twm was fine in natty.  however since maverick it hasn't worked in
vnc, and now in precise and quantal things are mangled such that twm
is unusable in X.  depending on various circumstances, either twm
won't launch, or if it is up, various other apps won't launch, or
won't work properly.

twm is tiny, simple, and easy.  i like that.  but that's only the
beginning.  i like that i can place active window icons anywhere on
the desktop, focus unstolen by appearing windows, title bars that
don't span the whole window width, vert zoom, horiz zoom, left zoom,
right zoom, top zoom, bottom zoom..

does another window manager have many, or even any, of these features,
or could one be configured to have them?

or is it possible to splice twm into some other desktop environment?
WINDOW_MANAGER=/usr/bin/twm gnome-session
doesn't work.

xpdf is another example of something that has not worked since
oneiric.  is there hope for twm and xpdf in ubuntu's future, or is the
world according to ubuntu happy to kill them off?