Back in business

During the last months, I've been busy creating my own start-up business as web copywriter. Starting a business and studying at the same time has demanded a lot of my time which means I have had few moments available for non-profitable blogging.

Today I found something I wanted to share with you: fvwm-crystal. For years I've wanted to use fvwm but I have never had the time to tweak the settings in order to have a good-looking desktop. Today I noticed the Debian package fvwm-crystal which immediately gave me a usable and nice-looking desktop. Unfortunately, the package came with quite a few dependencies.



Anyway, fvwm seems to function very nicely on my 600 MHz iBook. After a few months jumping between framebuffer and openbox, fvwm is a very refreshing window manager.

WindowMaker Dockapps

WindowMaker is one of my favorite window managers as my regular readers might remember. WindowMaker is simple, strong, and lightweight. Just the right combination for my old hardware.

WindowMaker in itself is pretty simple and does not provide any widgets or gadgets out of the box. But its functionality can greatly be enhanced by different dockapps that exist for just about every possible use. I rarely need anything special but if I would ever want to have a fractal graphics program running in a dockapp I would have no difficulties in finding, installing and running one.



The screenshot shows several dockapps in action. From left to right there is wmcalclock, wmmixer, wmrecord, wmload, wmtop, wmmand, and wmcube. If these dockapps cannot be installed with the help of the package management of the distro you use, you can of course install them from the sources. All the dockapps can be browsed in Dockapps.org.

If you have never used WindowMaker, it is certainly worth a try.

See also:
[1] WindowMaker links in the column to the right.
[2] WindowMaker Themes
[3] More WindowMaker Themes

Great window manager for old computers: JWM

Joe's Window Manager (JWM) is yet another lightweight window manager that is excellent for those using Linux with an old computer. Several lightweight distributions use it as the window manager. At least SliTaz, Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux all use JWM.

JWM can very easily be used with any other distribution if the hardware is not fast enough for running a modern desktop environment with all the bells and whistles. Unlike some other lightweight window managers, JWM includes a panel with start menu for starting applications, a pager for changing the virtual desktops, a taskbar and a clock. So there is no need for an external panel for making the window manager usable. The look is pretty classical and reminds me of the systems I used in the nineties, except that those operating systems did not support any virtual desktops!



The default look of JWM is not especially pretty. But a nice wallpaper (I use feh for setting a wallpaper) can do miracles. In addition, I have tweaked the configuration file in order to make the font used for menus smaller and turned the outline mode on for moving and resizing windows.

To tweak the configuration file, copy it from /etc/system.jwmrc to ~/.jwmrc. Edit it with any editor you like and save it after doing the necessary changes. In my system there was one absolutely necessary change to make: I had to change the original rxvt for xterm in order to be able to start a terminal session from the JWM menu. You'll find a lot more information about the configuration settings in Joe Wingbermuehle's web page.



The wallpaper can be downloaded from from here.

What is your favourite lightweight window manager to be used with an old computer running Linux?

Pekwm theme collection

I just found a very nice collection of pekwm theme files in Adrinux blog. Most of the blog is by the way written in Italian.



The theme used is Leopard. Wallpaper can be downloaded here.

Edit.: correct link for wallpaper :-)

Pekwm is an excellent window manager for old computers

I like to test new window managers every now and then. I decided to dedicate my desktop to pekwm this week.

I had never tried pekwm before. In fact, I am not even sure if I had ever heard about it before. This very lightweight window manager has been a most pleasant surprise for me. Even my old Pentium III (1.0 GHz with 256 Mb) has no difficulties in providing a very usable desktop with this window manager.



You can find many nice themes for pekwm in box-look.org. Just download the theme and unpack it to ~/.pekwm/themes. Right-click the root window and select Pekwm, Themes to change the theme.



The clock shown is the classic xclock and the dock is wbar. Wbar is still in beta stage but already pretty useful piece of software.

More information about installing and tweaking pekwm can be found in the Ubuntu forum and in Urukrama's weblog.

