Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

archprentice · 2009-02-26 04:23:36

Hi all, I need input in regards of what I should use for my desktop.
My objective is to recreate something similar to my XP desktop. It should be as slimmed down as necessary, but without having to change my workflow too much.

This is my current XP desktop:

Currently I'm using JWM, which I'm pretty happy with (light, built-in panel & virtual desktops, easy configuration). However, I need the functionality of having icons on the desktop. I used to use pcmanfm as file manger and desktop handler, but I didn't like it. It seemed to be too simple. Now I just use xfe as file manager (it seems to take less resources than pcmanfm in my machine, even when I set it to NOT handle my dekstop), loving the tree+dual pane layout.

I still don't know what to use to handle my desktop. One of the threads recommended adesk or xtdesk, but I can't seem to find them through pacman. Do I have to build them?

Do you have any other recommendation(s)? I don't need spiffy things to make things look any prettier than my current XP desktop.
Just need it to be fast, functional and lean out of the box (add things later if needed instead of having things bundled together from the start. IceWM bundles too many things in this regard).

I tried some tiling window managers, and although I think it can grow on me (and make me more efficient), I'll stick to recreation of my work environment first (so I can start phasing out of my XP box).

skottish · 2009-02-26 04:38:59

I think that you're looking for idesk to handle desktop icons. I've never used it, but I know what it is. It's in the community repo.

Some people may come in and recommend LXDE for you (even though it uses pcmanfm). I won't. lxpanel is all sorts of broken, pcmanfm is having trouble right now, and of the rest of the tools are easily replaceable.

pogeymanz · 2009-02-26 05:06:30

idesk is what you are looking for.

If you ever grow tired of JWM, try Openbox. It has hundreds of pages of info on the google-net for how to configure it to do all sorts of neat things and it's very slim, like JWM.

To be honest, I've always thought that LXDE looked and functioned worse than the other DE's. Is it really that much lighter than XFCE?

EDIT: Also, if you want to set an image as your background, try feh.

Last edited by pogeymanz (2009-02-26 05:07:44)

skottish · 2009-02-26 05:27:34

Openbox and feh are what I use. Don't trust me though; I go mental occasionally.

pogeymanz wrote:

To be honest, I've always thought that LXDE looked and functioned worse than the other DE's. Is it really that much lighter than XFCE?

I don't know if it's not lighter on resources, but it far faster. XFCE feels really slow to me. I just set up a laptop that I don't normally work with with both XFCE and LXDE, and LXDE was far faster -- when it's parts weren't crashing anyway. It has XFCE on it now.

Inxsible · 2009-02-26 05:35:32

skottish wrote:

I think that you're looking for idesk to handle desktop icons. I've never used it, but I know what it is. It's in the community repo.
Some people may come in and recommend LXDE for you (even though it uses pcmanfm). I won't. lxpanel is all sorts of broken, pcmanfm is having trouble right now, and of the rest of the tools are easily replaceable.

I used to use lxpanel until about a fortnight ago, and I didnt see any problems with it. If these problems arose in the last fortnight - then I don't know.

But I am now happy being panel-less - W-Tab and Alt-Tab all the way !

pcmanfm -- is giving me some problems although i am still not sure if its pcmanfm or gamin at fault.

Inxsible · 2009-02-26 05:37:22

pogeymanz wrote:

idesk is what you are looking for.
If you ever grow tired of JWM, try Openbox. It has hundreds of pages of info on the google-net for how to configure it to do all sorts of neat things and it's very slim, like JWM.
To be honest, I've always thought that LXDE looked and functioned worse than the other DE's. Is it really that much lighter than XFCE?
EDIT: Also, if you want to set an image as your background, try feh.

+1 to Openbox. +1 to feh

The first time I tried LXDE, I thought it gave too much of a Windozy feel...and I have hated it ever since. Never even contemplated using it after that.... so there -- thats my view on it

If you really need a panel, there are lots of them available - Pypanel - by far the most popular with OB users, Tint2, wbar, fbpanel. There is also perlpanel - but I don't know if its still being developed. Then there is lxpanel too -- unless of course as skottish said -- it has problems

Last edited by Inxsible (2009-02-26 05:38:47)

whukes · 2009-02-26 06:57:12

WOW! Your windows desktop looks very similar to my openbox + pypanel setup. Terminal shows/hides by pressing F1. If you want any of my configs let me know

Last edited by whukes (2009-02-28 11:32:44)

Ronin-Sage · 2009-02-26 09:15:33

Aside from lxpanel's stability issues, LXDE works well and looks nice on my system. And I've never had any issues with PCManFM(it's also slightly lighter than Thunar on my machine); also, it has a tree view...

Back on topic: I would say XFCE(properly set panel and Thunar) should work nicely for you.

archprentice · 2009-02-26 09:57:54

Thanks all for the replies.
I tried LXDE, but lxpanel doesn't have autohide feature (yet). That alone is enough of a deal-breaker to me.
To run LXDE with another panel simply turns me off, because JWM can handle all those needs in one package.

Background-wise, I'm fine with flat-color, although I like gradients.
Having wallpaper is more of a fuss for me, because I get bored of it really quickly (and then I have to get myself myself into a neverending quest to find a cool one that I really really like). Almost all of the time my desktop is crammed with apps with no transparency, leaving only enough space to reveal desktop icons for me to drag-drop stuff.

Openbox... I think it's a great wm, but its resource usage is about the same as jwm without panel. However, I have to admit whukes' desktop screenie looks mighty fine to me. I might have a look at openbox again, because his setup is actually more towards what I WANT instead of what I have at the moment.

Idesk seems to be along the line of what I was looking for, but I haven't set it up yet. I'll try both this weekend!

Inxsible · 2009-02-26 14:52:10

Here's my Openbox setup. I dont use a panel...but you could always add one

Ronin-Sage · 2009-02-26 18:22:30

Nice desktop. What is that at the bottom, xfce4-panel?

Arch Linux

#1 2009-02-26 04:23:36

Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#2 2009-02-26 04:38:59

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#3 2009-02-26 05:06:30

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#4 2009-02-26 05:27:34

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#5 2009-02-26 05:35:32

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#6 2009-02-26 05:37:22

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#7 2009-02-26 06:57:12

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#8 2009-02-26 09:15:33

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#9 2009-02-26 09:57:54

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#10 2009-02-26 14:52:10

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

#11 2009-02-26 18:22:30

Re: Need help/suggestions with what to use for my desktop.

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