I solved this problem by rebuilding WindowMaker from source. Before the build, I
had to patch the source to ensure compatibility with gcc 4.3.

Could you attach the patch?

Verified the problem by trying to run windowmaker from a fresh account, in case
it was something with my existing conf files.  No dice, always a signal 11 a
fraction of a second after starting the initial draw of the desktop.

Aha, I found further info from Srinath here:

  http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=188334

which references a patch on a Brazilian linux forum.

Happy to test out anything you can cook up, Andreas!

I can confirm that I've seen this on two independent i386 F 9 installations. 
FWIW rpmbuild from src rpm also fixed the problem for me (I don't even recall
patching for GCC 4.3, but chances are I simply forgot about it).  This is the
stack trace I'm getting, in case it helps...

$ ftrace -f -sig=segv/s -- wmaker
9884.9884 attached /usr/bin/wmaker
9885.9885 attached /usr/bin/wmaker
9886.9886 attached /usr/bin/wmaker
9887.9887 attached /bin/bash
9886.9886 exited with status 0
9887.9887 exited with status 0
9885.9885 signal SIGSEGV
9885.9885 dumping stack trace:
Task #9885
#0 0x08070bf8 in handleExpose ()
#1 0x00152da7 in WMHandleEvent ()
#2 0x0809520f in StartUp ()
#3 0x08078ac8 in main ()
#4 0x004b55d6 in __libc_start_main ()
#5 0x0804f9a1 in _start ()
9885.9885 killed by SIGSEGV(11)
9884.9884 exited with status 1

I tried to do a scratch rebuild:
  http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=676485
and resulting i386 binaries work for me.  Seems like all that's necessary is
simple bump & rebuild.  And no patch seems to be necessary for GCC 4.3.

it works for me.

THANKS

Reopening the bug, stock Fedora 9 WindowMaker still sigsegvs.

Andreas: My sincere apologies for not having responded in a timely fashion. I've
been running WindowMaker on F9 (built from source). It is very very stable :-)

As mentioned earlier, there is a patch that needs to be applied in order to get
it to build with Gcc 4.3. Also there is another issue with a missing symbolic
link that causes WPrefs to load without the tiff pixmaps for the buttons. I've
reported these on forums.fedoraforum.org.

Since the configure, make and make install logs are in my laptop at home, I will
post the instructions here tonight. Once again very sorry for not having responded.

Created attachment 310742 [details]
Patch file for gcc 4.x compatibility

The original patch source is here -->
http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://www.vivaolinux.com.br/dicas/verDica.php%3Fcodigo%3D10364&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=5&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522can%2527t%2Bfind%2Ba%2Bregister%
2Bin%2Bclass%2B%2527GENERAL_REGS%2527%2Bwhile%2522
%2Bwindowmaker%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Created attachment 310743 [details]
configure script log

Window Maker configure log.

Created attachment 310744 [details]
make log

make log

Created attachment 310745 [details]
make install log

make install log

Instructions:

tar xzvf WindowMaker-0.92.0.tar.gz
patch WindowMaker-0.92.0/wrlib/x86_specific.c < windowmaker-gcc4.patch.txt
./configure --x-includes=/usr/include/X11/ --x-libraries=/usr/lib/ >
configure.log 2>&1
make > make.log 2>&1
make install > make_install.log 2>&1

After Window Maker is installed, it seems that the WPrefs utility is unable to
find the installed pixmaps necessary for the buttons. This can be easily fixed
by creating an appropriate symbolic link as discussed here[1]

References:

[1]  http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=188334

Just an FYI: The official Window Maker webpage (http://windowmaker.info/) just
came online today!

Madhavan, the patch is not necessary, I've already done a scratch build to prove
that.  Also, is there a reason you are building from source, instead from cvs
checkout or src rpm?

Anyway, lack of action on Andreas' side makes me think that perhaps he is in a
serious shortage of personal time right now, so I dared to step ahead and do a
bump and rebuild myself.  I hope that it's not a problem.

WindowMaker-0.92.0-18.fc9 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 9

Hi Petr,

When you say CVS do you mean stock Window Maker CVS or the CVS for Fedora 9? If
the src RPM has been updated, I would like to give it a shot.

I meant CVS from Fedora 9.  Mere rebuild, patch-less, was enough to fix
WindowMaker.  It will be great if you try new WindowMaker package as soon as it
hits stable repository!
(Since it's completely broken anyway as it is, I chose to push it to stable
instead of to testing.)

Thanks! Will do.

WindowMaker-0.92.0-18.fc9 has been pushed to the Fedora 9 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Installed WindowMaker 0.92.0-18 using yum. Running nicely; so far no problems.
Thanks Petr!!

WindowMaker-0.92.0-18.fc9 has been pushed to the Fedora 9 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.