WM decision

Skynet787 · 2008-08-06 21:28:53

Hello Archlinux,

I have been using Ubuntu for a couple of months. Due to some hardware compatability issues and some other isuues (have spent most of the time triying to make it work right), i made some research and learned that Arch linux is a great distro to get my hands dirty with linux (in a good way) and also great for my computer science studies. I have a HP omnibook xe2 5 gig HD 191 MB ram P2 with ubuntu 7.04 pretty slow. Wich WM would suit best? i want to test on this PC and then move on to my DELL 650 workstation best not mention specs .

Statix · 2008-08-06 21:34:10

If you want a fully featured DE with GUI configuration use XFCE. It's faster than gnome but still fully featured.

If you want a faster, more lightweight solution then go for openbox. With openbox you're essentially building your own desktop, so icons, backgrounds, etc. are all done with separate programs. It's a lot more work and all configuration is based on text files (though there are GUI configuration programs.)

Of course, if you want to enter the world of tiling WMs there are many other lightweight solutions as well.

Last edited by Statix (2008-08-06 21:34:57)

Skynet787 · 2008-08-06 22:18:52

so open box for lighweight? Can i instal IDE such as Jgrasp and Netbeans?

FALK · 2008-08-06 22:49:31

Skynet787 wrote:

so open box for lighweight? Can i instal IDE such as Jgrasp and Netbeans?

Yes, but I think netbeans would be sluggish on such an old laptop. Netbeans is in the community-repo btw.

Skynet787 · 2008-08-07 00:09:20

ok great! so Arch it is. As soon as i have the cd ready i will begin conversion!

skottish · 2008-08-07 01:20:04

lxde is openbox with a nice set of tools (like a panel) already installed. It's very lightweight and quick. You can install it with pacman -S lxde.

iggyst00ge · 2008-08-07 01:36:03

Openbox also works well with XFCE, either as a replacement window manager in XFCE, or alone with the XFCE panel as your program launcher, task bar, system tray, etc.

Chris

thisllub · 2008-08-07 02:05:49

I find a panel redundant.
Openbox has an excellent show client window function. To map it to the Ctrl-Menu keys make sure you have the following in rc.xml.

<keybind key="C-Menu">
<action name="ShowMenu">
<menu>client-list-combined-menu</menu>
</action>
</keybind>

If you use a program like Katapult you have no need for menus at all.
Although it is a KDE prog it is still less weight than any alternative that I have tried except the excellent "Run Command" in E17.

Gullible Jones · 2008-08-07 02:30:33

LXDE can also work with Fluxbox and other WMs with a bit of configuration. You also don't have to have the whole thing installed.

As far as run commands go, I'd recommend gmrun.

thayer · 2008-08-07 03:57:10

thisllub wrote:

If you use a program like Katapult you have no need for menus at all.
Although it is a KDE prog it is still less weight than any alternative that I have tried except the excellent "Run Command" in E17.

Have you tried gmrun and/or dmenu?

Both are excellent choices and neither require as much bloat...err dependencies as katapult. However I admit that, if you already have kdelibs and its own dependencies installed, katapult I am sure is very lightweight

thisllub · 2008-08-07 05:12:49

thayer wrote:

thisllub wrote:
If you use a program like Katapult you have no need for menus at all.
Although it is a KDE prog it is still less weight than any alternative that I have tried except the excellent "Run Command" in E17.
Have you tried gmrun and/or dmenu?
Both are excellent choices and neither require as much bloat...err dependencies as katapult. However I admit that, if you already have kdelibs and its own dependencies installed, katapult I am sure is very lightweight

Thank you.

That is exactly what I have been looking for.

thayer · 2008-08-07 06:08:49

thisllub wrote:

thayer wrote:
thisllub wrote:
If you use a program like Katapult you have no need for menus at all.
Although it is a KDE prog it is still less weight than any alternative that I have tried except the excellent "Run Command" in E17.
Have you tried gmrun and/or dmenu?
Both are excellent choices and neither require as much bloat...err dependencies as katapult. However I admit that, if you already have kdelibs and its own dependencies installed, katapult I am sure is very lightweight
Thank you.
That is exactly what I have been looking for.

You're very welcome...and since you use Openbox, here is my dmenu setup (maybe not the best, but it works )

~/.config/openbox/rc.xml:

    <keybind key="W-p">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>~/bin/dmenuOB</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>

~/bin/dmenuOB:

#!/bin/sh
`dmenu_path | dmenu -b -fn '-*-arial-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' -nb '#111111' -nf '#FFFFFF' -sb '#0066ff'` && eval "exec $exe"

PS: Sorry for hijackin' this thread...

Last edited by thayer (2008-08-07 06:09:33)

thisllub · 2008-08-07 22:09:04

Ok I tried dmenu but it doesn't work that well for me.
I have 3 monitors and the centre one is a higher vertical resolution than the others.
For a number of reasons I find it more comfortable to have them align tops rather than bottoms.
Dmenu disappears from view as the options reduce.

I am happy enough with dmrun.

thayer · 2008-08-07 22:27:21

thisllub wrote:

Ok I tried dmenu but it doesn't work that well for me.
I have 3 monitors and the centre one is a higher vertical resolution than the others.
For a number of reasons I find it more comfortable to have them align tops rather than bottoms.
Dmenu disappears from view as the options reduce.
I am happy enough with dmrun.

That's cool...in case you do decide to try dmenu again it's quite easy to make it top-aligned. Simply remove the -b flag from the script, like so:

#!/bin/sh
`dmenu_path | dmenu -fn '-*-arial-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' -nb '#111111' -nf '#FFFFFF' -sb '#0066ff'` && eval "exec $exe"

Last edited by thayer (2008-08-07 22:27:38)

vogt · 2008-08-07 23:23:55

Have you considered any tiling WMs? Lots of them (dwm, wmii, xmonad) arrange 2-5 windows pretty well without much intervention. But programs like the GIMP need to, and can be used in a floating layer in those window managers.

Be warned that they are pretty different from 'floating' WMs, and the learning curve for keybindings might be a bit steep.

thisllub · 2008-08-08 00:41:58

Thanks again.

That works nicely.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-06 21:28:53

WM decision

#2 2008-08-06 21:34:10

Re: WM decision

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Re: WM decision

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