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A Newbie's Guide To A Lo-Fat Linux Desktop
LinuxPosted by Hemos on Friday December 28, @06:12PM
from the lean-and-mean dept.
A reader writes:"This article is what I needed a few years ago, when I first started playing with Linux. It's about building a fast and usable desktop using software that doesn't need a squillion horsepower." Good article if you are putting together an older machine to run as a dedicated box, or what to cobble together a terminal with spare parts.

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    • A Newbie's Guide To A Lo-Fat Linux Desktop | Login/Create an Account | Top | 351 comments | Search Discussion
    Threshold:
    The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
    (1) | 2 (Slashdot Overload: CommentLimit 50)
    lo-fat? (Score:4, Funny)
    by The Turd Report (the_turd_report@hotmail.com) on Friday December 28, @06:14PM (#2760818)
    (User #527733 Info | http://cmdrtaco.net/yada/cowboyneal.ornot/ | Last Journal: Sunday January 06, @04:40AM)
    Looking at the average linux user, I don't think lo-fat is in their vocabulary. (or diet)
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Yippee!!! (Score:1)
    by mcdermr (mcdermr@highstream.net) on Friday December 28, @06:18PM (#2760832)
    (User #519232 Info)
    I've been wanting to use my old computer for something lately but I thought it would be too slow. I've not thought about using a "lighter" Window Manager for my old Pentium 133 kicking around. It's been a paper weight collecting dust. I've never used Ice or Blackbox before. Anyone have a preference? What are the major differences?
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • Re:Yippee!!! by blakestah (Score:2) Friday December 28, @06:33PM
    • Re:Yippee!!! by horster (Score:1) Friday December 28, @06:33PM
      Blackbox vs Ice, and some comments on programs (Score:5, Informative)
      by Cuchullain on Friday December 28, @06:36PM (#2760902)
      (User #25146 Info | http://www.google.com/)
      Hey,

      Blackbox is great, but it has been out of development for a while. It is a bit NeXt-ish but super lightweight, and quite attractive. There is current development on the same codebase under "fluxbox". A few guys got tired of waiting for improvements, and just went for it. I love open source... I use fluxbox on my p133 laptop w/ 32 mb of ram, and it works great.

      Icewm can be made to look more win32-ish. I have used it on and off, and think it is ok. It seems slower on my system than blackbox or fluxbox.

      If you really want minimal, check wmx or aewm++. They are pretty cool, but do not have many features (by design).

      For mail, try sylpheed or mutt. sylpheed is a nice gui mail client, mutt is console.

      For news try pan, or slrn etc. I use pan exclusively now, as it is acceptably fast and has great features.

      rxvt is blindingly fast, as an xterm replacement, and aterm is quick with cool features. i use aterm.

      try Feh for images. It is lightweight and powerful. The montage feature is uber hip.

      nedit is a good editor, as is kde's kate. Vim always runs quick.

      Get mess and mame for games, they are lightweight and run a million old console or arcade roms.

      Good luck to you,

      Cuchullain

      PS: management of your system becomes an issue with slow boxes, try debian with dselect. It seems to kick right along even on my slow boxes.
      [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • Re:Yippee!!! by X-Dopple (Score:1) Friday December 28, @06:38PM
    • Re:Yippee!!! by _johnnyc (Score:1) Friday December 28, @07:58PM
      • Re:Yippee!!! by Enahs (Score:2) Friday December 28, @08:49PM
    • P1 200 by Trevelyan (Score:1) Friday December 28, @08:38PM
    • Re:Yippee!!! by swv3752 (Score:2) Friday December 28, @08:46PM
    • Re:Yippee!!! by archen (Score:1) Friday December 28, @10:52PM
    • Re:Yippee!!! by bwillcox (Score:1) Friday December 28, @11:59PM
    • Re:Yippee!!! by Herstel (Score:1) Saturday December 29, @03:57PM
    • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
    there are distros for this purpose (Score:4, Informative)
    by Frothy Walrus on Friday December 28, @06:20PM (#2760839)
    (User #534163 Info)
    building a low-fat box is a snap. just install a distro which is obviously devoid of bells and whistles. the bloated distros like Red Hat and Mandrake and SUSE look totally retarded next to little powerhouses like slackware and stripped-down debian.