Openbox is a Lightweight Window Manager

Openbox is one of the more popular lightweight window managers. It can be used as a standalone solution or as a component of the LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. The default look of Openbox is rather minimalistic, but it is a good basis for building a custom desktop.


The default look of openSUSE's openbox

Fortunately, the internet is full of resources and tutorials for customizing the look and feel of Openbox. Here are some of the more informative pages I've found:

• Openbox documentation
• Openbox FAQ
• Urukrama's Openbox guide
• Openbox in Ubuntu Wiki
• HOW-TO: Install, Customize, and Configure Openbox (lots of options)
• Configuring Openbox V2
• Kmandla's Feisty Openbox on 1Ghz Pentium III, start to finish

Themes for Openbox can of course be found in the usual sources. See, for example, the following:

• Boxlook's Openbox themes
• And more links can be found in the official documentation

Can you recommend some other sites?

More WindowMaker Themes

I have found some more very nice themes for WindowMaker. If you like to use WindowMaker as the window manager you should visit Jess Anderson's site Themes for Window Maker. At the moment I'm using the theme Bavarian Road. It's a nice rather grey theme, very easy for my eyes and has nothing that would disturb me while I write.



(Download)

For information about installing WindowMaker themes, see the end of my previous post on WindowMaker: WindowMaker Themes

WindowMaker Themes

WindowMaker is an often forgotten lightweight window manager. Also I tend to forget it when using a modern desktop, but when I have to use an old computer I sooner or later come back to WindowMaker.

Now that I'm using my 1 GHz 'Oikos' desktop I've again installed WindowMaker. It's design is very different from most of the other window managers and desktops, as it does not have a panel or a start menu for starting applications. Right-clicking the root window does, however, open a context menu for running applications, opening XTerm, changing the visual appearance of WindowMaker and so on. More functionality can be added by installing and running WindowMaker applets.

1) Default look


WindowMaker's default desktop is probably not the prettiest of all desktops. There are, however, hundreds of different themes that can be used for modifying the simple desktop to become simple, strong and sharp. Freshmeat has an excellent collection of themes for WindowMaker.

2) Aay: A light grey theme



3) WMCrystal



4) One



5) PureWM is another light theme.



These light themes are the most usable ones with my old recycled 17" monitor. Your hardware might like some other combinations of colors better, remember to experiment also with themes that are not provided by your distribution. Many more beautiful themes and icon sets can be found in Freshmeat!

Installing a theme is not difficult. They are distributed as .tar.gz packages. Gunzip and tar xvf them in the directory ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Themes and you will find the just installed theme by right-clicking the root window (wallpaper), and selecting Appearance, Themes, Theme.

Eight Reasons for Trying Alternative Window Managers

Ubuntuforums.org is one of the Linux forums I like to follow even if I don't myself use Ubuntu at the moment. It has got pretty much traffic which makes it interesting to read and to participate in the discussions.

Some time ago, a forum member asked about the point of using lightweight window managers. He was apparently happy with GNOME and did not see any point in experimenting with lightweight alternatives:

I understand some are made for lower end machines. My machine runs gnome fine so does it even bother me to experiment around with them?

In my opinion, the lighweight window managers are worth trying for several alternatives. In fact, I was able to list at least ten reasons for changing GNOME for something else. These were the reasons I gave as my answer to the question:

1. It is fun.
2. One learns something.
3. One will soon be bored with GNOME.
4. All window managers look different.
5. KDE is better than GNOME.
6. Window managers are lighter than GNOME or KDE.
7. One can install twm to see what Linux looked like in the middle of 90's.
8. One is free to do anything with one's system.

But you don't have to try alternative window managers, if you don't want to.

LXDE - Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment

Openbox is one of the most popular lightweight window managers. Unfortunately, it is not very newbie friendly. It is true that there are some very good tutorials for customizing a desktop based on the Openbox but most newbies want to install something that is easy to use and offers everything one needs out of the box. This is exactly what LXDE does.

