WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

skottish · 2007-04-20 16:56:22

I just want to see what WMs people are using for lower spec machines. So, what are you using? How well does it perform? How easy is it to configure? What's the memory footprint? Etc.

By the way, I do want it look good; Not real flashy with effects, but nice to look.

Mikko777 · 2007-04-20 17:56:07

Openbox ftw.

Got P3-m 1330MHz and 512Mb ram on laptop and openbox is lightning fast. And looks good too.

Memory used is about 100Mb with "glx/dri" (opengl drivers me thinks...) but only 40Mb-ish without those.

Guess your problem will be the programs you run rather than the WM itself.

And yes my desktop ain't the most leanest either (lot's of background apps)

skottish · 2007-04-20 19:13:43

Thanks Mikko777. I'll take a look. Although, I gotta say, that in the April Screenshots all the of pix with Fluxbox are looking pretty sweet.

pauldonnelly · 2007-04-20 23:28:00

Ratpoison! It's got nothing to look bad with. I used to use it, but then gave it up for fancier waters. I couldn't stay away though.

EDIT: I'm not using because I have a low-spec machine, but it runs great on those too. I'm just using it because it's that good.

Last edited by pauldonnelly (2007-04-20 23:31:40)

venox · 2007-04-21 00:31:58

What? You guys think PIII 600MHz is a low spec machine? I was still using a PII 300MHz until last month! haha
Anyway, I was using XFCE 4.4 or openbox on that. Worked like a charm. I had 384MB RAM.

byte · 2007-04-21 00:38:44

That laptop will surely take 512 MB so get more RAM! Besides that, I'd vote for Xfce. But keep it easy on panel plugins if you stay with 128 MB.

skottish · 2007-04-21 03:55:32

Wow! Thanks for the input. XFCE was my first thought, but not with the current RAM. The only reason that I'm building this machine with 128MB RAM is that a couple of days ago the screen wouldn't turn on for the previous owner. I got it working (somehow?!), but I need to be sure that it's stable before I invest any money.

With that being said, I'd love to hear from more of you.

And venox, my desktop is a supercharged workhorse. I'm spoiled. Very, very spoiled.

mucknert · 2007-04-21 04:52:38

Window Maker runs also great on such a box. I have it working under a K6-2/450 Mhz (NetBSD though) and it is the most responsive thing with a little bit more comfort than the "plain" Windowmanagers.

ujjwal · 2007-04-21 08:23:46

XFCE will run very well, infact it is usable on my 266mhz/128MB system, although a little slowly. After booting to the xfce desktop, memory usage is about 75MB RAM.

Mhyrraner · 2007-04-21 13:31:22

hey,

600mhz, 320mb ram ... E17

Works fine, e17 takes 3.2% of my memory, i think it should not be a problem with your laptop.
It's good looking, themeable etc ... ("bling"-module works for me but it's getting quite slow, anyway ...who needs real transparency ...), i never had any problems due to unstability ...

(by the way: i recognized that firefox takes about twice as long as opera to start ...)
MyR

venox · 2007-04-21 15:11:18

Opera should be better for you configuration too, as Mhyrraner stated.

skottish · 2007-04-21 17:24:10

The first experiment was with Fluxbox, mainly because there is a wiki entry, and I'm very impressed by how well this system works. The second experiment was XFCE, and it seems to be a bit much for this system. I think with some more RAM it may be a viable candidate. I'm going to try E17 and Openbox today.

The only software that I need for now is a webbrowser plus MPlayer and Flash (+ Flashblock!), and Abiword. I installed all of this and it's all working surprisingly well. I'll try Opera instead of Firefox to see if I can get the performance vs. RAM usage in check.

The funny thing about this is that I may not need to get any more memory. The early tests show that this can be a very good machine for what I want it for like it is. I'm impressed.

skottish · 2007-04-21 19:31:23

Sorry to bump, but E17 it is. It starts up slightly slower than pure window managers, but it performs as well. And of course, it's beautiful. Thanks everyone for weighing in.

-----------EDIT-------------

With E17, Firefox, XTerm, and Conky, all running, the system was using right around half of the RAM. When I dropped Firefox, the RAM usage went down to under 25%. And to think that I almost didn't try Enlightenment. Bad Yogi!

Last edited by skottish (2007-04-21 23:13:14)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-04-20 16:56:22

WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#2 2007-04-20 17:56:07

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#3 2007-04-20 19:13:43

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#4 2007-04-20 23:28:00

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#5 2007-04-21 00:31:58

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#6 2007-04-21 00:38:44

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#7 2007-04-21 03:55:32

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#8 2007-04-21 04:52:38

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#9 2007-04-21 08:23:46

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#10 2007-04-21 13:31:22

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#11 2007-04-21 15:11:18

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#12 2007-04-21 17:24:10

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

#13 2007-04-21 19:31:23

Re: WM advice for PIII 600MHz, 128MB Ram, IBM Thinkpad T20

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