Help me build a "minimalist" and wonderful desktop! :)

celsofaf · 2007-07-07 00:00:59

Hello all!

I've been using Arch with KDEmod for a while - and loving it! But I also have XFCE installed and various GTK-based programs, and a lot of more crap, and I always end up using much more RAM than needed; I have 512MB of RAM.

For the last days I've been experimenting OpenBox a bit, and I like it. Still need to get used to it, but it's fine, just a matter of time and will to learn, I suppose. So, I came up with an idea... to build a "minimalist" desktop for me, not wasting RAM and fast and efficient, yet pleasant to use and nice looking - even if just as an experiment! Since I got some unused HDD partitions, I will do it without affecting my current desktop. A fresh new install.

What do I need now? I need suggestions. Basicaly, I need:

- A window manager; probably OpenBox?
- A music player and, perhaps, a video player. Amarok, Kaffeine and other KDE apps are out!
- An instant messenger supporting at least Jabber, MSN and Yahoo.
- A bittorrent client. Yes, I do use Transmission but... Is there any even lighter one?

I'd like to build my desktop as simple as possible, simple in the sense of avoiding "garbage" dependencies. In fact, I don't realy know how to explain what I want but, just to put it simply, I want to be as efficient as I can and to use the least of my CPU and RAM.

Suggestions? I'm open.

Hohoho · 2007-07-07 00:37:41

WM: Openbox, you can also use something like PyPanel.
Music player: MPD + Sonata or GMPC
Instant messenger: Pidgin
Bittorrent client: Deluge

Mandor · 2007-07-07 01:02:02

2 out of 3 seconded.
About the music - may be the simplest choice id mpd with some client - if it has to be graphical, Sonata seems fine.
Instant messenger - Pidgin, if you really need yahoo and msn.
For bittorrent, however, just use rtorrent - it's so ultimately superior to the rest that I find no real alternative - but it actually matters if you keep high traffic - tens of Mbps. As it's cli, it's perfect for screen. There are only two drawbacks - no DHT and no option (at least I failed to find it) to allocate all disk space before downloading. If these does not bother you seriously, rtorrent is perfect. It's one of those great cli apps - once you get used to it (and it's trivial), you never change it. Just a tip choose it - configure it to 'listen' a dir, so when you download a torrent file in it, it starts the content download automatically.

As for WM - Openbox is quite good, if you don't want to mess with vanguard conceptual window managers. You just need to find the right panel-like-thing - no advice here.

Borosai · 2007-07-07 02:25:14

- WM: Openbox is a good choice for a minimal WM. At the moment, I'm using it without a panel, and it's fine.
- Music: Like others have said, MPD is great for managing music on your hard drive, but it doesn't play CDs and is relatively simple. It doesn't do a lot, but it does what it does very well. If you want to use as many terminal apps as possible, you can use ncmpc as a client. If you prefer GTK, there are a few, including Sonata and GMPC. If you want a relatively lightweight music player that can play CDs, try Audacious.
- IM: I've only used Pidgin, so I don't know what else to recommend. It works.
- Bittorent: This one is interesting. If you want a GTK app, Transmission is nice, but limited in some features. Deluge is more complete, but maybe not as minimal as you want. Rtorrent is a more robust option at the command line, but I haven't used it. Lately, I've been messing around with aria2, which handles torrent files as well. It's actually quite good, except I think I need to forward my port, so I haven't tested it out on torrents yet. However, nice options are available, like selective downloading and allocating disk space (I think).

If you are looking to use as many cli programs as possible, I can recommend a few. Also, I would recommend Nitrogen to set your wallpaper, ePDFView for PDFs, and Mirage as an image viewer.

Have fun.

cry0x · 2007-07-07 08:28:53

I absolutely love Openbox. A very lightweight panel-like application called Visibility is a pretty popular compliment to the window manager. Check out the screenshots thread if you'd like to see it in action.

For the IM client, like others have said, Pidgin does the job well, isn't a resource hog, and integrates well with Openbox and a good GTK theme.