    or, if you want a beautiful pure-UNIX box with unbeatable package management and outstanding security, install NetBSD (my favorite :).
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Why weight down new hardware with new crap? (Score:2, Insightful)
    by qurob on Friday December 28, @06:22PM (#2760847)
    (User #543434 Info)
    Good article if you are putting together an older machine to run as a dedicated box, or what to cobble together a terminal with spare parts. Or, if you just want to make your 1.6GHZ totally SCREAM.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    FVWM (Score:3, Interesting)
    by VAXman on Friday December 28, @06:28PM (#2760866)
    (User #96870 Info)
    Why not just use FVWM instead of that fancy IceWM or the other new window managers? It's very fast, small, and configurable. I'm running on a 1.2 GHz Athlon / 128 MB, and FVWM works great for me.

    Does anybody actually use those silly little file managers? IMHO, they just get in the way - why not just use the command line?
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • Re:FVWM by sarcast (Score:2) Friday December 28, @06:34PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:FVWM by a_n_d_e_r_s (Score:1) Friday December 28, @06:34PM
    • Re:FVWM by nbvb (Score:2) Friday December 28, @06:36PM
    • Re:FVWM by Ed Avis (Score:2) Friday December 28, @07:01PM
      • Re:FVWM by fanatic (Score:2) Saturday December 29, @02:41AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:FVWM by bricriu (Score:2) Friday December 28, @07:21PM
    • ctwm by "Zow" (Score:3) Friday December 28, @07:58PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:FVWM by foonf (Score:2) Friday December 28, @09:41PM
    • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.
    blackbox for me (Score:1)
    by horster on Friday December 28, @06:29PM (#2760870)
    (User #516139 Info)
    I like blackbox - most of the configuration can be done from a menu and it is very small and simple - and in my opinion, very pretty and elegant looking.

    nedit is nice too, but of course I use vim.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Um (Score:1)
    by rendler on Friday December 28, @06:29PM (#2760873)
    (User #141135 Info | http://www.geocities.com/rendler/ | Last Journal: Wednesday January 09, @05:29AM)
    That doesn't mean you're stuck with a text-only console though, as it's easy to set up a nice looking Linux desktop that has plenty of speed on something like an early Pentium with 32megs of RAM. And with RAM being so cheap at the moment, I'd go or 64megs if you can afford it.
    For Pentium systems like the one I have they're using EDO RAM which I brought 2x32mb sticks a couple months ago for $AU100, some of the replacement parts for redundant hardware ain't cheap. When for the same price I could get 256MB of PC133 and have 20 bucks to spare.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • Re:Um by sabinm (Score:2) Friday December 28, @08:23PM
    Start with X? (Score:3, Interesting)
    by Telastyn on Friday December 28, @06:30PM (#2760875)
    (User #206146 Info)
    Maybe I'm showing signs of age, but I know how much knowing DOS helped me when I moved to win95 as it came out. I knew how to do things, and more importantly how things worked rather than how windows showed it to me.

    So when I installed linux (SuSE at first) I benefitted greatly from using just console for a short while (mostly because I couldn't setup X properly, but that's another thing). I learned how things worked in this new system before I encountered window managers that assumed I knew such things.

    I certainly understand the need for lightweight WM's for some machines, but for learning purposes the only thing they can provide is maybe Netscape to help files. Of course imo someone should use the system they are comfortable with to browse help, because god knows the easiest way to get frustrated is having to fight with a machine while trying to find help.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Why no mention of APT? (Score:5, Insightful)
    by Nailer on Friday December 28, @06:32PM (#2760883)
    (User #69468 Info | http://www.cyber.com.au/)
    Where to Get Packages
    You'll find a lot of this stuff is included on the installation cd's of most distro's, or you can follow the links. Wherever possible, these point to the project's homepage, or else to rpmfind's download site. If you're using something other than a RedHat style distro, you may have to backtrack a bit from the rpmfind sites to get the right version.

    No offence, but fuck backtracking :). There's been a billion tools to download apps and their dependencies, and Ximian's Red Carpet and APT are two of the best - between the two there's very little software which isn't available packaged to work on a Red Hat box.

