Other Recommendations for small, low memory WM?

mickey said:
So I did some reading on the suggested WMs. Some seem to be tiling WMs, which I don't think I can get accustomed to.
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A bit late to this thread and I know you've gone in a different direction but thought I'd weigh in my experience here:

I first tried some tiling window managers last year, went through pretty much all of them, dwm, xmonad, ratpoison etc... I liked the concept but found that most of the original ones are too unintuitive, even though I like keyboard driven control and I can see how one could become fast at operating them with enough time investment (just like vim)... however there is a balance and I think i3wm hit that balance.

So if you like the concept but did not get on with the other ones I'd recommend giving i3 a go, I found I could start using it effectively after about 5 mins, started as an experiment now I've been using it ever since for everything. It has sensible defaults, easy to configure, has a good mouse keyboard balance also uses binary tree for completely flexible layout instead of more restrictive modes found in other tiling wms. My favourite thing about finding a tiling window manager I like is being able to not care about window chrome and just turn it all off and get stuff done rather than spending ages configuring.

Powerful tools aimed at the more advanced user doesn't mean usability must be sacrificed, I think i3 illustrates this.
 
I think for fast, efficient, and low memory usage, it would be hard to beat lwm. It is practically feature-free, which is a GOOD THING! It manages your windows, and that is all it does. I have been using it for years. I would attach a screen-shot, but, you know, there is nothing much to see!

Code: 
$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/lwm
-rwxr-xr-x  1 paul  paul  55496 Jun  2 16:37 /usr/local/bin/lwm

http://www.jfc.org.uk/software/lwm.html
 
mickey said:
Perhaps someone who has used fvwm2 more recently knows if there is any such thing as a taskbar like thing with buttons to start applications from and switch virtual desktops? I know there were several modules for fvwm, but I did not use many of these back in the days. I had a quick look at x11/mate-panel, but it seems that would pull in quite a number of dependencies.
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Try x11/lxpanel, it's got only few dependencies, but it is very nice and got many features - applets, like keyboard layout/volume indicator, apps menu, virtual desktops switcher (use WNCKPager applet), clock with calendar, "minimize all" button (should work with any WM!) etc...
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If you'll use it with FVWM, add these lines to your ~/.fvwm2rc
Code: 
Style lxpanel NeverFocus
EwmhBaseStruts	0 0 24 0
"EwmhBaseStruts 0 0 24 0" -- "24" is the top working area, it won't be overlapped by maximized windows (you need to set lxpanel height to 24).
 
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Very lightweight window managers/panels/application launchers are light because they have dispensed with configuration gui's. They are fast because they do not need to poll for configuration changes. I use x11-wm/openbox, x11/tint and x11/wbar based on this Thread 35308.
x11/tint, as of version 12.2, supports quick launch icons. I use the system tray extensively with x11/yad applets for a calendar and current local weather.

All my configurations were manually edited/tweaked over several years and at idle:

Code: 
load averages:  0.16,  0.31,  0.36                    PooBear.home.yak 18:41:46
59 processes: 58 idle, 1 on processor                                  up  1:58
CPU0 states:  0.6% user,  0.0% nice,  0.4% system,  0.4% interrupt, 98.6% idle
CPU1 states:  1.0% user,  0.0% nice,  0.8% system,  0.0% interrupt, 98.2% idle
Memory: Real: 119M/547M act/tot Free: 3413M Cache: 252M Swap: 0K/4336M

2590


I would not recommend this approach for distro-hoppers and those who change desktops frequently
 
x11-wm/fvwm2. With various hacks to make it more useful etc. The OP said something against hand-editing config files -- but hey, that's the only alternative to the GUI-based heavier stuff which does you don't know what.

BTW, OpenBSD installs FVWM2 with its base installation and it ships with a surprisingly nice configuration file. I'm using now a modified version of it.

I might post my .fvwm/config if you want, but there is more to it. Like a couple of tricks to make it look more cool -- like "funky" looking minimized apps icons and window menus. Here you can see my desktop. The red-colored inactive window borders and window-corner menu is from OpenBSD config.

Not using any panels or such stuff -- only what FVWM2 offers, including its menus and tools. Or whatever can be added by more or less simple scripts... though some of them use ImageMagic, which is NOT a simple tool. But anyway.
 
...Or there is also x11-wm/twm out there. I used them in succession: GNOME --> openbox --> twm --> fvwm2. Got stuck with fvwm for several years now. Many of these are actually derivatives from one another, so I figured there'd be no end to it and stopped.
 
When I'm using X (which isn't often) it's the same old badly hacked fvwm configuration I've been using for the past 10 years. It's fast, stable and has a few nice additions like the mouse wheel scrolls between the virtual desktops...
 
Stumpwm is pretty good, but it suffers from one fatal flaw - it's so tempting to spend all your time customizing rather than getting anything done. ;)

All this and no love for wmaker? Well, I guess I'm not that surprised. It's quirky, but it gets the job done.
 
SirDice said:
XFCE is becoming more like Gnome everyday so I wouldn't want to call it "small" any more. A popular low-power VM is probably LXDE. Alternatively there are "real" window managers instead of Desktop Environments, like x11-wm/i3 or x11-wm/awesome.
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I Agree about XFCE, and was never a fan of how the panels worked to begin with.

I do love LXDE, but when I installed it recently for for FreeBSD 10.3 I got several warnings about almost every integral package in the lx* family not having maintainers, and that this could cause unresolved issues and possibly cause them to be removed in the future, is this something I should worry about?

