window manager recomendation
Micha Feigin
Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none seem
to fit the bill yet.
I need a window manager with the following
- As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
have much to spare).
- Multiple desktops
- A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support for
both the debian menus and a custom menu.
- Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
- multiple desktops
I tried metacity but it didn't seem to have a menu (probably depends on
gnome which is too memory intensive).
I mostly use flwm now (After I hacked it to add a maximize button and
fix the hotkeys). It is just about what I need. The two problems I have
with it is that it occasionally crashes on me and the hotkeys are
sometimes grabbed by the applications before the window manager (mostly
mozilla-firebird), and I don't have the time to debug it now.
Thanx.
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Jamin W. Collins
>
> Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none seem
> to fit the bill yet.
> I need a window manager with the following
> - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
> have much to spare).
> - Multiple desktops
> - A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support for
> both the debian menus and a custom menu.
> - Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
> - multiple desktops
Blackbox, Openbox, or Fluxbox will do all of the above, I use Blackbox.
Roberto Sanchez
> Hello,
>
> Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none seem
> to fit the bill yet.
> I need a window manager with the following
> - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
> have much to spare).
> - Multiple desktops
> - A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support for
> both the debian menus and a custom menu.
> - Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
> - multiple desktops
>
> I tried metacity but it didn't seem to have a menu (probably depends on
> gnome which is too memory intensive).
> I mostly use flwm now (After I hacked it to add a maximize button and
> fix the hotkeys). It is just about what I need. The two problems I have
> with it is that it occasionally crashes on me and the hotkeys are
> sometimes grabbed by the applications before the window manager (mostly
> mozilla-firebird), and I don't have the time to debug it now.
>
> Thanx.
>
>
WindowMaker all the way. I especially like how the Debian packaged
version handles menus through /usr/lib/menu, /etc/menu, and ~/.menu/
Very lightweight and snappy.
-Roberto
Erik Steffl
> Hello,
>
> Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none seem
> to fit the bill yet.
> I need a window manager with the following
> - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
> have much to spare).
> - Multiple desktops
> - A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support for
> both the debian menus and a custom menu.
> - Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
> - multiple desktops
I like fvwm, it is fairly lightweigth (lot of stuff is in modules so
if you don't need it just don't use it), not easy to configure (text
files, but simple config is fairly simple), it has very good virtual
screen support (you can drag windows from pager to current screen, move
windows in pager, switch to different screens by moving mouse (if you
want), by hotkeys or clicking on appropriate screen in pager, drag
windows from one screen to another etc.), you can have keys for pretty
much everything. You can have a panel or pop-up menu, your choice (and
if you don't use panel it does not use any memory since it'sa module).
Default debian config has menus (click root menu with each mouse
button), you can easily change them and/or create your own menus and
display them using either hotkeys or some mouse action etc.
You can also define all the window decorations and what they do - how
to minimize/maximize/iconify window, how to move resize window, how to
lower/raise window etc. (e.g. I generally use no borders and resize
windows by right clicking the title)
the default look kinda sucks though... it can be changed completely
(take a lok at www.fvwm.org)
erik
David Palmer.
Micha Feigin <mi...@post.tau.ac.il> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none seem
> to fit the bill yet.
> I need a window manager with the following
> - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
> have much to spare).
> - Multiple desktops
> - A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support for
> both the debian menus and a custom menu.
> - Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
> - multiple desktops
>
> I tried metacity but it didn't seem to have a menu (probably depends on
> gnome which is too memory intensive).
> I mostly use flwm now (After I hacked it to add a maximize button and
> fix the hotkeys). It is just about what I need. The two problems I have
> with it is that it occasionally crashes on me and the hotkeys are
> sometimes grabbed by the applications before the window manager (mostly
> mozilla-firebird), and I don't have the time to debug it now.
>
> Thanx.
>
Icewm.
Regards,
David.
Burkhard Woelfel
Hash: SHA1
On Thursday 13 November 2003 03:18, Jamin W. Collins wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 03:51:10AM +0200, Micha Feigin wrote:
> > Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> > recommendations for a window manager.
> Blackbox, Openbox, or Fluxbox will do all of the above, I use Blackbox.
All the *box WMs are fairly similar. If you are new to them, I suggest
Fluxbox, as it handles keystroke shortcuts by itself. As far as I know, at
least Blackbox uses a keyboard handler application for that, which you would
need to set up. There are themes available for all of them.
But I don't know if that is still correct. I use Fluxbox a lot.
IceWM, which David suggests, is also very slim. It has a menu button in the
taskbar, very similar to the infamous M$ Windows, but some people like that
feature nevertheless.