    Best of all, freshrpms.net is now available via APT. Freshrpms is an invaluable source of this kind of stuff - eg, if you're into DVD, its always up to date with the latest Ogle, Xine, Transcoder and Drip packages. Furthermore, Matthias from Freshrpms does requests: just name the software and he'll package it. He's also a bloody nice guy and writes tutorials on how to package properly too, asking for very little in return. Freshrpms is easily the best Red Hat package source out there.

    Anyway, get APT here [rpmfind.net]. Install it, then stick the following in your /etc/apt/sources.list

    rpm http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-7.2-i386/redhat os
    rpm http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-updates-7.2/redhat os
    rpm http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-extra-7.2/redhat extra
    rpm http://apt.freshrpms.net freshrpms/7.2 main

    rpm-src http://apt.freshrpms.net freshrpms/7.2 main
    rpm-src http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-7.2-i386/redhat os
    rpm-src http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-updates-7.2/redhat os
    rpm-src http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-extra-7.2/redhat extra

    As you probably know, Ximian Gnome including Red Carpet is available from ximian.com. Combined with APT they provide a way to run up to date software on a stable distribution using standard packages, which as far as I know isn't available from anyone but Connectiva, Red Hat, and Polished Linux Distribution.

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Kernel (Score:4, Informative)
    by bartyboy (.bart. .at. .elkmachines.com.) on Friday December 28, @06:32PM (#2760884)
    (User #99076 Info)
    He forgot a couple of things: the kernel and libs.

    Zipslack would probaby be best for this base system. Or a stripped-dopy (minimal install) of Slack or Deb.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Ultralinux on Debian (Score:2, Interesting)
    by Skuld-Chan on Friday December 28, @06:34PM (#2760894)
    (User #302449 Info)
    Seriously - most sparc machines can be had for pretty cheap these days, and debian is still supported well on them. And debian usually only installs absolutely what you need to survive. Its also nice for older machines like 68k macs and sparc 32 platforms since they usually come with small hard drives.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Dont want to start a flame war (Score:5, Informative)
    by Zule_Boy (evan @ death-from-above.com) on Friday December 28, @06:41PM (#2760925)
    (User #45951 Info | file:/dev/zero)
    Working in a large ISP environment, I have really learned to love A nice clean FreeBSD install. Anymore I find myself taking a Linux Box (mostly RedHat) and stripping out all the packages and going and rebuilding them the way they should have been. You may also find yourself rebuilding servers with a BSD based system just cause.
    In my opinon, you have to try as many UNIXs as you can. get an extra box. Install anything else on it than your normal install. play. repeat. There is more to computing than Linux. I just saw someone get modded down in another thread for mentioning Solaris. Solaris rocks. He got modded cause Solaris aint Linux.
    You need the right tool for the right job. Square pegs dont fit in round holes, and so on. Once you do BSD, you will never go back. I have heard of people falling in love with Debian also. YMMV
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    erm ... some things are a little stupid ... (Score:4, Informative)
    by SuperDuG (<moc.nzz.gud> <ta> <gud>) on Friday December 28, @06:44PM (#2760929)
    (User #134989 Info | http://www.dugnet.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 25, @03:37PM)
    First off ... if you want small and fast ... Try peanut linux ... Website [ibiblio.org] or ISO's [linuxiso.org]. "Just 99 Mb of data contain this already pre-software configured OS with a spectacular GUI for the most versatile operating system available today!. - Quoted from their page.

    Now for older boxen ... the best way to make them efficient is to follow the Keep It Simple Silly method of making a working box. Win95-Lite was made for this exact reason ... but that's just if you want win95 ... For linux I would have to recommend Slackware or Debian ... after a base install you have very little bloat and very few apps that you won't need. Apt makes it real nice to find and install, but slack also has a decent package list to choose from.

    You may also want to look into the BSD's ... all of them have a very bland base install and all of them run the latest greatest stuff.

    Along with being so great all of these (except slack) offer net installs, so all you need is a disk drive to boot the things up ... so if the CD has crapped out (which it has on many old computers) you can still do a full install on the net.

    People are saying FVWM or other things like that ... SawFish and BlackBox were made to be VERY lightweight window managers and like windowmaker are very customizable and since they are so small ... they take up a very small memory foot print.

