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#1 2005-03-09 04:06:38

N3xt
Member
Registered: 2005-02-28
Posts: 22

Looking for a basic WM :)

Hey Everyone,

I'm not sure exactly where to post, and I'm sure this kind of question has been posted several times, but I can't find any ones that following my question exactly. 

My question is:  Is anyone aware of a great window manager that will basically allow my computer to run firefox, an instant messenger, an office suite, the ability to print, and of course the console?  I don't really need more than that -I'm looking for a WM without a lot of overhead, without any extra services.  Can anyone recommend a WM that sort of follows these guidelines, and is great smile ?

Thanks

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#2 2005-03-09 04:31:44

TheRaginAsian
Member
From: Brooklyn MI
Registered: 2004-04-05
Posts: 70
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

I'm in complete agreement with dreamer, XFCE4.2 is excellent. Im running Rhythmbox, Gaim, Firefox, XFCE4.2 w/ Compostie Shadows, and my sysload plugin still only reads 165MB RAM usage... I'd say im doin pretty good...


John Gallias
Technician/Friend/Bassist
http://www.concretearmy.com
john@concretearmy.com
john.gallias@gmail.com
Arch Linux v0.7 (Wombat), XFce 4.2, XOrg, Firefox

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#3 2005-03-09 04:35:22

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

I'd suggest WMI, but it's not for everyone... it's keyboard oriented

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#4 2005-03-09 04:46:40

stonecrest
Member
From: Boulder
Registered: 2005-01-22
Posts: 1,190

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

I'll third XFCE4.2  8)

In addition to being lightweight, it's also very modular so you can have as little or as much as you want. For example, all I use is xfwm4 (its window manager) and xfdesktop (which displays a background image and allows right-click on the desktop). If you want more, like a taskbar or panel or session management, you can do so.


I am a gated community.

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#5 2005-03-09 04:48:54

TheRaginAsian
Member
From: Brooklyn MI
Registered: 2004-04-05
Posts: 70
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

I think another big reason I like 4.2 so much is the support it has for programs that are not even its own... For example, I run K3B, gedit, rhythmbox, and gthumb without ANY hicups... its really nice to be able to run Gnome without Gnome wink


John Gallias
Technician/Friend/Bassist
http://www.concretearmy.com
john@concretearmy.com
john.gallias@gmail.com
Arch Linux v0.7 (Wombat), XFce 4.2, XOrg, Firefox

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#6 2005-03-09 04:49:40

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

TheRaginAsian wrote:

I think another big reason I like 4.2 so much is the support it has for programs that are not even its own... For example, I run K3B, gedit, rhythmbox, and gthumb without ANY hicups... its really nice to be able to run Gnome without Gnome wink

every WM does that... assuming you have the right libraries

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#7 2005-03-09 06:13:19

smith
Member
From: Crescent City, CA
Registered: 2005-02-19
Posts: 77

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

If you're not interested in eye-candy, then I recommend Openbox.  It requires fewer dependencies than xfce, but is harder to configure.


I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.

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#8 2005-03-09 06:17:46

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
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Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

smith wrote:

If you're not interested in eye-candy, then I recommend Openbox.  It requires fewer dependencies than xfce, but is harder to configure.

fluxbox is also very common

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#9 2005-03-09 07:40:05

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

xfce isnt a window manager, it is a desktop environment, it has extra services.

minimal: ratpoison, ion (i use this), wmi

easier to use minimal: fluxbox (fav of mine), openbox, blackbox,

just google man, there are literally hundreds.

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#10 2005-03-09 07:44:48

Snowman
Developer/Forum Fellow
From: Montreal, Canada
Registered: 2004-08-20
Posts: 5,212

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

I agree that XFCE4 is a nice WM.  There is also icewm.  I have used it a couple of years ago.  It is more lightweight than XFCE4.

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#11 2005-03-09 13:05:53

N3xt
Member
Registered: 2005-02-28
Posts: 22

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

From the screenshots, OpenBox looks pretty awesome smile  However, I can't seem to install it properly, as the wiki isn't exactly accurate at Archlinux for its setup hmm

After I install OpenBox via pacman, there isn't a .config directory in the root home directory hmm

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#12 2005-03-09 14:38:24

cmp
Member
Registered: 2005-01-03
Posts: 350

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

tried to run openbox without the .config dir? - often such directories are then created.

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#13 2005-03-09 15:57:14

N3xt
Member
Registered: 2005-02-28
Posts: 22

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

I just noticed something big_smile  Openbox actually worked, I just didn't realize that it would use the same default background as X.

