deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| Sigh...time to switch from WindowMaker
Well, As much as I still love WindowMaker, I'd really like something a bit more feature-rich (but still light weight) and which has themes I can actually use/find on the web.
WindowMaker looks like it has not had any active development in a while, and finding themes is next to impossible (and the ones I do find are based on WM 0.5 or 0.6 and are 8+ years old).
So...any suggestions on something similarly light weight and fast?
The basics of what I need are:
- ability to setup multiple virtual desktops and set a bind key to toggle between them (alt-N or mod4-N where N is the wksp #)
- actively supported/developed
- Provides applets or similar for monitoring load/etc similar to the wm dock apps or E16's epplets (I know, I'm dating myself here a bit)
- Plentiful themes - I'm not super into the eye candy, but I do like to change things up occasionally and need a way to distinguish two separate X sessions (which I connect to via VNC) so I can quickly tell which I'm in
- Easy way of creating shortcuts/launchers in a menu similar to how WM works (clicking on desktop to pull up menu)
Any suggestions are welcome. I'll have to compile it myself in my work's environment, so I may be limited (as I'd rather not maintain 20 dependencies or libs compiled locally to $HOME/local or something  )
Thanks in advance!
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| I should also mention that I am not a big fan of tabbed or similar type WMs (e.g. Ion).
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FastEddie
iMod
join:2000-12-29
Channel Z
Host:
All Things Unix
Mozilla Software
Cyberonic
Rogers
Gadgets
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Look into Kubuntu it sounds like it may meet your needs.
And if you are still unsure look over the eye candy at kde-look.org
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Here's To You |
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| Thanks, but I should have been more clear
I am looking for just a window manager (and I guess perhaps desktop environment, but again being lightweight is a requirement) that I can compile locally on a system I do not maintain or have control over (read: no root). So I can't put a different OS on the machines
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rexbinary
Mod King
Premium
join:2005-01-26
Plano, TX
 ·Verizon FIOS
1 edit | reply to deblin
When I still running FreeBSD I used WindowMaker, and reached the same point you have reached.
The only one I truly considered replacing WindowMaker with is XFCE. I think it meets all your requirements, but it might be a little heavier then you were wanting. I found it to be a good compromise though between weight and functionality. I found it to feel like WindowMaker with it's launch bar and clicking the desktop to launch apps.
EDIT: Oh and No_Strings  says "it's leet" so that should make it a no-brainer.
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Verizon FiOS subscriber since 2005 | Mac owner since 1990 | Fedora user since 2006 | CentOS user since 2007 | "Anyone who is unwilling to learn is entitled to absolutely nothing." - graysonf | EDIT: I seldom post without an edit. |
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SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21 | reply to deblin
Not sure if this might interest you but, in addition to Xfce, I've been reading good things about LXDE.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LXDE |
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disturbed1
Premium
join:2003-09-06
Columbus, OH
clubs:
| reply to deblin
said by deblin :- ability to setup multiple virtual desktops and set a bind key to toggle between them (alt-N or mod4-N where N is the wksp #) - actively supported/developed - Provides applets or similar for monitoring load/etc similar to the wm dock apps or E16's epplets (I know, I'm dating myself here a bit) - Plentiful themes - I'm not super into the eye candy, but I do like to change things up occasionally and need a way to distinguish two separate X sessions (which I connect to via VNC) so I can quickly tell which I'm in - Easy way of creating shortcuts/launchers in a menu similar to how WM works (clicking on desktop to pull up menu) Fluxbox does all but one of that, and supports wm dock apps, and has a system tray. Creating shortcuts/launchers in a menu is done by editing the menu config file. I'm pretty sure there are a few 3rd party config tools, but it's easy enough to just edit the file yourself.
Here's a decent site for Fluxbox examples and styles »tenr.de/styles/
WM is still actively dev'd ... somewhat. That last commit was 6 weeks ago. So it's not dead yet. There is/was talk of a fork, as some people aren't happy with the rate in which patches are being applied/accepted. |
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| reply to rexbinary
Actually, I did try XFCE out a couple of years ago and it was fairly nice, maybe I'll give that a shot again.