As far as bittorrent goes, Transmission, Deluge, and rtorrent are all pretty good. Depending on your requirements, one will suit your needs better. If all you ever do is open torrent files and start downloading, Transmission is excellent. If you need more options, tracker info, or encryption, Deluge is fantastic. If you have the time to learn the ins-and-outs of a CLI client, rtorrent is second to none.

Edit: I second the suggestions for Nitrogen and Mirage. Two very fantastic applications! As a file manager I used to use Rox, but Thunar is now my favorite.

Last edited by cry0x (2007-07-07 08:30:43)

kano · 2007-07-07 08:34:25

WM: Openbox with visibility or ttm. I use feh to set wallpaper.
Music: Def. MPD + client. sonata for GUI, ncmpc if you're really tight on memory and don't mind having to control MPD from a terminal
IM: pidgin. is there really any other option?
bitorrent: rtorrent+screen. i have mine setup so I can drop torrents in ~/Downloads/torrents and it starts automatically DLing to ~/Downloads. With it running in screen, you can even log off and it'll keep going

Last edited by kano (2007-07-07 08:35:20)

cactus · 2007-07-07 15:26:23

I would recommend:

wm: openbox
music: exaile
video: vlc, mplayer, or xine
IM: jabber. Use transports for other protocols. I use gajim for jabbering.
torrent: deluge or rtorrent

daf666 · 2007-07-07 15:37:23

Go with XFCE, maximum functionality, minimum hassle, it keeps out of your way.
All those other WM's + components are cool, but I would recommend them only for machines with a very specific purpose, not a desktop or workstation.

Borosai · 2007-07-07 15:56:40

Oh, I forgot MPlayer. Doh.

Snork · 2007-07-10 00:04:58

Well, I use fluxbox, but you can sub what you want. I keep a file of all the additions I make to the base system I install. Here's the stuff that may help you get where you want to be.

                Order of upgrades/installs to do:

pacman -Sy pacman

pacman -Syu

pacman -Sy openssh

pacman -Sy xorg

pacman -Sy font-bh-ttf font-bitstream-speedo gsfonts ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-dejavu xorg-fonts-100dpi xorg-fonts-75dpi xorg-fonts-alias xorg-fonts-encodings xorg-fonts-misc xorg-fonts-type1 artwiz-fonts ttf-cheapskate ttf-fireflysung ttf-isabella ttf-junicode ttf-mph-2b-damase ttf-ms-fonts

pacman -Sy xorg-apps

pacman -Sy xterm aterm xlockmore xautolock

pacman -Sy feh
For fluxbox to setup wallpapers.

pacman -Sy fluxbox

pacman -Sy dnsutils ntp mutt

pacman -Sy alsa-utils

pacman -Sy firefox
pacman -Sy gxine
        For the mozilla plugin.

pacman -Sy cups

pacman -Sy xmms

pacman -Sy mplayer

pacman -Sy libdvdcss

pacman -Sy pidgin

pacman -Sy pidgin-encryption

pacman -Sy purple-plugin-pack

celsofaf · 2007-07-11 02:29:19

I started messing with Fluxbox (but before I saw Snork's post!) for my "experimental" system but... well... I think I'm not realy ready for such a challenge. Yes, I managed to organise a rather nice menu, but I just felt it was too much work for not too many benefits - maybe my view is wrong. So I ended up throwing it all away and installing XFCE and now I'm happy, with a very quick and useable system. And now, my workstation!

When I get a bit less work than I'm having now, I'll try and mess with the *boxes again, and build a nice system with it.

MartinZ · 2007-07-11 04:56:02

I think the kernel is also important for what you want - try the -viper one (AUR) and tweak it to suite your needs. It compiles in less than 10 minutes if you tweak it well.
- Browser: definitelly kazehakase (community)
- Torrents: I like linkage (linkage-svn in AUR)
- Music: mpd + sonata. Audacious for single file (or little playlist) and cd-playing.
- DE: Xfce!! I love it, it's so fast. I never tried a WM too much because xfce is too good to change it.
- Video: mplayer or xfmedia-svn (AUR)
- Messaging: pidgin
- Graphics: mtpaint (community) for editing, gqview as viewer
- Music converter: gnormalize (community)
- PDF viewer: epdfview (community) is very fast to boot but sometimes loads very slow some pages. If you have to install for some reason all the KDE huge dependencies, maybe kpdf is a good idea. However, the problem described seems to be fixed with latest version of poppler, so i recommend to try epdfview first.
- CD burning: xfburn-svn (AUR), but it's still very unstable. I guess the best option is k3b yet.
- Compressor/decompressor: squeeze
- Palm management: jpilot

Unfortunelly, the only app (or suite) that doesn't have a lightweight alternative is OpenOffice. OK, you can use abiword, but it just goes for text and it in't so good as it should.

