So the one thing I haven't figured out to do on this ubuntu laptop is restart wireless from the oh-god-I'm-not-in-ubuntu's-window-manage r-but-instead-fvwm side of the world. What I have been doing in the past is logging out, logging back in under ubuntu's-window-manager-and-oh-god-"desk top"-"environment" in order to get wireless up and running, and then go back to my precious fvwm2. This morning I tried to see if I could rejigger preferences within ubuntu's default wm ("metacity" I think it's called?) to see if I could happily live there. I realize that most of what I want is just virtual desktop navigation with my favorite burned-into-my-brain-for-12-years keyboard shortcuts. F2 toggle maximization, F3 is toggle stickiness, F4 is toggle raisedness. And Shift-F1 is "create new terminal". Ctrl-Shift-Arrow Keys move around virtual desktops. That's just how the world is, people . There's no point in trying to change the world with your youthful enthusiasm GET OFF MY LAWN. Ahem. Anyway I was nearly happy, nearly having achieved all the bindings I wanted, except that apparently no matter what key I assigned to "toggle raisedness" and "toggle stickiness" in ubuntu's keyboard shortcuts preferences dialog, it... didn't actually toggle anything when I pressed them. Everything else worked fine, though, mysteriously. I found this bug on the forums, though, and so I tried turning off "visual effects" the number of which I had noticed to date was zero. And that, um, fixed my problem. Way to go, ubuntu programmers. I don't know how you made "visual effects" make basic some (but only some) window manager operations totally not work , but you sure did.