Regards,
- - Burkhard
- --
GNU/Linux in education book project: http://book.schoolforge.net
Public key available here:
<http://blackhole.pca.dfn.de:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xFD82303B>
key FP 0A65 5E83 F44F 47A5 3DFC 19C5 7779 E411 FD82 303B
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iD8DBQE/swSUd3nkEf2CMDsRAs+qAKCxwH/euZ8FAiTVhmq+jA/xjWLZoACdFYgt
K0Z6KV1lxbeuFkYJ6CezbaU=
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Nick Hastings
* Burkhard Woelfel <versuch...@gmx.de> [031113 13:14]:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Thursday 13 November 2003 03:18, Jamin W. Collins wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 03:51:10AM +0200, Micha Feigin wrote:
> > > Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> > > recommendations for a window manager.
>
> > Blackbox, Openbox, or Fluxbox will do all of the above, I use Blackbox.
>
> All the *box WMs are fairly similar. If you are new to them, I suggest
> Fluxbox, as it handles keystroke shortcuts by itself. As far as I know, at
> least Blackbox uses a keyboard handler application for that, which you would
> need to set up. There are themes available for all of them.
Openbox3 handles keybinding by itself. It is highly customisable and
has great "pack" and "grow" window move and resize features. It is
also possible to do basically everything with the keyboard. It is not
in Debian yet, but .debs can be found at
http://www.hetzi.at/thomas/debian.
This WM was mentioned by a poster on this list a month or so ago. At
the time I was using sawfish, but was getting sick of the bloat and
considering switching back to fvwm. I'm _so_ glad I tried openbox3.
I have it set up to do all the things you wanted except use the Debian
menus. I've not tried.
Anyway, HTH,
Nick.
--
Debian testing/unstable
Linux twofish 2.6.0-test9-looxt93c1 i686 GNU/Linux
eCLe
> Hello,
>
> Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none seem
> to fit the bill yet.
> I need a window manager with the following
> - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
> have much to spare).
> - Multiple desktops
> - A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support for
> both the debian menus and a custom menu.
> - Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
> - multiple desktops
>
> I tried metacity but it didn't seem to have a menu (probably depends on
> gnome which is too memory intensive).
> I mostly use flwm now (After I hacked it to add a maximize button and
> fix the hotkeys). It is just about what I need. The two problems I have
> with it is that it occasionally crashes on me and the hotkeys are
> sometimes grabbed by the applications before the window manager (mostly
> mozilla-firebird), and I don't have the time to debug it now.
>
> Thanx.
>
WindowMaker http://www.windowmaker.org taste it
Jonathan Dowland
>
> Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none seem
> to fit the bill yet.
> I need a window manager with the following
> - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
> have much to spare).
> - Multiple desktops
> - A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support for
> both the debian menus and a custom menu.
> - Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
> - multiple desktops
PWM, or ION (pwm, ion, ion-devel packages)
--
Jon Dowland
http://jon.dowland.name/
Jonathan Dowland
> On Wed, 2003-11-12 at 21:51, Micha Feigin wrote:
> > I need a window manager with the following
> > - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
> > have much to spare).
Certainly doesn't satisfy that criteria :-)
--
Jon Dowland
http://jon.dowland.name/
David Palmer.
Jonathan Dowland <jm...@bylands.dur.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 03:51:10AM +0200, Micha Feigin wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> > recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none
> > seem to fit the bill yet.
> > I need a window manager with the following
> > - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I
> > don't have much to spare).
> > - Multiple desktops
> > - A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support
> > for both the debian menus and a custom menu.
> > - Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
> > - multiple desktops
>
> PWM, or ION (pwm, ion, ion-devel packages)
>
As I suggested before, Icewm.
Apt-get update
Apt-get install icewm-themes iceme icepref
Will give you so much configurability with next to no drive space taken
up.
That's if you need the fastest leanest window manager around.
Windowmaker is good too.
If you want a desktop environment instead, XFce3 or XFce4, but they're
heavier on resources.
Regards,
David.
Micha Feigin
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 01:58:46PM +0900, Nick Hastings wrote:
> > This WM was mentioned by a poster on this list a month or so ago. At
> > the time I was using sawfish, but was getting sick of the bloat and
> > considering switching back to fvwm. I'm _so_ glad I tried openbox3.
> >
> > I have it set up to do all the things you wanted except use the Debian
> > menus. I've not tried.
