absolutely minimal graphical desktop environment

C

ccc

hi

Which graphical desktop environment should be normally used for a thin client?

Is Xfce the best choice?

Do I need to install xorg-server for Xfce?

How much MB should be count for a really minimal Xfce with Firefox?
 
(don't expect a factual or useful reply to "which is the best/lightest/coolest" type questions ..)
 
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ccc said:
Which graphical desktop environment should be normally used for a thin client?
Click to expand...
That would be x11-wm/tinywm running with a few terminal emulator instances.
Okay seriously, all DEs are relatively fat, even the "lightest" ones like Xfce or LXDE. These are fat, the others are obese. If you're looking for minimalism, choose a lightweight window manager and then add the applications that suit your needs best. Only you can choose what is good for you and you can do that only by trying all available alternatives. Here is a good start.

ccc said:
Do I need to install xorg-server for Xfce?
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That's like asking: "should there be an HTTP server out there for me to be able to browse a website using a browser?"
Any X client - whether it is a window manager or a graphical web browser or a game - runs on top of an X server. xorg-server is one implementation of an X server.

ccc said:
How much MB should be count for a really minimal Xfce with Firefox?
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Wild guess: 100 MB.
 
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DutchDaemon said:
(don't expect a factual or useful reply to "which is the best/lightest/coolest" type questions ..)
Click to expand...

Well, "lightest" at least is something that can be addressed in objective, quantifiable terms. Just like "fastest".

The problem with these questions is that the questioner never specifies what measurements are important to him. Not to mention what he considers an acceptable range.

Does "lightest" mean disk footprint? Or memory footprint? Both? Or something else?

Should any shared libraries be included in the calculation? All libraries or only the ones unique to this desktop environment?

What usage scenarios should be used for the calculation? When comparing desktop environments, should we limit ourselves to the applications bundled with that environment?

If we can agree on the answers to these specific questions and others like them, then we might be able to make some progress on answering the more general question.

And if "best" is understood as "meeting the stated requirements better than any of its competitors" then this is also something where we can get an objective answer --- again, assuming that we've done the work nailing down the requirements and making them precise. I.e., if we've turned it into an engineering problem. (Of course, the answer might still be that there is no single best contestant, but several that perform equally well.)

"Coolest", I'm afraid, is hopelessly subjective. ;)
 
I have a full functional desktop (meaning menu, launchers, workspaces, dock, etc) via WindowMaker. It requires no manual configuration editing as it has an excellent compact GUI tool built-in.

The machine is currently running no services - rc.conf, apart from network configuration is empty. Desktop has 4 additional dockapps (small programs running as desktop-addons), CPU meter, network meter, audio control and animated clock inside a fishbowl. These dockapps are interactive.

Conky is running on desktop providing me information about memory usage, disk usage, running processes, etc.

There are currently two launched xterm windows, one running shell, other running Midnight Commander editor.

And total memory usage of this machine is 188 MB.

So using a lightweight desktop environment you're going to get sub 200 MB memory usage. I think all of those components (WindowMaker, dockapps, conky) together have a sub 50 MB disk footprint, together with all the extras packed (such as icons that come with WindowMaker).

If you're seeking for a thin-client only functionality, i can give few suggestions :

- Don't use full DE's, as light as they can be, they're overbloated for your task.
- Semi DE's, like WindowMaker, that don't come with their own applications, but still provide launchers, desktop, workspaces, dock, etc, are easy to set up initially, but they are made with run-time configuration tweaking in mind. Therefore, if you want static GUI setup that's constructed at launch, i'd avoid this too.
- Tiling window managers would come in handy. Such as dwm, awesome, wmii, etc. They can provide a narrow nagivation bar at top which you can use to control virtual workspaces, and launchers that will launch RDP/VNC/whatever client inside that workspace @ full screen.
- If you're looking for a floating/overlapping window manager, more classic and familiar approach, i'd suggest IceWM. It doesn't have desktop, but it has a tray bar with "start button", clock, and virtual workspace controls. Start menu is configured through configuration files, and you would use it to launch remote access programs. With external programs inside .xinitrc, you'd set a desktop background.

