Arch Linux

pogeymanz

Member

Registered: 2008-03-11

Posts: 1,020

XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

The system in question is: PIII @ 1Ghz, w/ 512MB RAM and fbs 133MHz. (These numbers sound good, but keep in mind that it's 7-8 years old)

I know that I could just as well install GNOME or KDE techincally, but they will be pokey.

My questions are as follows:

Will XFCE + Openbox be significantly faster than XFCE + xfwm?

If not, will Openbox-only be significantly faster than XFCE + whatever?

What kind of functionality can I expect to lose when using Openbox-only as compared to XFCE?

If I want to use Openbox + XFCE-panel, will that pull in too many dependencies? I don't want to have the whole DE just to use the panel, but I hear that pypanel doesn't group tasks as well, so I'd like to keep the panel I'm used to.

Thanks All!

elliott

Member

Registered: 2006-03-07

Posts: 296

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

Xfce should run fine on that system, but of course Openbox is going to be lighter. I've replaced xfwm with Openbox on a similar system while keeping the rest of Xfce, and didn't notice any difference except how it behaved.

The only way to really answer these questions is to try it yourself.

muramasa

Member

From: Vancouver, Canada

Registered: 2007-01-08

Posts: 16

Website

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

There's no noticable performance gains from replacing Xfwm with Openbox in my experience. I still prefer to use Openbox though.

Xfce includes a panel, optional desktop icons, a session manager, and some other small utilities. It's much closer to a full desktop environment than Openbox, which is just a window manager.

pogeymanz

Member

Registered: 2008-03-11

Posts: 1,020

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

Thank you guys for the responses.

I think I'll go for Openbox-only. I don't think I'll miss any of the things a DE offers.

So, will XFCE-panel pull a whole lot of dependencies? What are my other panel options?

cyberpunk

Member

Registered: 2008-04-28

Posts: 4

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

http://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/

Check out this Openbox guide, which also has a section for available panels.

pogeymanz

Member

Registered: 2008-03-11

Posts: 1,020

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

Cool. Cool. Thanks a lot guys.

One more:

Let's say I run xfce-panel. If I click the menu-button on the panel, what will it show? Will it automatically show my openbox menu that I get when I click the desktop, or something else? Can I make it show the openbox menu?

...Just want to clear some stuff up before I install Arch on the system, so it'll go as quickly and smoothly as possible.

neowolf

Member

From: North Carolina

Registered: 2008-01-27

Posts: 105

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

Honestly that's better than my eeePC (was, I did up the memory later, but this still applies) which runs both Gnome and KDE just fine. You should try using what you want and seeing how it performs for yourself. A pure WM is likely to be faster, but even with those specs I doubt it'll be a night and day difference and some people really want the convenience of a DE.

elliott

Member

Registered: 2006-03-07

Posts: 296

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

Honestly that's better than my eeePC (was, I did up the memory later, but this still applies) which runs both Gnome and KDE just fine.

Your 900mhz Celeron is actually much better than that PIII, there is more to processing than clock speeds.

lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

Don't those 7 in Eee PC use CPUs clocked at 630mhz or worse?

CPU power shouldn't matter that much anyways, the memory seems to be the biggest concern when using full-blown DEs. KDE should fly prettily on that PC of the OP.

zodmaner

Member

Registered: 2007-07-11

Posts: 653

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

Yep, CPU in Eee comes clocked at 630MHz, though you could overclocked it to 900MHz if you want.

Anyway, from my personal experience, I've found that GNOME runs just fine on 630MHz, without any major lag or slowdown whatsoever.

However, one thing that Openbox (or other WM) is noticeably faster than GNOME on Eee is during starts up. Openbox will start up almost immediately, while GNOME will take ages. But aside from this, there isn't really that much different in performance between the two.

Last edited by zodmaner (2008-04-28 11:45:42)

neowolf

Member

From: North Carolina

Registered: 2008-01-27

Posts: 105

Re: XFCE vs. Openbox for my older system

Honestly that's better than my eeePC (was, I did up the memory later, but this still applies) which runs both Gnome and KDE just fine.

Your 900mhz Celeron is actually much better than that PIII, there is more to processing than clock speeds.

I know direct MHz comparisons are on the bunk side, but as noted it's clocked lower by default quite a bit. It's far from a speed demon.