    The thing would also make a cool Home Server, Make it into a router, webserver, email server, and file server ... perfect ...

    Lastly ... you could set it up with a VNC client and use it that way as a terminal system. I think the one thing that needs to be realized is that old boxes are far from useless.

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    A few more suggestions (Score:5, Interesting)
    by Otter on Friday December 28, @06:44PM (#2760933)
    (User #3800 Info | http://members.tripod.com/jbsinger/index.html/)
    My Linux box at work is a PowerMac 7200/75 MHz that gives me snappier performance than my 1200 MHz Athlon running Mandrake at home. I like the tips here but have a few more suggestions:
    • Use an older distro. I suggested this the last time this topic came up here, and generally got flamed for it, but I still think it's worth considering. If you're only running CLI or old style X apps, you may find it a lot easier to use Red Hat 5.0 and add the newer pieces you want than to try to cut one of the newer megadistros down to size. New distros don't even come with stuff like xplaycd or xfm. Just made sure to update for any security holes.
    • Try Gtk only apps. A lot of the utilities like xchat and grip run perfectly happily without Gnome, pointing out just how little you (or me, anyway) need all that hyped communication framework bloat. KDE apps don't cut down nearly as well (I'll leave it to the zealots to argue whether this is a win for KDE's superior integration or GNOME's modularity...) but your old distro will have KDE 1.x which is usable and really fast.
    • I must put in a plug for WindowMaker. It's all the desktop I need, whereas the really minimal WMs are too little for me, and still flies.
    • I also like Xenon as a text editor. It's lighter weight than Nedit, and is nice if you want a minimal X editor.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Nedit lightweight ?? (Score:4, Informative)
    by blakestah (dblake@phy.ucsf.edu) on Friday December 28, @06:45PM (#2760935)
    (User #91866 Info | http://www.keck.ucsf.edu/~dblake)
    If he is really looking lo-fat, he is kinda screwed.

    Nedit is not bad, but a terminal based editor will KILL it for RAM usage. Like vi, or Microemacs, or joe, or even jed.

    IceWM is OK, but blackbox is the screamer lightweight favorite Window Manager.

    For a file manager use the command line. Or MC - another terminal based utility (GUI utilities chunk out 8-10 MB RAM just for playing).

    For graphics viewing, skip ee. Raster is cool and all, but his imlib1.0 sucked for RAM usage. Try imlib2 and ee2, or eog. Either minimzes RAM usage while viewing images. GQview is pretty good, too.

    All browsers blow chunks for using RAM, especially konqueror and mozilla. Opera is the clear lo-fat winna. Or lynx, or w3m.

    And work on X - hard. Make a beautiful image your desktop background, and give up 20-30 Megs of RAM. Change it to a flat color (xsetroot -solid black) and you gain a lot back. Change X to 16 bit, and/or lose some resolution and you will gain more. I guess it all depends on what compromises you are willing to make. You can always hit Ctrl-Alt-F2 and save even more.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Video players, fm and word processing (Score:4, Insightful)
    by Jacek Poplawski on Friday December 28, @06:59PM (#2760973)
    (User #223457 Info)
    This article is strange for me. While icewm is great choice, I don't understand why he wrote about mtv and xanim. I think that software is bad, very bad.

    Thanks to avifile author we have many free and powerfull players today. Please try mplayer [sf.net] and avifile [sf.net] if you don't know it.

    How xanim or binary-only mtv can be better than free alternatives? Last time I checked it was even impossible to rewind a movie there!

    XWC as fm? Well, ok, but I preffer emelfm [sf.net], which is much better than mc for me (try to use mc in directory with 10000 files!).

    Last but not least - word processing. What about LyX [lyx.org]? OK, there is kword and abiword, but there are fat. IMHO LyX is much more powerfull than real MS Word, and it's fast and light. The only problem with LyX is xforms :-(

    So - it's nice to see that kind of article, but I think choices are not best there.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Web browsers (Score:2)
    by Ed Avis (epa98@doc.ic.ac.uk) on Friday December 28, @07:05PM (#2760996)
    (User #5917 Info | http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~epa98/)

    The article suggests Netscape as the best browser for a 32 meg machine (which I guess is what counts as 'low-memory' these days). But if you really want a small but usable browser, try Dillo [sourceforge.net]. It worked beautifully last time I tried it - apart from a problem logging in to Slashdot, which was enough to make me go back to Mozilla :-(.