With IceWM you'd get a memory footprint around 150MB, with small tiling WM's even less.
Disk footprint of above listed window managers is completely insignificant.

The least expensive thin client on i386 hardware i can think of would be some cheap miniITX board with embedded graphics and network, 1 GB flash media for system, and 512 MB of RAM. I would install standard FreeBSD, without profiled libraries, sources, etc, but i wouldn't save space on man pages / documentation, cause they really come in handy, and they aren't so big to make a difference. Keep in mind that you install on flash media, thus you need some additional tweaks (tmpfs, search forums to clarify this better). I would compile and install only Xorg components that i truly need, only target GFX driver + VESA, no X programs such as xterm,xeyes,etc...and then i would configure IceWM, compile and install remote access programs i'd be running, set-up IceWM menu, etc, and that's it. Clean up distfiles, and any port leftovers. You get a system wasting well below 1GB disk space, with a runtime footprint of ~ 150MB of RAM.
 
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Awesome and FVWM are pretty sweet too, but the lightest of all the mentioned ones is definitely dwm. I believe lighter than this is only a pure terminal without X server.
 
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ccc said:
something something lightest environment
Click to expand...

http://roscidus.com/desktop/

If by desktop environment you mean strictly "comes with a file manager", this is the littlest I can think of. It's weird, though.

Firefox is going to be significantly heavier than the lighter window managers, though, so once you get down to LXDE-esque it really doesn't matter! Firefox alone can eat like 500 MB of memory if you use it like I do (30 tabs at once, etc)
 
Fluxbox
dwm
awesome wm
windowmaker

All this are very light, very fast, they don't need a lot of MB and are easy configured. Especially windowmaker and dwm! I have not used awesome wm but is a tiling window manager like dwm. So could not be slow or need a lot of memory. Also change Firefox with Opera. I think is faster.
 
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ccc said:
Thx a lot for all answers, but which desktop is most common in the thin clients?
Click to expand...

Here is one thing you can try if you want a relatively familiar feel with a considerably smaller memory footprint. Run a lightweight, simple window manager (such as openbox) with a taskbar program, preferably something with a launch menu. Xfce4-panel would probably be a good choice as it will probably seem pretty familiar, give easy access to basic configuration programs, and it doesn't use a lot of resources. I did a similar set up on a friend's dinosaur (it had around 80 MB of RAM) and it was surprisingly responsive, I could even play a few YouTube videos. Also, be careful with which screensaver you use because some of them can be very resource intensive. Your best bet in regards to that would probably be to use xscreensaver and just have the screen blank (and lock, if you want local security) instead of displaying some fancy graphics.
 
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Thx a lot for all answers, but which desktop is most common in the thin clients?
Click to expand...
Fluxbox is the most used wm. If you search for the complete terminal and minimalistic experience, dwm is that you are looking for :)
 
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+1 for fluxbox. For my purposes, which sound similar to yours, it balances "snappiness" and functionality better than any other window manager I've tried. Perhaps you could also look at firefox alternatives such as www/midori to reduce your footprint further.
 
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Thx a lot, but what about Xfce4 in comparison with Fluxbox?
Is Xfce4 to big, for example to boot over PXE?
 
ccc said:
Thx a lot, but what about Xfce4 in comparison with Fluxbox?
Is Xfce4 to big, for example to boot over PXE?
Click to expand...

Fluxbox is pretty thin. Much thinner than xfce
Blackbox is thinner.
 
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Fluxbox is a Window Manager. Xfce is a Desktop Environment. Probably a window manager is much more thin than a whole Desktop Environment :) Never used Blackbox but Fluxbox is based on it.
 
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Fluxbox 1.3 has arrived.
Click to expand...
Already on ports :)
I finally used blackbox. Well is slimmer than fluxbox. If you really need a slim environment, then prefer blackbox. Only 2 thinks don't have. Minimize (well always I shade my windows) and systray. But a simple toolbar as tint2 will make the job for this 2 :) (Or use it as blackbox toolbar instead default :) ) Also have a simple and easy config gui :)
This is my blackbox with tint2
 
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