With this configuration i always use less than 256MB, even when running amule, openoffice, internet browser, sonata, file manager AND copying a DVD with k9copy (yes, with all KDE crap loaded). Xfce really rules.

And if you use s2disk (from suspend pkg, AUR) + lilo (grub boots very slow after 50% of suspends), your system will boot in less than 20 secs.

Last edited by MartinZ (2007-07-11 04:59:33)

geek.arnuld · 2007-07-11 18:59:30

celsofaf wrote:

Hello all!
I've been using Arch with KDEmod for a while - and loving it! But I also have XFCE installed and various GTK-based programs, and a lot of more crap, and I always end up using much more RAM than needed; I have 512MB of RAM.
For the last days I've been experimenting OpenBox a bit, and I like it. Still need to get used to it, but it's fine, just a matter of time and will to learn, I suppose. So, I came up with an idea... to build a "minimalist" desktop for me, not wasting RAM and fast and efficient, yet pleasant to use and nice looking - even if just as an experiment! Since I got some unused HDD partitions, I will do it without affecting my current desktop. A fresh new install.

so you are feeling what i felt in past and you want to do what i did in past

celsofaf wrote:

What do I need now? I need suggestions. Basicaly, I need:
- A window manager; probably OpenBox?

since you are 1st time WM user. use Windowmaker. it is light,fast and stable. over time you will eventually fall down to Tiled WMs, i use wmii these days

celsofaf wrote:

- A music player and, perhaps, a video player. Amarok, Kaffeine and other KDE apps are out!

can't say much exacpt i use "bmp" and "mplayer". you can use audacious instead of bmp if you want lots of plugins.

celsofaf wrote:

- An instant messenger supporting at least Jabber, MSN and Yahoo.

pidgin

celsofaf wrote:

- A bittorrent client. Yes, I do use Transmission but... Is there any even lighter one?

no idea. their download rate is much slower on my connection

celsofaf wrote:

I'd like to build my desktop as simple as possible, simple in the sense of avoiding "garbage" dependencies. In fact, I don't realy know how to explain what I want but, just to put it simply, I want to be as efficient as I can and to use the least of my CPU and RAM.
Suggestions? I'm open.

you will be much better with:

+ wmii/ratpoison + audio/video app + Firefox + urxvt + Emacs + gimp
- File Manager -Desktop

but that is my box IMVVHO and now my brain is getting into the GNU screen and ZSH

(NOTE: no matter what WM you use, you will always need a text-editor and an X-Terminal and Emacs and urxvt are best at their jobs but that is MVHO too

paralax · 2007-07-11 21:02:55

- WM - if you want DE then XFCE. if you want only WM then OpenBox. If you want something different then ION, WMII, DWM, RATPOISON
- Music player - MPD + Sonata or ncmpc
- A bittorrent client - if you are on some private trackers you should use Azeurus.

btartsa · 2007-07-12 16:19:52

I use my machine primarily for audio recording so i try to go real light on the other stuff. openbox, aterm, mplayer, audacious, transmission, pidgin, weechat. There are some good tools like obmenu and obconf you may want to check out too.

