Re: Lighter window managers
-- David Bridges <dbridges@austin.rr.com> wrote
(on Monday, 21 October 2002, 12:09 AM -0500):
> > What are some good window managers that are even more light weight,
> > have less options (simpler to configure), and work well?
>
> I've found blackbox to be light weight, flexible, and very fast.
>
> > I'm into functionality more than flashness.
> >
Hear hear! I've been on blackbox for about a year now, and have no
complaints. If there is functionality you want that is missing, it's
incredibly easy and fast to recompile it with any of a number of patches
available for it on sourceforge. If you still cannot find the options
you need, a number of derivatives exist that may offer them yet still
retain most of the efficiency you'll find on blackbox (fluxbox and
openbox are two of these).
In addition, while a default install is not flashy, it is capable of
producing a very nice looking desktop.
> > A large desktop that uses the screen as a window onto it would be useful.
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
> > A pop-up menu to select applications, and icons for applications would
> > be useful, but i don't mind editing the config file for this capability.
>
> Blackbox doesn't have icons on the desktop by default, but if you really
> want them you can run gmc and it will give them to you. Personally I
> just setup keyboard combinations with bbkeys to run the applications
> that I want. There is also an application called bbconf that makes
> customizing bb a breeze.
Blackbox has two root menus, one accessed by button 3 (right mouse) that
has applications and can be easily customized, and one by button 2
(middle mouse or mouse wheel) that dipslays current workspaces and
iconified applications.
I personally use ROX to provide a pinboard for icons (it also manages my
root window image). I've heard dfm also works nicely. ROX + blackbox
makes for a very nice looking, fast, efficient desktop.
> > Is anything extra needed to run a gnome or kde application?
>
> Nope as long as you have the applications and libs that are required you
> should be set.
If you run kde apps regularly (i.e. every session), I'd add the line:
kdeinit &
to your .xinitrc -- this speeds up the loading of KDE apps
significantly.
--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
matthew@weierophinney.net
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