In order to use fvwm95 as your window manager, you must change your .xinitrc or .xsession appropriately and add a line similar to the following: exec ${PREFIX}/bin/fvwm95 Icons have been installed into ${PREFIX}/icons, and a system wide configuration has been put in ${PREFIX}/lib/X11/fvwm95/system.fvwm95rc. To use your own configuration, copy ${PREFIX}/lib/X11/fvwm95/system.fvwm95rc to ~/.fvwm95rc and edit as appropriate.