>
> menu system. It's not perfect, it has no ability to deal with menu entries
> with ampersands in them (which XML requires you to escape), but other than
> that, it does the job. I attach it here, because it's only a few lines.
This creates the menu file fine but openbox still seems very very intent
on not displaying this menu.
I also tried removing the default one or putting it in
.config/openbox/menu.xml but all I got was no menu at all. I even tried
removing everything but one entry and putting the same xml header from
the default menu but nothing seems to work. Is there some trick to this
that I am missing?
Jonathan Dowland
> On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 08:34:19 +0000
> Jonathan Dowland <jm...@bylands.dur.ac.uk> wrote:
> > PWM, or ION (pwm, ion, ion-devel packages)
> >
> As I suggested before, Icewm.
If I reply with, 'As I suggested before, PWM.', when will it stop? :P
Icewm is lovely and a bit friendlier than pwm, but not the leanest by a
bit. Here's some sizes for reference:
Package: pwm
Installed-Size: 336
Package: icewm
Installed-Size: 1131
Package: iceme
Installed-Size: 296
Package: icewm-themes
Installed-Size: 15380
Package: ion
Installed-Size: 348
Package: wmaker
Installed-Size: 5400
--
Jon Dowland
http://jon.dowland.name/
Jonathan Dowland
> the default look kinda sucks though... it can be changed completely
> (take a lok at www.fvwm.org)
There is a great article about window-manager choices, and fvwm advocacy
at http://www.igs.net/~tril/fvwm/
--
Jon Dowland
http://jon.dowland.name/
Micha Feigin
> On Thu, 2003-11-13 at 07:44, Marc Wilson wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 01:58:46PM +0900, Nick Hastings wrote:
> > > This WM was mentioned by a poster on this list a month or so ago. At
> > > the time I was using sawfish, but was getting sick of the bloat and
> > > considering switching back to fvwm. I'm _so_ glad I tried openbox3.
> > >
> > > I have it set up to do all the things you wanted except use the Debian
> > > menus. I've not tried.
> >
> > There's a menu-method running around that'll give it access to the Debian
> > menu system. It's not perfect, it has no ability to deal with menu entries
> > with ampersands in them (which XML requires you to escape), but other than
> > that, it does the job. I attach it here, because it's only a few lines.
>
> This creates the menu file fine but openbox still seems very very intent
> on not displaying this menu.
> I also tried removing the default one or putting it in
> .config/openbox/menu.xml but all I got was no menu at all. I even tried
> removing everything but one entry and putting the same xml header from
> the default menu but nothing seems to work. Is there some trick to this
> that I am missing?
>
Solved this. Apperently in the default menu file there is a root menu
entry. Any new menu needs to to have an entry there and without this
root menu nothing shows up.
Micha Feigin
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 06:15:29PM +0800, David Palmer. wrote:
> > On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 08:34:19 +0000
> > Jonathan Dowland <jm...@bylands.dur.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > PWM, or ION (pwm, ion, ion-devel packages)
> > >
> > As I suggested before, Icewm.
>
> If I reply with, 'As I suggested before, PWM.', when will it stop? :P
>
> Icewm is lovely and a bit friendlier than pwm, but not the leanest by a
> bit. Here's some sizes for reference:
>
> Package: pwm
> Installed-Size: 336
>
> Package: icewm
> Installed-Size: 1131
> Package: iceme
> Installed-Size: 296
> Package: icewm-themes
> Installed-Size: 15380
>
> Package: ion
> Installed-Size: 348
>
> Package: wmaker
> Installed-Size: 5400
>
Thats some indication but what you should be looking at is the memory
usage. Here eye candy can cause a lot more cost that what shows up in
the package size. It also depends on the toolkit libraries used.
ben
Micha Feigin <mi...@post.tau.ac.il> wrote:
> Thats some indication but what you should be looking at is the memory
> usage. Here eye candy can cause a lot more cost that what shows up in
> the package size. It also depends on the toolkit libraries used.
>
right now i've got pwm using 1.2% of 64meg, and there are no toolkit
libs involved, unless you count X itself, hogging 24%.
ben
Bill Marcum
>
> Icewm is lovely and a bit friendlier than pwm, but not the leanest by a
> bit. Here's some sizes for reference:
>
> Package: pwm
> Installed-Size: 336
>
> Package: icewm
> Installed-Size: 1131
> Package: iceme
> Installed-Size: 296
> Package: icewm-themes
> Installed-Size: 15380
>
> Package: ion
> Installed-Size: 348
>
> Package: wmaker
> Installed-Size: 5400
>
Installed-Size anyway?)
