player and Mozilla Firefox web browser.

Bottom line

In conclusion, Window Maker Live CD is a decent operating system that should be used only by fans of the Window Maker window manager.

What is new in this release:

• Both firefox and thunderbird are not preinstalled anymore into the static squashfs of the live system. Instead, the upstream archives are now shipped separetely on the ISO image within the top level "custom" folder. These archives are then automaticaly unpacked at run time of the live session or during installation to disk. This not only enables users to easily replace the contained english language Mozilla applications with different language versions, but also allows for updating these release versions with newer ones featuring both bug and security fixes, and without having to download more recent wmlive ISO images. To comfortably edit and modify the ISO image, the wmlive built in isomaster application can be used.
• If an archive named "custom.tar.xz" and/or "custom.tar.bz2" is found in the top level ./custom folder on the ISO, it is automatically unpacked to the / directory during runtime of the live session or installation. This can be used for subsequent modifications of configuration settings which were formerly hardcoded into the squashfs during the creation of the wmlive ISO, but also for the installation of additional third party applications which are not usually included in the Debian archives.
• UltraBay hot plugging for ThinkPads was reimplemented from scratch and included as a proper debian package. It was verified to work for at least ThinkPad models T60 and T61. Further feedback is welcome! Additionally, when an UltraBay battery is inserted, standard battery discharge order will automatically switch to first drain the main battery instead of the UltraBay battery, in order to override the unfortunate manufacturer default.
• Hibernation support has been overhauled and optimized. It should now work out of the box, both in virtualized and real computers. During our tests we never had any issues with failing hibernation.
• The ISO image contains an archive with the complete tree of the build scripts used to create this very image in the top level 'extras' directory. It contains everything you need to recreate a customized version of the wmlive ISO. The build scripts are copied to /usr/local/src/wmlive during the final stages of the installation to disk. As verified, the wmlive ISO is properly rebuilt as long as download access for the debian archives is provided.

What is new in version 0.95.6-2:

• Both firefox and thunderbird are not preinstalled anymore into the static squashfs of the live system. Instead, the upstream archives are now shipped separetely on the ISO image within the top level "custom" folder. These archives are then automaticaly unpacked at run time of the live session or during installation to disk. This not only enables users to easily replace the contained english language Mozilla applications with different language versions, but also allows for updating these release versions with newer ones featuring both bug and security fixes, and without having to download more recent wmlive ISO images. To comfortably edit and modify the ISO image, the wmlive built in isomaster application can be used.
• If an archive named "custom.tar.xz" and/or "custom.tar.bz2" is found in the top level ./custom folder on the ISO, it is automatically unpacked to the / directory during runtime of the live session or installation. This can be used for subsequent modifications of configuration settings which were formerly hardcoded into the squashfs during the creation of the wmlive ISO, but also for the installation of additional third party applications which are not usually included in the Debian archives.
• UltraBay hot plugging for ThinkPads was reimplemented from scratch and included as a proper debian package. It was verified to work for at least ThinkPad models T60 and T61. Further feedback is welcome! Additionally, when an UltraBay battery is inserted, standard battery discharge order will automatically switch to first drain the main battery instead of the UltraBay battery, in order to override the unfortunate manufacturer default.
• Hibernation support has been overhauled and optimized. It should now work out of the box, both in virtualized and real computers. During our tests we never had any issues with failing hibernation.
• The ISO image contains an archive with the complete tree of the build scripts used to create this very image in the top level 'extras' directory. It contains everything you need to recreate a customized version of the wmlive ISO. The build scripts are copied to /usr/local/src/wmlive during the final stages of the installation to disk. As verified, the wmlive ISO is properly rebuilt as long as download access for the debian archives is provided.

What is new in version 2012-03-18:

• Desktop related changes:
• In addition to standard international English, support also for French, German, Portuguese and Spanish has been added. You can now install an (almost) fully localized system with these languages. Nonetheless, both Firefox and Thunderbird are provided only in English language version, and you are required to download and install localized versions yourself, if the need arises.
• The roxterm-gtk2 terminal emulator fully replaces gnome-terminal as the default terminal program, as it supports all the features which were formerly thought to be only covered by gnome-terminal. As both are not needed anymore, gnome-terminal and also xfce4-terminal have been completely removed.
• ROX filer is now provided as an additional file manager option and replaces thunar as the default file manager application available in the dock's first logo icon for left mouse button clicks. As before, middle mouse click still launches WPrefs. While thunar had to cede its entry in the main dock icon to rox-filer, it will stay installed and available as an alternative file management tool.
• The preferences backup facility has been reorganized. During the first time ever login, a backup of the current default configuration is created. And whenever the user performs a restore of any former preferences setting, the restore script automatically creates a backup of the current settings prior to actually performing the restoration process.
• Added the Audacity audio editor, the handbrake-gtk video encoder, and the mirage image viewer, which replaces ristretto.
• Added the pyhoca-gui x2go client packages to default install, replacing the formerly installed binary only NX packages.
• Under the hood:
• Reworked the wmlive-debian-install script, in order to inform the user how to handle a failing start up of the installer, and added a reboot option after successful installation to disk. This should help to make the installation much more straight forward.
• Added the debian-multimedia.org and the x2go repositories as additional apt sources options.
• Packaged wmlaptop2 as proper Debian package, which is now directly installed into the live system squashfs image without any further complaints by apt.
• The formerly not very well working apt-pinning configuration was completely overhauled and now fully works as intended. So no more unexpected dependency related installation disruptions should occur when updating the system from the official Debian package sources.

What is new in version 2012-03-11:

• Desktop related changes:
• The Window Maker root menu has been substantially enhanced, and now offers a preferences backup and restore facility, a much more versatile and customizable AutoStart management feature, a simple means for manipulating the Debian menu file entries and, last not least, a much better Applications menu layout.
• The Debian related applications menu layout and entries have been moved to be under full user control. More than a hundred of customized menu files were added to the user controlled ~/.menu directory while still maintaining compatibility with the system 'update-menus' script.
• The GTK2-Step theme integration has been much enhanced, making it work independently of the gnome-settings-daemon.
• The debian-installer now uses a different GTK2 theme definition, in order to look at least a bit more STEPish.
• Among a few other minor packages, the 'backintime-gnome' backup program was added to the default system installation. Support utilities for xdg based menus were removed as they were not used by any of the installed applications.
• Under the hood:
• The system is now mainly based on wheezy/testing with the few Gnome related components being taken from squeeze/stable, and no further packages from the sid/unstable branch, in order to reduce the latent possibility of unexpected breakage.
• When performing an installation parallel to another operating system on disk, the grub boot menu will now be automagically updated with the suitable entries for dual booting once the freshly installed Debian Linux system has been booted for the first time.
• The wmlive-fix-grub-install script was enhanced with an automagic fix for the creation of the /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/cryptroot configuration file, which is required for the associated initrd based boot mechanism. Before, any installation to an encrypted LVM unexpectedly failed by leaving the fully installed machine in an unbootable state, because the missing configuration file is not automatically created during the installation stages of the debian-installer.
• Many more small fixes and enhancements, which are far too numerous and minuscule to be mentioned separately.