Arch Linux

McQUack

Member

Registered: 2006-03-10

Posts: 10

What WM for my Laptop

Hi everybody,

I'm quite new to linux, played around a bit with Debian and tried some others as Ubuntu and Vector.

As my laptop cant boot from CD I was seraching for a Distro that can be setup via floppy boot and netinstall. That how I ended up at Arch Linux.
And the best is. I managed to setup the Basesystem in the first attempt. without any Problems.

So now I want to go on and install X. What Do I need?
Xorg
XDM (are there better alternatives?)
and a Windowmanager

As my laptop anly is an Celeron 500MHz with 128MB Ram it should be something small and fast. (Gnome on Ubuntu took "hours" to get me to a Desktop)

Was thinking about IceWM or XFCE. Wich one should work better with my hardware.
Would also like to have some Icons on the desktop. are there alternatives to Roxfiler for this.
Is there anything else I need for an basic Desktop?

So thats all for now. 
Thanks

McQuack

CyRiX_BlAcK

Member

Registered: 2006-03-02

Posts: 35

Re: What WM for my Laptop

XFCE4 for the win! Runs on my dev laptop (P100) with no CDrom drive lol.

Kopsis

Member

Registered: 2006-01-31

Posts: 15

Re: What WM for my Laptop

You might look at WDM as an alternative to XDM. Similar to XDM but a little less "primitive" out of the box. For some reason the Arch package for WDM has a WindowMaker dependancy so you may want to give that a try as your WM/DE ... pretty lightweight and lots of folks really like it.

XFCE is a decent choice for a WM/DE. Though it's what I consider a "middle-weight" desktop and may still be a bit heavy for a 128M machine. If you want a lighter weight solution that doesn't sacrifice conventional functionality, openbox/fluxbox/blackbox might be better WM choices. There are more radical alternatives like ratpoison/evilwm/pekwm but I don't have any experience with them.

My current fav lightweight setup is WDM + openbox + fbpanel + ROX. Some assembly required, but lightning fast, capable, and friendly. Runs great on my ThinkPad 600E which is a PII 266 and works so well that I'm getting ready to put it on a ThinkPad T30 (even though that machine could handle something a lot heavier).

pressh

Developer/TU

From: Netherlands

Registered: 2005-08-14

Posts: 1,719

Re: What WM for my Laptop

are we going through this wm/de thread again ?!

please search the forums, there are numerous threads about it

Sander

Member

Registered: 2006-02-26

Posts: 138

Re: What WM for my Laptop

I'd recommend SLiM instead of XDM/GDM/KDM because it doesn't look like crap, and isn't bloated either

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You like cheese? You like peas? You'll love cheezy peas!

wain

Member

From: France

Registered: 2005-05-01

Posts: 289

Website

Re: What WM for my Laptop

qingy instead of slim/xdm/gdm/kdm/wdm

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s/pacman/yaourt/g
http://archlinux.fr/

postlogic

Member

Registered: 2005-02-24

Posts: 410

Website

Re: What WM for my Laptop

Like Sander, I recommend SLiM, too..
http://slim.berlios.de/

On my laptop, I run Openbox, because I HATE panels on 1280x800 resolution. The resolution height is small enough as it is (autohide isn't an option). It's fast, lightweight and simple to configure.

XFce is also a good choice if you're into a Desktop Environment. That's my thoughts, atleast.

McQUack

Member

Registered: 2006-03-10

Posts: 10

Re: What WM for my Laptop

Hi,

had a look on the slim page, looks qute nice. But as I'm a noog to linux, I don't know how to create a package for slim. also I cant find any in the packages search.

btw. this post is typed on my lappi in firefox :-)

CU

Uwe

stonecrest

Member

From: Boulder

Registered: 2005-01-22

Posts: 1,190

Re: What WM for my Laptop

slim and slim-themes can be found in the community repo. If you haven't already done so, you'll want to enable it (pacman.conf).

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I am a gated community.

jaboua

Member

Registered: 2005-11-05

Posts: 634

Re: What WM for my Laptop

slim is in the community repo, uncomment the repo in /etc/pacman.conf

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: What WM for my Laptop

Use anything you damn well feel comfortable using. wm choice isnt a choice of the hardware, it's a choice of the user.

the only one that can make an honest choice about what is best for your needs. give icewm, xfce, fluxbox and whatever a shot, and see what works best.

James

McQUack

Member

Registered: 2006-03-10

Posts: 10

Re: What WM for my Laptop

Thanks for your help. Got slim now running. But what do I have to do to get the system shutdown with slim?

thanks

Uwe

PJ

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2005-10-11

Posts: 602

Re: What WM for my Laptop

Thanks for your help. Got slim now running. But what do I have to do to get the system shutdown with slim?

thanks

Uwe

To shutdown: use halt as username and then your root password.
To reboot: Use reboot as username and then your root password.

exit is another interesting "username", guess what this does

McQUack

Member

Registered: 2006-03-10

Posts: 10

Re: What WM for my Laptop

Thanks,

now it works as it should.

Uwe