8. System and User NsCDE Tree Layout

This section describes in detail what is stored where in NsCDE system-wide installation hierarchy, and user's home directory .NsCDE or $FVWM_USERDIR.

8.1. System Tree Layout

Everything from NsCDE is for now located as one compact place for easier portability between Linux and Unix systems in /opt/NsCDE. Only symlink to main starting wrapper /opt/NsCDE/bin/nscde is feasible to be put into /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin, since /opt/NsCDE/bin doesn't really need tobe put in user's $PATH.

This are subdirectories of /opt/NsCDE with short description what is what, and what is where:

  • /opt/NsCDE

    main top directory of NsCDE installation all further descriptions will be written as relative to this directory

  • bin

    nscde start wrapper called from .xsession or integrated as .desktop file in /usr/share/xsession is located here, as well as some helper scripts of the NsCDE which are suitable for general use. Front Panel pclock is also here. Pclock is the only binary part of the NsCDE

  • config

    Configuration directory. All .conf files described in documentation are here. They are read from config/NsCDE-Main.conf which is called from bin/nscde by fvwm binary with -f directly.

  • lib/progbits

    Template X pixmap files used by Color Style Manager for producing user's copy in the $FVWM_USERDIR/icons/NsCDE/ this pixmaps are invalid as pictures in their source form since they contain internal macros for replacement with real colors. System starting theme is using their copied in share/icons/NsCDE.

  • lib/python

    Python libraries used by themegen.py: part of the integration suite for GTK and Qt.

  • libexec

    The rest of the scripts (korn shell and python) are located here. In normal circumstances this scripts should not be run directly, but they are used by numerous NsCDE FvwmScript apps and FVWM functions as helpers and background program workers.

  • share/backdrops

    Backdrop files. CDE and new, additional. Source for generation of active user's backdrop depending on theme, that is color scheme. They have .pm extension instead of .xpm. Bitmap files .bm (.xbm) are not supported by style managers and hence some of CDE's original backdrops of that type are in NsCDE converted to X pixmaps.

  • share/cursors

    Custom cursors which are missing on plain X server installations but can be found in CDE. Referenced in config/NsCDE-Style.conf.

  • share/defaults/backer

    Default generated backdrops for first start (Broica, 8 colors) Referenced in system's config/NsCDE-Backdrops.conf.

  • share/defaults/pages

    Default page names for every possible combination supported by NsCDE

  • share/doc

    Documentation

  • share/doc/examples

    Examples for X display manager and DE integrations, sudo for shutdown reboot, pm-suspend or pm-hibernate, Gkrellm NsCDE skin.

  • share/fontsets

    Default font sets used by the Font Style Manager

  • share/icons/CDE

    Original CDE icons

  • share/icons/NsCDE

    Custom NsCDE icons of which many are part of FvwmScript programs and applets

  • share/palettes

    CDE palettes plus a bunch of new custom palettes. Used by Color Style Manager and Backdrop Style Manager, as well as libexec/themegen.py, libexec/backdropmgr, libexec/colormgr, libexec/nscde_palette_colorgen.py

  • share/photos

    A couple of nice free photos collected and resized for various screen resolutions. Can be used instead of backdrops (selectable from Backdrop Style Manager) or in $HOME/.xscreensaver for some screensavers which are loading photos.

  • share/config_templates/app-defaults

    X resources for a particular X applications (like XTerm) which are processed by the Color Style Manager for user to be put into $FVWM_USERDIR/app-defaults (if enabled). Referenced by the usual XAPPLRESDIR environment variable.

  • share/config_templates/integration/gtk2_gtk3_qt

    Part of the CDE theme which are used by libexec/themegen.py and the rest of lib/python/*.py to generate $HOME/.themes/NsCDE with a selected palette and color depth.

    share/config_templates also contains Xdefaults and some include files for it, as well as configuration for stalonetray which is installed on initial setup, and BGdefault, which is a monochrome pixmap loaded as bare default early on start, before FvwmBacker(1) sets up backdrops on each user's workspace. From there, on initial setup, default Xsettingsd.conf, Stalonetray.conf, Dunst.conf, colormgr.local and possibly other files are installed into user's $FVWM_USERDIR.

  • src

    Here is the patch for fvwm 2.6.7 and 2.6.8 which adds additional small features to fvwm, so we can achieve even more similarity between NsCDE and CDE. See Section 19, “Patches for FVWM” for the details.

  • src/pclock-0.13.1

    Latest version of pclock. Provided as C source (plus FreeBSD 12 binary) for non-Linux systems and Linux distributions where default binary cannot work (no matter how small and modest dependencies it has)