Arch Linux

dcbdbis

Member

From: Aurora, Colorado

Registered: 2004-09-10

Posts: 247

Great WM!

Hello All,

The recent issues with xorg/KDE3.3 menus got me out of my shell (no punn intended) and I downloaded a bunch of alternative wm's (save Gnome, which I really don't like personally)

Xfce4 is lightweight, faster than greased lighting, small mem footprint, runs all of my KDE and Gnome apps (that I've tried so far)... Easy to setup, easy to migrate menus to... and jujst plain fast..............

And unlike KDE, doesn't do nasty stuff with my network, even when I have everything that's obvious turned off! (I use a satellite to connect, and if the connection goes down in mid-session....KDE freezes hard requiring a hard whack of the X server itself followed by a CNTRL+c)

To every issue there is a silver lining... Mine silver lining was downloading all of the WM's in package form to a test machine, and giving them a spin.

WOW! There is a world of choice out there....

KDE will still be my choice of WM for my students... but for me..... I think Xfce4 just got hired for duty!

Thanks all for the assistance through all of this...........

Sincerely,

Dave Babb

sarah31

Member

From: Middle of Canada

Registered: 2002-08-20

Posts: 2,975

Website

Re: Great WM!

Desktop environments are usually all inclusive. they have their own browsers, file managers, libraries, and so forth. they include KDE, GNome and XFCE(4).

Window managers are basic gui environement that allows you to manage the various x windows you have up in a session. WM include pekwm, flux/black/openbox, fvwm, ratpoison, and many many more.

fyi.

---

AKA uknowme

I am not your friend

kakabaratruskia

Member

From: Santiago, Chile

Registered: 2003-08-24

Posts: 596

Re: Great WM!

I think most people around here has a good opinion about xfce4 dcbdbis. At least that's what says here.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … ow+manager
Personally I like it a lot, and even though I also like gnome, I'm so used to xfce, that I can't change it.

And sarah, I think the problem about names, is just like the problem between saying GNU/linux, or just Linux. I think it does not matter much, as long as people understand what you are trying to say. If you need to make the difference, because it's important for what you want to explain, then do it, but it's not always necesary.

---

And where were all the sportsmen who always pulled you though?
They're all resting down in Cornwall
writing up their memoirs for a paper-back edition
of the Boy Scout Manual.

dcbdbis

Member

From: Aurora, Colorado

Registered: 2004-09-10

Posts: 247

Re: Great WM!

Hello Sarah,

Thanks for the clarification, but from someone who's been using KDE since the 2.* days.... You can maybe understand my enthusiasm.

xfce4.. is far leaner than KDE... Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT dissing KDE.... It's still the choice when I teach. it's still going to be the warmest waters for my Windows students to step off into the Linux world...

I've been into Linux seriously for 5 years now. And paranoia and ignorance (to be honest) just kept me from going deeper. Using mainly the distros of RH, SuSE, Mandrake....You can see why.

Arch as a distribution, has forced me to learn and go deeper. Not painfully so... but deeper nonetheless. Partly because that level of depth is exposed, partly because we had a serious hiccup in some packages in the last week...

Compared to KDE,  xfce4 is so much quicker, responsive.... It's the first time I've really ventured outside of the KDE environment for any length of time...  I don't need a lot of fluff and polish in a WM... My daughter and wife DO. They will remain in the KDE environment.

twm is another wm, not we by your definitions....And it's way too devoid of features.

I was using twm to connect and communicate during the KDE incident.

Now... I have viable options.... You've also spoken privately to Lee... (we're old workmates from 15 years back). I'm his main Linux support. I ported him to Linux from OS/2 Warp many moons ago. Lee's retired now (lucky bas#^%d !), and I look forward to my own retirement in the next 15 years.

I also had him install xcfe4, and he's configured it so he has a backup if his KDE goes down again for whatever reason.

He's also enthused. And getting ready to put Arch on an older machine, that is a PII, but limited (and no longer produced ram). It's going to have xfce4 as it's main wm/we. For his grandkids....it's going to be perfect. We both knew that it couldn't handle either KDE or Gnome. (Lee shares my personal aversion to Gnome.) So the poor thing has been stuck in the W95 mode since it's orphanage some years ago from Lee's main workstation (when PII's were the hot ticket)

Again, thanks for the clarification...

Dave..................

IceRAM

Member

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2004-03-04

Posts: 772

Website

Re: Great WM!

Arch as a distribution, has forced me to learn and go deeper. Not painfully so... but deeper nonetheless. Partly because that level of depth is exposed, partly because we had a serious hiccup in some packages in the last week...

Oh, you are soooo right....

---

:: / my web presence