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Linux From Scratch (Score:4, Informative)
    by J'raxis on Friday December 28, @07:12PM (#2761020)
    (User #248192 Info | http://www.jraxis.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday January 09, @03:17PM)
    Linux From Scratch [linuxfromscratch.org]. Not for newbies, but you can make an extremely small distro yourself.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    More usable, and still just as light (Score:4, Interesting)
    by SCHecklerX (slshdt@freefall.homeip.net) on Friday December 28, @07:22PM (#2761039)
    (User #229973 Info | http://freefall.homeip.net/)
    for the Window Manager, use Windowmaker [windowmaker.org] and for the filemanager/pinboard, use Rox Filer [sourceforge.net].

    And whatever you do, DON't run KDE apps!

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Kword (Koffice) is lightweight? (Score:2, Informative)
    by SCHecklerX (slshdt@freefall.homeip.net) on Friday December 28, @07:28PM (#2761055)
    (User #229973 Info | http://freefall.homeip.net/)
    Please. KDE apps are bloated and depend on having a bunch of useless crap running in the background. Abiword and Gnumeric are nice and light, but I use Star Office, since I have the horsepower :)

    I didn't see a mention of a good email client (Mozilla doesn't count) And again, he likes kmail?? For a lightweight desktop??? I would highly recommend Sylpheed [good-day.net] as a fast, light, easy to use, yet powerful (enough) mail client.

    There are so many problems with this article, that I'll stop now, I'm sure the rest of you have already pointed them out (time for me to read the comments now :)

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    blackbox screenshots? (Score:1)
    by simetra on Friday December 28, @07:33PM (#2761064)
    (User #155655 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    Does anyone have links? This icewm looks pretty cool. KDE is nice and pretty, but it's a hog.
    Thanks
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Why I like IceWM (Score:2, Insightful)
    by Chicks_Hate_Me on Friday December 28, @07:34PM (#2761070)
    (User #528837 Info | http://www.red-fusion.org/)
    I guess the main reason I likw IceWM is the taskbar and 'start button.' I know it seems lame but I'm used to that setup and it seems to work the best (and fastest) when I'm multitasking. I use MacOS 9 at school and I hate it, it seems too damn clunky in my opinion, and it seems like many Window Managers emulate MacOS in a way. So is there any other WMs like IceWM that don't take a lot of memory. I'm planning to set up a few desktop machines with a P90 and 32MB of ram.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    My school Lab (Score:2, Informative)
    by Beowulf_Boy (lstrunk@myrealbox.sirspamalot.com) on Friday December 28, @07:37PM (#2761075)
    (User #239340 Info | http://www.geocities.com/mp3_car/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 17, @08:43AM)
    I am the Co-director of the Clermont Northeastern HighSchool Technology Dept. (one hell of a title, eh?)
    I had to setup a lab for the middle school using some p1 200's with 32megs of ram.
    I used Redhat 7.1 XFS and IceWM.
    They are used solely for internet surfing,
    and I put Netscape Navigator 4.78 on there.
    The CPU usage bar has yet to spike past half way.
    I turned off all unneeded services, even Sendmail.
    I even decided against using ipchains, because they are already behind a firewall.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    how about ultra-low-fat (Score:2)
    by Lumpy (dont_type_this.timgray@lambdanet.com) on Friday December 28, @08:04PM (#2761137)
    (User #12016 Info | http://www.lambdanet.com/)
    Granted I could use microwindows (nano-x) or picogui but nither has a html3 compliant web browser available that weighs in at less than 2meg. does anyone know of a webbrowser out ther that is at least html3.0 compliant and is small-fast? I dont care about java,javascript,flash,whatever. dillo is cool except it's html2 compliant only (center tags and background color not implimented yet.. and I say yet becauseI am sure it will eventually.)
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    similar articles? (Score:2)
    by solferino ([oskameer] [at] [yahoo.com.au]) on Friday December 28, @08:05PM (#2761140)
    (User #100959 Info | http://slashdot.org/)

    i've been looking for articles such as this on th web with not much success...

