BEST window manager for laps -- not KDE/Gnome

ial

Which window manager to choose for laptop would you recommend?

heavy reliant on mouse/touchpad

light

project was live and maintained

KDE is too bloated for me, too much compilations needed on updates etc., what in laptops IMHO isn't a good idea.
Gnome has not pleasant layout IMO -- too wide toolbars that foolishly takes precious vertical space, and the user can do nothing configurable about it... Besides Gnome is too big too...

Xface seems ok at the first sight but does it need bulky gtk+ libraries? What do you think about Xface at all?
WindowMaker seems reasonable but isn't it a stale project?
What about Enlightment? Isn't it clumsily bloated?

Ladies and Gentlemen WARMLY welcome to the discussion!

coreyfro · n00b Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 7

There is fluxbox. Flux box is what I use when I need every pixel and every CPU cycle. It's very configurable just so long as you aren't afraid of editing config files by hand.

yngwin · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:52 am Post subject:

I would recommend LXDE. It is very much alive, and a really lightweight DE. It is modular, so you install just the parts you need. It is GTK+ based, so there are many themes to make it look nice as well. If you just use GTK+ apps, it won't take up too much resources either. The whole DE, with desktop and file manager, uses about 40MB.

There is a lot of recent activity on LXDE, and I really need to update the live ebuilds in the LXDE overlay, but I should do so within the next few days. I use it myself on an old P3/600MHz laptop. And the ebuilds already in portage should go stable soon.
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ial · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 1:00 am Post subject:

halzen · n00b Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 49

Fluxbox. Its what i use.

Im also a minimalist, and use XFCE on my desktop.

-SPM-Mad · n00b Joined: 25 Dec 2007 Posts: 57

Gnome is not only fat because of the gtk libs. If you stick to gtk software (so you do not pull for example qt libs), then it is not bad to use xfce. I think it is really clean and nice to use, snappy and good for systems with >128 - 512mb of ram.

128mb and lower makes things a bit problematic. Currently I am getting used to IceWM. It is not really super user-friendly in configuration, but so far looks pretty nice. Especially if you used windows before, becuase iceWM mimics quite a few things.
If you are not used to ms-windows, and want something lean, light and cool, I agree with the other to use fluxbox.

IceWM and FluxBox even work for systems <64mb of ram... but then other things like X will be the hog.

My 2 cents
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GuntherDW · n00b Joined: 20 Nov 2003 Posts: 38 Location: Belgium

I'd preferr openbox with fbpanel though
i've switched some time ago, and it feels like the openbox combo is faster, and actually support UTF-8

Yggdrasil · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 2:54 am Post subject:

Might want to try fvwm, it's what I use primarily and is both very light and very flexible. Unfortunately, it requires a fair amount of editing text config files so it's not necessarily the easiest; and it doesn't have too much in the way of bells and whistles appearance wise.

Otherwise, I've used openbox, and it was a good setup, so if fvwm is too much I'd use that.
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f4u5t · n00b Joined: 09 Jul 2008 Posts: 45

I run enlightenment (e16) on my old thinkpad t30. If you don't use any fancy compositing or full screen window dragging then it works well, looks good, and leaves the screen free of clutter.

Lately I've also been using twm. Forget the bloat of fvwm! :twisted:

i92guboj

taipan67 · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject:

I think you would benefit from getting to grips with the differences between the terms that get used for 'graphical user interfaces'; Gnome, KDE and Xfce are 'desktop environments', which are made up of many different components, including a 'window manager', a 'desktop manager' and a 'session manager', as well as things like 'desktop panels'. As yngwin has stated, LXDE is also a recent addition to the 'desktop environment' family, but it's considerably lighter than the other 3, and strives to piece together existing components as much as possible.

(EDIT: 'Rox' is another lightweight 'desktop environment' that i don't recall seeing mentioned previously)

Another consideration is which 'graphics toolkit' you're most likely to use - GTK, QT, or (much less likely) Imlib2 (there's others, too, but they're even less likely than that); This will be heavily governed by your preferred applications - for example, if you want Firefox as your web-browser, you're getting GTK whether you like it or not, and if you want your desktop-wallpaper to be anything more than a plain, solid, single colour, you'll need a tool that requires Imlib2, at minimum.

