New Desktop, from A to Z

XDelusion · 2005-02-13 08:52:49

I'm fairly familiar with Linux, but am more accustomed to distros that come with a fancy GUI that has front ends for everything.

So what I want to know, is how to install a good smoothe, easy to control and fairly simple to config LIGHT WEIGHT GUI.

Is Ice the best, or are there others? It's been a while.

skoal · 2005-02-13 09:01:14

Yes, sir. The easiest one I can think of is "WMI". No, just kidding. Stay away from that one.

Try "pacman -Sy icewm" or my favorite, "XFCE4". XFCE4 is right smack in between an "anorexic" Window Manager and a "pregnant" Gnome or KDE.

There are other light WMs around here people like over IceWM, such as "fluxbox" or "openbox". But those guys are "xfce4" wannabies...

If you want to try out "xfce4", just do the following:

pacman -Sy xfce4
pacman -Sy xfce4-goodies

and, then type "startxfce4" to get things cooking...

miqorz · 2005-02-13 09:33:29

skoal wrote:

There are other light WMs around here people like over IceWM, such as "fluxbox" or "openbox". But those guys are "xfce4" wannabies...

I hope that was a joke, if not. You're the joke in that statement.

Anyways. Fluxbox is a blackbox hack with lots of useless features that end up looking pretty cheap and quite ugly.

There original, Blackbox is back in development with xft/unicode support and is still light as ever.

Openbox2 WAS a blackbox hack but version 3 was a complete re-write in C with XFT support and some pretty nice themes if I say so myself.

Enlightenment is one of the older window managers around which aims at looking good and being light. It's got graphical configs for every option except the menu (which people have made gtk/2 frontends for.)

pekwm is a C++ window manager I've been playing with as of late. It's in rapid development as of late it seems.. It's very light and is starting to bring in alot of features from other window managers. It's very nice from what I've seen.

WindowMaker is a NEXTStep like window manager which is light but a little clunky by nature. I quite liked my experience with it but couldn't ever figure out how to disable certain things and when asking WindowMaker users they simply said "It's the class of WindowMaker!"

XFce4 is simply Gnome JR these days, And it's exactly why I don't use it.
The CVS version looks a little better than the current 4.2 release but I'm still not taken with it. but if you're a gnome user looking for a similiar enviroment without the massive bloat. This is for you.

I won't comment about GNOME and KDE as not to offend board members.

XDelusion · 2005-02-13 09:41:30

ok, going to have to fix my internet first. Thankx!

skoal · 2005-02-13 09:59:56

miqorz wrote:

I won't comment about GNOME and KDE as not to offend board members.

You're not going to "offend" anyone around here by such a statement. If they're that attached to anything related to their computer, I'd say they've been breaking their prozac tablets in half...

XDelusion · 2005-02-13 10:33:03

what you type in pacman -Sy xfce4 etc...

how do you know what to put after the xfce4?

Lets assume I want to download Edonkey, or Abiword, or Open Office. How would I know what to type to get that package?

cmp · 2005-02-13 11:17:25

RTFM
with the search command: pacmans -Ss openoffice (or any string you want to seach for)
or go looking at the package page on archlinux.org

XDelusion · 2005-02-13 11:51:21

ok, I'll try this, thankx!

BTW XFCE4 is awsome! That coupled with Arch Linux seems to run VERY smoothe and sets up easy, which is a combo I've never experienced with Linux before. I think I'm going to keep this around!

Gullible Jones · 2005-02-13 15:48:02

Try getting fluxbox-devel from unstable. Lots of eyecandy, but still bloody fast... Probably my favorite WM.

Or you can try E16, that looks good and it's very fast...

Or Openbox. That's "anorexic", but it works and it looks cool.

(I'm not an XFCE4 fan... The file manager for it is too damn slow.)