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#14 2005-03-09 18:04:40

smith
Member
From: Crescent City, CA
Registered: 2005-02-19
Posts: 77

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

Openbox is a great WM.  It uses less then 1 MB RAM on my box!  You should check out the following packages:

1. feh: makes it easy to set the background
2.  pypanel: transparent taskbar
3.  obconf: gui configuruation

The default menu is written in XML and is easy to modify.

Note that you can use openbox as a replacement for metacity/kde WM, but why would you want to do that?


I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.

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#15 2005-03-09 19:20:09

dadexter
Member
From: Dorval, QC, Canada
Registered: 2004-09-07
Posts: 274
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

put this in ~/.xinitrc

xterm -e screen

tongue

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#16 2005-03-09 19:34:59

N3xt
Member
Registered: 2005-02-28
Posts: 22

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

smith wrote:

Openbox is a great WM.  It uses less then 1 MB RAM on my box!  You should check out the following packages:

1. feh: makes it easy to set the background
2.  pypanel: transparent taskbar
3.  obconf: gui configuruation

The default menu is written in XML and is easy to modify.

Note that you can use openbox as a replacement for metacity/kde WM, but why would you want to do that?

How is that possible to have OpenBox only use 1 MB!!!!!?  Openbox is using 35 MB of RAM for my Desktop, and there's nothing on it, except for top running from xtrem, pypanel, and a background.

...Right now with what I mentioned plus firefox, I'm running at 275 MB of RAM!

Is it normal to have this many processes running? hmm

USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root         1  0.0  0.1   1468   504 ?        S    13:18   0:00 init [3]  
root         2  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        SN   13:18   0:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
root         3  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   13:18   0:00 [events/0]
root         4  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   13:18   0:00 [khelper]
root         9  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   13:18   0:00 [kthread]
root        18  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   13:18   0:00 [kacpid]
root       111  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   13:18   0:00 [kblockd/0]
root       125  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    13:18   0:00 [khubd]
root       195  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    13:18   0:00 [pdflush]
root       196  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    13:18   0:00 [pdflush]
root       197  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    13:18   0:00 [kswapd0]
root       198  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   13:18   0:00 [aio/0]
root       281  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    13:18   0:00 [kseriod]
root       365  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S<   13:19   0:00 [reiserfs/0]
root       420  0.0  0.0   1452   396 ?        S<s  13:19   0:00 udevd
root      1176  0.0  0.1   1696   764 ?        Ss   13:19   0:00 /usr/sbin/syslo
root      1548  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    13:19   0:00 [pccardd]
root      1557  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    13:19   0:00 [pccardd]
root      2175  0.0  0.0   1480   484 ?        Ss   13:19   0:00 /usr/sbin/dhcpc
root      2204  0.0  0.1   1624   556 ?        S    13:19   0:00 /usr/sbin/crond
root      2225  0.0  0.3   4672  1664 vc/1     Ss   13:19   0:00 -bash
root      2240  0.0  0.0   1464   480 vc/2     Ss+  13:19   0:00 /sbin/agetty 38
root      2241  0.0  0.0   1464   480 vc/3     Ss+  13:19   0:00 /sbin/agetty 38
root      2242  0.0  0.0   1464   480 vc/4     Ss+  13:19   0:00 /sbin/agetty 38
root      2243  0.0  0.0   1464   480 vc/5     Ss+  13:19   0:00 /sbin/agetty 38
root      2244  0.0  0.0   1464   480 vc/6     Ss+  13:19   0:00 /sbin/agetty 38
root      2744  0.0  0.2   4496  1332 vc/1     S+   14:33   0:00 /bin/sh /usr/X1
root      2755  0.0  0.1   2280   652 vc/1     S+   14:33   0:00 xinit /root/.xi
root      2756  1.8  3.3  20120 16920 ?        S<   14:33   0:07 X :0
root      2778  0.0  0.8   9068  4352 vc/1     S    14:34   0:00 openbox
root      2779  0.2  1.4  13212  7324 vc/1     S    14:34   0:01 /usr/bin/python
root      2785  0.0  0.2   4496  1356 vc/1     S    14:34   0:00 /bin/sh /opt/mo
root      2798  0.0  0.2   4628  1372 vc/1     S    14:34   0:00 /bin/sh /opt/mo
root      2803  5.4  6.2  84320 30936 vc/1     Rl   14:34   0:22 /opt/mozilla/bi
root      2836  0.2  0.5   7652  2724 vc/1     S    14:40   0:00 xterm
root      2837  0.0  0.3   4672  1596 pts/0    Ss   14:40   0:00 bash
root      2838  0.0  0.1   4468   832 pts/0    R+   14:40   0:00 ps aux

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#17 2005-03-09 20:19:58

cmp
Member
Registered: 2005-01-03
Posts: 350

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

[21:20] police:~ ps aux | wc -l
51

I'm using nothing to fancy, some daemons, cmus and firefox at this moment.