You initially said you didn't like the "too wide toolbars" in Gnome - if you mean the area where the 'New', 'Open', 'Save', etc. buttons are found in your app's, then you're talking about the GTK toolkit, but such things are as configurable as any of the alternatives. If on the other hand you meant the top 'title bar' of the whole window, then you're talking about just the 'window manager', 'metacity' in this case - you can use almost any window-manager you like with the rest of Gnome instead of that one, if you prefer.

After using nothing but Xfce for a long time, i've recently tried out LXDE, and while i didn't like it enough to use exclusively, i can say that my overall system has become much more responsive, as the DE is putting less of a strain on my hardware - Firefox loads much faster and works better because there's little or no memory-swapping required (AthlonXP-2500 with 512Mb RAM), unlike in Xfce, which in turn is easier on resources than Gnome.

Right now i'm using my own concocted 'desktop environment', after being inspired by LXDE to do so - this is very basic at the moment, just openbox as the window-manager and lxsession-lite as the session-manager. I haven't found a panel that i like, yet (the toolbar at the top or bottom of the screen with the application-menu and program-launchers on it) and am managing just fine with openbox's own builtin-menu anyway. I use conky to display the date, time, and anything else i want on my desktop, and feh to set the wallpaper (Pcmanfm didn't play nice with conky when i tried it as desktop-manager) - i haven't logged in to Xfce at all since i got this setup working smoothly.

I might still have a look at fluxbox for the eye-candy (icons in menu's, using Imlib2), but i'm fairly certain i'll be sticking with the whole, over-riding 'lightweight' principle whichever way i go...

...But getting back to my original point after all that waffle... Using just a 'window-manager' by itself is possible but not especially practical - it won't remember the whole desktop's shutdown-state the next time you start it, for one thing. I'd recommend starting with one of the 'desktop environments', with Xfce as a safe bet for most uses while you gain familiarity with the lighter, manually configured setups by trying out LXDE and learning how it's pieced together - much like i'm doing... :wink:

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NathanZachary · Moderator Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2609

I've been working a lot with Openbox lately, and find it to be awesome! I'm planning on putting it on my Asus eeePC 1000AH when it comes in later this week. It takes a bit of work to get a productive environment, but what you have as an end-product is a system that you built to your specifications. I would recommend looking into it.

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dreadlorde · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:34 pm Post subject:

Awesome.
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d2_racing · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:36 pm Post subject:

Xfce can really do the job

keenblade · Veteran Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 1087

Also icewm is a very good, lightweight and nice wm.
Like others says, openbox is another excellent wm for the same goal.
Lxde is a perfect DE using openbox as wm.
Flux is another great wm.
Lxde and icewm works perfect with compiz-fusion. (If you bear the weight of the eye candy that compiz adds .)
Xfce is nice, but not that light.
Since all of them are super light (except compiz), you can try and find the one that suits to you.
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nbvcxz · Guru Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 379 Location: Kraków / PL

Try all of them - and find what is best suitable for you. Please notice what taipan67 said: some of mentioned are not Desktop Environments but Window Managers. For comparing you can use other distros (eg. at your friends) not to compile everything. Look what the environment offers to you (which functions, additional programs, graphic concept) and what in fact are your needs (if you need eg. build-in ftp protocol in default file manager). Then please check what are dependencies of the environment and what daemons it runs (if fact how resource hungry is the environment).
After the lot of time and comparing I have chosen E17 (Enlightenment E17). It is called Desktop Shell (something between DE and WM), has no 'additional' dependencies (in fact only dbus daemon is needed to run) and it is lightspeed. Now with new default B&W theme it is beautiful (especially for laptops).
More info for Gentoo (and not only):
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-707690.html
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-5238217.html
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-692216.html
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-643655.html
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keet · Guru Joined: 09 Sep 2008 Posts: 574

On my ultra high-speed laptop, I use Openbox and tint2. Fluxbox is good, too. Sometimes I'm tempted to use Fluxbox on my desktop, too, but it avant-window-navigator doesn't work properly with xcompmgr (it prevents me from clicking anything that's in the area around the dock).. otherwise I probably would, since I love the right-click menu design and the simplicity.

disi · Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:56 am Post subject:

I was using windowmaker for a while and it is actual great. Unfortunately there was no update since june 2006 so I switched to another windowmanager.

But it seems to be back! windowmaker :!:

There are new patches and active developement now (last pre release is Fri, 31 Oct 2008) with Composite etc.

//edit: sorry but just discovered it myself and I am so excited

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