XDelusion · 2005-02-13 20:42:30

How do I get to all the gadgets shown on this screen shot?

http://de.lunar-linux.org/xfce4/screens … ap_VII.jpg

skoal · 2005-02-13 21:36:11

Gullible Jones wrote:

[...](I'm not an XFCE4 fan... The file manager for it is too damn slow.)

Yeah, you're absolutely correct. The xfce4 file manager does blow chunky soup. I never use FMs anyway, just the console. So, I tried it out the other day as an image viewer. Well, that's about all it's worth...and, I'm being gracious.

skoal · 2005-02-13 21:39:19

XDelusion wrote:

How do I get to all the gadgets shown on this screen shot?

I think you're referring to the bottom part of the screen. If you did "pacman -Sy xfce4-goodies", you should have a lot of extra panel plugins.

Just right click on the panel, and "Add New Item".

XDelusion · 2005-02-14 06:03:01

hmm ya, when I right click on the panel, nothing happens, when I right click in the middle of the screen, it shows running programs, also my scroll wheel does not work on my Kensington USB mouse.

skoal · 2005-02-14 06:16:44

XDelusion wrote:

hmm ya, when I right click on the panel, nothing happens, when I right click in the middle of the screen, it shows running programs, also my scroll wheel does not work on my Kensington USB mouse.

Check the wiki for your mouse issues. I believe all you have to do is edit your "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" file and modify your mouse entries, probably something like this:

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

    Identifier  "Mouse1"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option "Protocol" "Auto"
    Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Then you should be able to right click on the panel and add those items. Although, I would have thought your right mouse button would have at least been operational even though your xorg.conf might have been wrong. Either way, start there first.

XDelusion · 2005-02-14 06:41:49

I don't have a xorg.conf in that directory...

speaking of which, how would I do a search for that file, like in Winblows?

P.S. I just realized I had been using XFCE instead of XFCE4, so...

...well we'll see, this is more bloat it seems. Lemme play with it a bit.

What is the difference between the two anyhow?

skoal · 2005-02-14 07:30:57

XDelusion wrote:

I don't have a xorg.conf in that directory...

Oh, you must be using "XFree86" then, not "Xorg". Modify "/etc/X11/XFree86.config" then with the same stuff.

XDelusion wrote:

speaking of which, how would I do a search for that file, like in Winblows?

as root, from a terminal, first run "updatedb". Then, after it's done, just type either "locate -i xorg" or "locate -i xfree86". You'll get a bunch of results, so just scroll back to find it.

XDelusion wrote:

P.S. I just realized I had been using XFCE instead of XFCE4, so...

oops! Nows there's not a real "clean" way of doing it. You shouldn't have any problems though, if you do the following:

pacman -R xfce
cd ~
rm -rf .config
rm -rf .xfce4
pacman -Sy xfce4
pacman -Sy xfce4-goodies

quit X, then use at the console:

startxfce4

XDelusion wrote:

What is the difference between the two anyhow?

Well, I could tell you, but I think you'll get a better answer yourself after you install "xfce4", since you've already seen plain 'ole "xfce". It's all about the "cowbells"...you gotta have more "cowbells"...

XDelusion · 2005-02-14 08:29:11

is Xorg better than XFree? I always felt that XFree was a pain in the butt.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-02-13 08:52:49

New Desktop, from A to Z

#2 2005-02-13 09:01:14

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#3 2005-02-13 09:33:29

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#4 2005-02-13 09:41:30

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#5 2005-02-13 09:59:56

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#6 2005-02-13 10:33:03

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#7 2005-02-13 11:17:25

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#8 2005-02-13 11:51:21

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#9 2005-02-13 15:48:02

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#10 2005-02-13 20:42:30

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#11 2005-02-13 21:36:11

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#12 2005-02-13 21:39:19

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#13 2005-02-14 06:03:01

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#14 2005-02-14 06:16:44

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#15 2005-02-14 06:41:49

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#16 2005-02-14 07:30:57

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

#17 2005-02-14 08:29:11

Re: New Desktop, from A to Z

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