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#18 2005-03-09 22:48:24

smith
Member
From: Crescent City, CA
Registered: 2005-02-19
Posts: 77

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

I meant to say less than 10 MB for the openbox itself.  It's still impressive, especially in comparison to KDE/Gnome.

Your not running that many processes.  If you use top (or type ps auxw) you can check out which ones are hogging the CPU and memory and deal with those.  Deamons and terminals shouldn't slow anything down (unless it's a server).


I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.

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#19 2005-03-10 02:33:11

N3xt
Member
Registered: 2005-02-28
Posts: 22

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

dadexter wrote:

put this in ~/.xinitrc

xterm -e screen

tongue

I don't have screen hmm  Why is it better than xterm? smile

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#20 2005-03-10 02:48:47

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

N3xt: It was a poor joke for a Newbie Corner post. You may be interested in investigating screen on google however. It isn't a window manager, its designed to work with the console and allows networked sessions, detaching sessions and reaccessing them via ssh, and dozens of other console utilities. Not really comparable to XFCE4, if you like that, however.

You may also want to check out IceWM, its pretty simple, possibly too simple.

Dusty

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#21 2005-03-10 03:17:18

N3xt
Member
Registered: 2005-02-28
Posts: 22

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

hmmm so screen is really only useful as a replacement to xterm if I'm on a local network? ...or if I carelessly close my windows?

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#22 2005-03-10 04:13:15

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

its only useful if you do a lot of work in the console. I've never used it, so I'm just repeating what I've heard before. From what I understand, it is basically a 'window manager' for the console, NOT for X at all... so you could have multiple consoles open on one virtual console. In addition, you can move console sessions to background and pick them up later and stuff, sort of like unlimited virtual consoles.

Basically, if you were looking for a window manager, screen isn't it. However, it may be something fun to investigate if you do a lot of console work (whether across the network or not).

Dusty

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#23 2005-03-10 05:25:27

shadowhand
Member
From: MN, USA
Registered: 2004-02-19
Posts: 1,142
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

I'm a little late to the game, but I use the Openbox / PyPanel / feh combo. It works wonderfully. I also use a little program called Devil's Pie for some extra tweaks.

The obligatory screenshot. Your seeing aterm, Gaim, PyPanel, feh, and Openbox there.


·¬»· i am shadowhand, powered by webfaction

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#24 2005-03-10 06:13:16

N3xt
Member
Registered: 2005-02-28
Posts: 22

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

Dusty wrote:

its only useful if you do a lot of work in the console. I've never used it, so I'm just repeating what I've heard before. From what I understand, it is basically a 'window manager' for the console, NOT for X at all... so you could have multiple consoles open on one virtual console. In addition, you can move console sessions to background and pick them up later and stuff, sort of like unlimited virtual consoles.

Basically, if you were looking for a window manager, screen isn't it. However, it may be something fun to investigate if you do a lot of console work (whether across the network or not).

Dusty

Although I've already chosen OpenBox as the WM for now hmm  I was just wondering how useful it would be since I'll be using the console as a file manager, etc.

btw shadowhand, what features does aterm have over xterm? smile

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#25 2005-03-10 06:43:34

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Looking for a basic WM :)

N3xt wrote:

Although I've already chosen OpenBox as the WM for now hmm  I was just wondering how useful it would be since I'll be using the console as a file manager, etc.

btw shadowhand, what features does aterm have over xterm? smile

Ok, my 2 bytes on the subject:
I think Dusty put it best by stating screen is a window manager for the console.  Screen is awesome.  However if you're working under X, most have a tendancy to just fire up additional terminals to do additional work. If you want to be picky, screen will save you on screen real-estate, and some ram usage, but that's unimportant.  The best features, I think, of screen are a) the ability to save sessions and restore them and b) the ability to split windows.
a) I can start a screen session in an xterm, fire up 4 screen "terminals" inside it, and hit ctrl+alt+backpace (to kill X) and in another terminal, join back to the screen session and everything is still running.
b) you can split windows to see multiple screen terminals at once, which is great in console mode... however, under a WM like WMI, I can split terminals without splitting all my windows (and thus shrinking windows I want fullscreened - like firefox)

oh, PS: aterm is bascially the same as xterm, but supports transparency if you use a proper background-setter (I use aterm)

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