If it is, MATE is a very slimmed down desktop environment that does not have any of these types of messages, is based on gnome2 so it has dependencies but also compatibility. If you want even less "bloat", you can simply install mate-base. I think that should be an example in the handbook.

ALso, where are we on LXQt if the messages about LXDE are correct? I'm reading it's based on more recent QT/KDE stuff, so it looks like it will be great. This page got my hopes up, but it requires a workaround and doesn't seem near ready for easy installation.
 
James Taylor said:
All this and no love for wmaker?
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Yes, Window Maker is a very fast, lightweight and NICE window manager, if you like docks, like I am, then Window Maker is your WM of choice. Also it has poor(many useful features are disabled by default) default configuration and outdated default theme, and I believe that's why it's not so popular. But it can be configured (btw, all configuration can be done via GUI app (WPrefs), no need to edit configs by hand) to be very nice and very usable. Also you don't need panel with tray with wmaker, because there are many dock apps for it in ports tree, like volume indicator - audio/wmsmixer, clock - x11-clocks/wmclockmon, calendars, disk/cpu indicators... etc. Just give it a chance and use for few days, you'll love it.
Снимок экрана от 2016-07-25 22-05-39.png

siAk47S.png
 
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ILUXA said:
Yes, Window Maker is a very fast, lightweight and NICE window manager, if you like docks, like I am, then Window Maker is your WM of choice. Also it has poor(many useful features are disabled by default) default configuration and outdated default theme, and I believe that's why it's not so popular. But it can be configured (btw, all configuration can be done via GUI app (WPrefs), no need to edit configs by hand) to be very nice and very usable. Also you don't need panel with tray with wmaker, because there are many dock apps for it in ports tree, like volume indicator - audio/wmsmixer, clock - x11-clocks/wmclockmon, calendars, disk/cpu indicators... etc. Just give it a chance and use for few days, you'll love it.
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I love it! ;)

But I kinda dig the classic look too, for the nostalgia of the good ol' 90's. :beer:
 
Try CDE for a full desktop environment that is probably lighter than a lot of the modern WMs.

Atm I am also using a hacked OpenBSD FVWM config. It has three modes, console mode, widget mode and desktop mode. I am thinking about porting this config to a more modern FVWM version for others to try out but running a bit short of time currently.
 
I am definetly not a panel guy myself, which is why XFCE has always botherd me.

What I loved about LXDE was a simple taskbar and windows that had a great default setup that were not as customizable but hard to screw up, and to me, the docking stuff has caused much frustration and instability.

What I found as a solution, possibly for now and in the future, Is the PC-BSD project Lumina. The Lumina desktop environment is under heavy development by the PC-BSD team, and is being updated very frequently. It is about as lightweight as you can get for a full desktop environment.

Lumina uses Fluxbox instead of my preferred OpenBox, but man, it is seriously lightweight for a full Desktop environment. No need to even install or configure docking panels or a separate panel from the window manager, it looks like I'm sticking with Lumina for a seriously lightweight window manager - and am excited to see where their development team takes this.

I think the LXDE and LXQt projects are about to be abandoned in the *nix but even moreso in the BSD world. I would love to see a more up to date openbox-based desktop environemnt in the BSD pkg collection, but it looks like what we will get from the BSD world is Lumina from PC-BSD.

I just tried it and I'm stuck to it like glue, give it a shot if you are really going lightweight and want a full desktop environment. Maybe someone will pick up LXDE or LXQt development, but for now, this is what I'm more than happy using :)
 
LXDE will probably remain static, but as said above, lxpanel is excellent in Openbox and I use most of the lx* applications(lxappearance,lxmenu,lxtask,leafpad) with Openbox on Arm. Simple but functional. No maintenance needed.
 
Just as an aside, generally, I use tint2 with openbox. However, on a multihead setup, I was finding all sorts of oddities--for example, I'd open a terminal, it would open as a narrow rectangle, sometimes things got stuck getting moved between monitors, and other strange things. A co-worker said that he thought it might be due to tint. I said, naw, no way, he said try another panel. I tried lxpanel, and sure enough, the problems went away.

Later another co-worker used openbox and was running into similar issues. I mentioned my experience, and they too found that replacing tint with lxpanel fixed their issues. All of us have only had this type of issue on multihead setups, on single monitor setups, if I use openbox, I used tint2.
 
How nice to have multiple options. I ended up with OB because nothing else would build on Arm at the time.
I mostly use xfce4 on x86-amd64.
 
I love lxpanel and openbox, but is it ok to just ignore all the messages that say:
Code: 
The port currently does not have a maintainer. As a result, it is more likely to have unresolved issues, not be up to-date, or even be removed in the future.
when you are installing ithem? Are messages like these indicative of any type of compatibility, stability, or security problems?

The packages do work, but I ended up settling on Lumina because I kind of know it's in very active development now, and there will be a lot of updates for any foreseeable future. The description says is designed specifically with BSDs in mind, is based on fluxbox, an different fork of blackbox(which openbox also is), so they are at least comparable in that respect. It isn't my favorite, but I know it's old, reliable and up -to-date.

I believe the last time openbox, lxpanel and LXDE these have been updated are 12 months ago, and even the LXQt project seems in limbo.

So in comparing the 2: 1) (the LXDE/openbox/lxpanel) which i like better, but might not have any updates, and 2) Lumina, not my favorite but seems designed for BSDs and is going to get a lot of development support, what are some pro's and cons, do you think?
 
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