Don-DiZzLe · 2007-07-13 20:33:24

Alrighty then! Having tried out KDEmod and GNOME it's time for me to build a simplistic yet fully functional desktop. Im looking for as little GNOME/KDE dependencies as possible. Based on the suggestions in this thread so far and my own experiences, this is what I got so far:

WindowManager: Openbox (included progs: obmenu, obpager, feh, gmrun, menumaker)
FileManager: ?
Terminal: ?
Icons: Tango
Panel: some kind of panel that doesnt involve to much scripting or whatnot, Im not much of a programmer
Applets: gDesklets maybe?
MusicPlayer mpd + sonata? exaile maybe?
VideoPlayer I hear Totem sounds good? I already got mplayer as dependency for mplayer-plugin
IM Pidgen
FileCleaner Something like Kleansweep, to get rid of them nasty crap, dont know of any other actually.
TextEditor Something like kwrite or kate
PDFViewer ?
BitTorrent Client GUI with DHT support
Graphic Tools something to make snapshots with, like ksnapshot. something to edit them in, like kolourpaint
ImageViewer like kview
SystemMonitor the likes of ksysguard

As you can see, im kind off a KDE oriented guy, so thats why I need you's guys' suggestions.

Any help would me much appreciated.

rson451 · 2007-07-13 21:07:38

don, i suggest the following.
filemanager: thunar. fast and small.
terminal: xterm.
panel: who needs one?
texteditor: vim! or mousepad i guess..
snapshots: scrot.
image viewer: feh (im assuming included with OB from your post).

Don-DiZzLe · 2007-07-13 21:14:24

Is there a way to have some icons on the desktop with openbox, if not thats where the panel comes in then right...

Last edited by Don-DiZzLe (2007-07-13 21:15:09)

rson451 · 2007-07-13 21:26:44

rox desktop and/or fbdesk i think can do that.

Don-DiZzLe · 2007-07-13 21:44:23

I tried ROX, not my style, cant get used to the interface. I think I might give PCMan File Manager a go, see how that works out.

What about something like kmix to adjust the volume, dont wanna have to change all the time with alsamixer. I wanna have something that stays in the systray

oh I forgot, a compressor/archiver and a calculator.

Any suggestions on that?

Last edited by Don-DiZzLe (2007-07-13 21:52:48)

rson451 · 2007-07-13 21:59:49

compresser, i just use tar+gzip from command line.
calculator i never need
volume manager i use a small python app called gvtray(how about that its in aur!!! too bad mine is customized.. ).

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-07-13 22:06:49

You might use any interactive programming shell for calculations - for instance irb.

Concerning extracting and compressing: tar, what else? Other formats, other programs. [un]zip and [un]rar will do the job, if you want to stay minimalistic.

Kenetixx · 2007-07-14 01:02:05

On mY laptop im running

WM: e17
Files : Thunar
Chat: Pidgin + xchat
Music: Quodlibet
Editor: Mousepad + nano
Terminal : urxvt
Browser : Firefox
Torrent : Transmission

and that is all i have on my lappy no more no less, and it looks good thanks to e 17 its all i need.

Last edited by Kenetixx (2007-07-14 01:03:11)

elgatofelix · 2007-07-14 01:25:49

shell: fish

ezzetabi · 2007-07-14 16:22:33

WM: pekwm
mediaplayer: mplayer
editor: vim
terminal: xterm
files: xterm
torrent: transmission + utorrent
browser: firefox
mail: mutt
chat: pidgin
pictures: qiv

Last edited by ezzetabi (2007-07-15 08:03:45)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-07-07 00:00:59

Help me build a "minimalist" and wonderful desktop! :)

#2 2007-07-07 00:37:41

Re: Help me build a "minimalist" and wonderful desktop! :)

#3 2007-07-07 01:02:02

Re: Help me build a "minimalist" and wonderful desktop! :)

#4 2007-07-07 02:25:14

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#5 2007-07-07 08:28:53

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#6 2007-07-07 08:34:25

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#7 2007-07-07 15:26:23

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#8 2007-07-07 15:37:23

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#9 2007-07-07 15:56:40

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#10 2007-07-10 00:04:58

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#11 2007-07-11 02:29:19

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#12 2007-07-11 04:56:02

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#13 2007-07-11 18:59:30

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#15 2007-07-12 16:19:52

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#17 2007-07-13 21:07:38

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#18 2007-07-13 21:14:24

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#20 2007-07-13 21:44:23

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#21 2007-07-13 21:59:49

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#23 2007-07-14 01:02:05

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