SUMware : thanks, LXDE looks promising. I'll give that a shot if XFCE doesn't work out.
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| reply to disturbed1
Yeah, I've seen a few small commits but development definitely seems to have stalled. 
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dennismurphy
Put me on hold? I'll put YOU on hold
Premium
join:2002-11-19
Parsippany, NJ | reply to deblin
In all of my Unix years, I couldn't get away from WM .... it was just so nice and lightweight.
Amazes me that it's *still* the choice for a lightweight WM ... and still works as great as it did way-back-when. |
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| said by dennismurphy :In all of my Unix years, I couldn't get away from WM .... it was just so nice and lightweight. Amazes me that it's *still* the choice for a lightweight WM ... and still works as great as it did way-back-when. Yep, for sure! If I don't find a suitable replacement, I think my backup plan is to just write some of my own themes.
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drjim
Premium,MVM
join:2000-06-13
Torrance, CA
clubs: | Talk to No_Strings....he's quite a pro with lightweight wm's.
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dennismurphy
Put me on hold? I'll put YOU on hold
Premium
join:2002-11-19
Parsippany, NJ
 ·Optimum Online
| reply to deblin
said by deblin :said by dennismurphy :In all of my Unix years, I couldn't get away from WM .... it was just so nice and lightweight. Amazes me that it's *still* the choice for a lightweight WM ... and still works as great as it did way-back-when. Yep, for sure! If I don't find a suitable replacement, I think my backup plan is to just write some of my own themes. What, "blue" isn't acceptable anymore?
Theme, schmeme.... who needs eye candy for terminal sessions anyway? |
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Santa Fe
Visit www.ALZ.ORG
Premium,ExMod 2002-7
join:2000-08-22
Freight Yard
clubs:
·Mediacom
| reply to deblin
I've tried KDE & Gnome, keep sticking with Gnome. It just works for me. Plus it seems easier to theme than KDE. 
But it isn't what you would consider an Lightweight manager.
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Stumbles
join:2002-12-17
Port Saint Lucie, FL | reply to deblin
How about xfce or lxde? |
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adsldude
always learning
Premium,Ex-Mod 2003-9
join:2000-11-10
Colorado
2 edits | reply to deblin
FVWM is still being developed. »fvwm.org/
I like the "Derivatives" image on Wikipedia. »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FVWM
Window Manager or Desktop Environment? Lots of choices! »xwinman.org/index.php |
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hardware bum
join:2004-01-26
State College, PA | reply to deblin
How about Openbox? A few months ago I tried Crunchbang linux and love it. Switched over all my machines and totally gave up on straight Debian because I didn't like KDE4. Crunchbox uses Openbox as it's window manager. |
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benyto
Premium
join:2000-07-09
Chico, CA
| reply to deblin
WindowMaker was my favorite WM for many years. For reasons that I no longer recall I moved away from it a while back. I settled on Fluxbox for quite some time and I remember being happy with it. I highly recommend it for use as a lightweight WM.
Recently I've been taking another look at XFCE. Although it is a full DE rather than a simple WM, it is fairly light on resources. It doesn't take 20 seconds to load like KDE (that may be an exaggeration, but it sure feels like that at times). XFCE seems to offer a decent balance between functionality and efficiency. |
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scrummie02
Bentley
join:2004-04-16
Arlington, VA | reply to deblin
try fluxbox? |
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Selenia
join:2006-09-22
Pittsfield, MA
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to deblin
I tried e16 yesterday to speed up a slower machine. I hadn't tried it since it was a buggy alpha. The verdict is that I'm highly impressed. It can run a good deal of eye candy on an old machine faster than most managers can run without any eye candy. It runs almost as light as Openbox, but is just as stable and much prettier. It's very easy to theme too, even though it only comes with 1 in the default install. Within 1 day, I have already put it on 2 additional machines because I love it so much. Give it a shot! |
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