--
I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used "perform" instead of
"do".
-- Larry Wall on a not-so-popular programming language
John Peter
>On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 07:08:44PM +0000, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
>
>
>>Icewm is lovely and a bit friendlier than pwm, but not the leanest by a
>>bit. Here's some sizes for reference:
>>
>> Package: pwm
>> Installed-Size: 336
>>
>> Package: icewm
>> Installed-Size: 1131
>> Package: iceme
>> Installed-Size: 296
>> Package: icewm-themes
>> Installed-Size: 15380
>>
>> Package: ion
>> Installed-Size: 348
>>
>> Package: wmaker
>> Installed-Size: 5400
>>
>>
>>
>Some other small window managers are aewm, aewm++ and flwm. (What is
>Installed-Size anyway?)
>
>
For those eventually interested here is another one.
I havent tested it, yet, but it has something in favor -his modularity .
Here are the first lines describing it :
"XFce is a lightweight desktop environment for unix-like operating
systems. It aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually
appealing and easy to use.
XFce 4 is a complete rewrite of the previous version. It's based on the
GTK+ toolkit version 2."
http://www.xfce.org/en/overview.html
John
Karsten M. Self
> Hello,
>
> Hoping this won't turn into a flame war, I am looking for
> recommendations for a window manager. I tried quiet a few but none seem
> to fit the bill yet.
> I need a window manager with the following
> - As lite as possible on memory (I heavily stress my laptop so I don't
> have much to spare).
Outside of GNOME and KDE themselves, pretty much any WM should fit your
bill. Fluxbox, Blackbox, WindowMaker, fvwm, icewm, and twm in
particular are light and are/were designed for low-end hardware.
For general information on window managers, I strongly recommend the
"Window Managers For X" page:
> - Multiple desktops
All of the above, excepting twm. Pretty much *any* WM gives you this
capability.
> - A pop up menu application (don't need a panel) that has support for
> both the debian menus and a custom menu.
Again: pretty much any WM has this capability. The Debian menu system
is independent of WM and allows for user customization. In my case, I
use WindowMaker, have replaced the default root menu with one of my own
choosing, but have a hook back into the system Debian menus as well.
> - Hotkeys (mainly for maximize/minimize/desktop switch)
Again: pretty much any WM has this capability. WindowMaker's hotkey
configuration is IMO particularly clean.
> - multiple desktops
Again: Again: Multiple multiple desktops desktops?
...or is it that you just really want this feature? ;-)
Peace.
--
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What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
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Jonathan Dowland
> Some other small window managers are aewm, aewm++ and flwm. (What is
> Installed-Size anyway?)
It is a field for the debian package, representing disk space used when
the package is unpacked. It provides a rough idea of how much memory the
program will use, too - although it isn't a good idea to rely on it for
anything important. (it isn't accurate at all)
--
Jon Dowland
http://jon.dowland.name/
Tom
> On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 03:32:38PM -0500, Bill Marcum wrote:
> > Some other small window managers are aewm, aewm++ and flwm. (What is
> > Installed-Size anyway?)
>
> It is a field for the debian package, representing disk space used when
> the package is unpacked. It provides a rough idea of how much memory the
> program will use, too - although it isn't a good idea to rely on it for
> anything important. (it isn't accurate at all)
Does binary size really indicate how much memory will be used?
It's easy for a tiny program to allocate gobs of memory.
mi...@post.tau.ac.il
> On Sat, Nov 15, 2003 at 11:41:44AM +0000, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 03:32:38PM -0500, Bill Marcum wrote:
> > > Some other small window managers are aewm, aewm++ and flwm. (What is
> > > Installed-Size anyway?)
> >
> > It is a field for the debian package, representing disk space used when
> > the package is unpacked. It provides a rough idea of how much memory the
> > program will use, too - although it isn't a good idea to rely on it for
> > anything important. (it isn't accurate at all)
>
> Does binary size really indicate how much memory will be used?
> It's easy for a tiny program to allocate gobs of memory.
>
Its not a very good indication, but in context it can imply how complex a
program is and give an extimate of order of magnitued.
It does have to be taken in context though with respect to what the program
does.
For window managers size is usually also related to graphical complexity and
thus give some rough estimate, although you need to take into account the
toolkit used and thus external libraries, dependencies.
Also as an example take fvwm which can be started up with vector buttons and
minimal decorations and take very little memory or with pixmaps all over and
all sorts of plugins and probably be the usuall memory hog (Allthough I guess
not nearly as close as kde and gnome ;-)
>
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