It is used by several lightweight distributions, including Ubuntulite and VectorLinux lite. Soon it will be on even more desktops, as also gOS has adopted the desktop to be used in the cheap NetBooks and NetTops for sale in US and elsewhere.



In the FAQ of the project, the developers give five reasons for designing yet another desktop environment. I liked two of reasons especially:

Not everyone on this earth is rich. There must be a nice desktop environment for those who can't afford new fancy hardware, and we have the ability to help them.

And another one:

If Windows 98 and xp work quite well on old machines, why my Linux desktop needs a 1.0 GHz CPU + 1GB RAM? We don't believe building such a usable desktop environment requires that much resource usage, so we try it ourselves.

These are reasons I symphatize with! But for the developers, the best reason was:

Because reinventing the wheel is cool, and we love it!

LXDE combines several lightweight software together to produce a nice desktop. It includes a panel with taskbar and start buttons, a wallpaper, a file manager that provides also desktop icons, a session manager, an image viewer, a lightweight text editor, a terminal emulater and a file archiver. Some of the components are part of the LXDE project, some of them are delevoped independently and suggested by LXDE developers to be used as default applications for LXDE.

Components included in LXDE are:
- PCManFM (a file manager)
- LXPanel (a panel with taskbar)
- LXSession / LXSession_Lite (a session manager)
- LXAppearance (a theme switcher)
- Openbox (a window manager)
- GPicView (a picture viewer)
- Leafpad (a text editor)
- LXTerminal (a terminal emulator)
- XArchiver (a file archiver)
- LXNM (a network connection helper application)



Hardware requirements for LXDE are moderate. The developers suggest using at least a Pentium II class CPU. LXDE and X themselves require only 45 MB but the user should have some memory left for other applications. For using applications like OpenOffice.org and Firefox, they suggest having more than 128 MB RAM. I would, however, suggest using lighter alternatives for those memory-hungry applications. Anyway, LXDE should run fine on any computer built in this decade.

It is based on gtk+2 which is not the lightest possible toolkit. On the other hand, it offers everything needed for internationalized user interface including writing from right to left. This may not be important for users preferring English, but for the rest of the world it is an important and thoughtful decision. In fact, before writing this review I decided to help in translating parts of the user interface to the language I prefer to use on my desktop.

LXDE is packaged for most of the popular distributions even if in some cases the packages must be downloaded from community repositories. In my case, the installation for openSUSE was painless and everything worked well. The desktop loads almost instantly unlike GNOME or KDE and it is nicely put together.

LXDE functions just like new users expect a desktop environment to function. Thus, right clicking the root window opens a menu letting the user sort the icons, create new folders and text files (but not start buttons) and change desktop settings including the size of icons and choose the wallpaper from three different wallpapers branded for LXDE.



In my opinion, LXDE is the best lightweight solution for newbies not interested in searching the right combination of lightweight applications to produce a nice user experience nor configuring window managers and panels by editing text files. LXDE might be the right one even for more experienced users as it gives everything one needs. But those users seeking a desktop for hardware build before 1999 should try something else.

My rating: **** (out of *****)

Links:
- LXDE Home page
- LXDE Wiki, including installation guides

Elsewhere: X Window Managers

20 Most Nimble and Simple X Window Managers for Linux is a short review of 20 window managers available for Linux. See also Window Managers for X.

Lightweight window managers: Equinox

Equinox Desktop Environment (EDE) is yet another lightweight window manager. It looks vaguely familiar to me... looks almost like something I used in the late 90's!

Unlike most lightweight window managers, EDE supports desktop icons, wallpapers, themes and has a panel with taskbar.

Unfortunately the project does not offer any ready deb's or rpm's, and neither of the distributions I currently use (Debian, openSUSE) do not have EDE in their repositories. It seems users are expected to compile their own EDE from the sources offered by sourceforge.

Links:
[1] Equinox Desktop Environment
[2] Linux.com: Lightweight Equinox Desktop Environment needs polish