    - anyone know of similar articles on th web (lightweight gnu/linux, lightweight computing) or even whole websites dedicated to th subject?

    thanks in advance

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    best distro for this (Score:5, Informative)
    by staeci (staeci_at_yahoo_dot_com) on Friday December 28, @08:16PM (#2761166)
    (User #85394 Info | http://members.fortunecity.com/darien/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 28, @08:18PM)
    HowTo Build a Minimal Linux System from Source Code [netspace.net.au]

    Linux from Scratch [linuxfromscratch.org]

    Now if someone can tell me why programs (so far MAKEDEV and Lilo) won't run from
      harddrive /dev/hdd1 I'll be a happy little linuxer
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    better ideas (Score:1, Informative)
    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28, @08:18PM (#2761170)
    - check out tinyX ( included in 4.1 distro ) as a low cal XServer.

    - check dillo for a browser ( dillo.sf.net )

    - fluxbox ( fluxbox.sf.net ) is an improved blackbox

    - As an editor check jove or jed ( or even emacs21 which boots much faster than previous version imho )

    - avoid kde / gnome. stick with just gtk apps.

    - maybe check xwd ( search google ) as a nice gtk mac like file manager.

    - Also custom build your kernel to use less ram, maybe drop the number of ttys, kill uneeded services, use rxvt/aterm rather than xterm.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Geek pride (Score:1, Flamebait)
    by Syberghost (s[ ]ghost@eiv.com ['yber' in gap]) on Friday December 28, @08:21PM (#2761178)
    (User #10557 Info | http://www.eiv.com/users/syberghost | Last Journal: Wednesday January 09, @03:03PM)
    Have some pride, people.

    Using a stripped-down desktop because your box doesn't have enough horsepower is like ripping the back seats out of your Mustang instead of putting in a Paxton Novi 2000 supercharger.

    Don't take functionality or looks out; stuff horsepower in!
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • Re:Geek pride by fishbowl (Score:2) Friday December 28, @08:42PM
      • Re:Geek pride by Syberghost (Score:2) Friday December 28, @09:04PM
      • Re:Geek pride by quarter (Score:1) Friday December 28, @09:50PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Geek pride by archen (Score:1) Friday December 28, @11:31PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    most lightweight graphcial web-browser? (Score:3, Interesting)
    by solferino ([oskameer] [at] [yahoo.com.au]) on Friday December 28, @08:22PM (#2761181)
    (User #100959 Info | http://slashdot.org/)

    ok, there's always lynx and w3m for lightweight web-browsing

    but my question is - what is th most lightweight, free software graphical web-browser out there? - nothing fancy, just functional please

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Lo Fat?!? How about Slim? (Score:2)
    by strredwolf on Friday December 28, @08:26PM (#2761192)
    (User #532 Info | http://stalag99.keenspace.com/)
    Lets see now, while LoFat's nice... how about this:

    20 megs RAM on a Linux 2.4.17 running 486/33 laptop.
    640x480 8-bit LCD (Compaq AVGA)
    XFree 3.x server

    I'm half tempted to recomile Xfree. :) Infact, I should document this triumph...
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    The only thing left out... (Score:1)
    by Mulletroll on Friday December 28, @08:43PM (#2761217)
    (User #544539 Info)
    Is how to change your default window manager and stop GNOME from loading etc. These things are probably covered elsewhere, but they would have been appropriate here. I would like to prevent GNOME from starting up on my RedHat box, and to add a few things to my X startup (xmodmap) but I don't use that machine often enough to bother figuring out how. I know how to change my setup on Debian (my main machine) by editing .xsession, but on my RedHat box I have no clue.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    XWC (Score:1)
    by MicroBerto on Friday December 28, @09:11PM (#2761266)
    (User #91055 Info | http://soul.apk.net/bertocam/)
    Of the file managers I have tried I prefer XWC...
    WOW! This is just what i've been looking for -- why haven't I known about this for the 3 years I've been using linux on my desktop? Head far up my ass i guess! Check out XWC
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • Re:XWC by cgleba (Score:2) Friday December 28, @10:16PM
      • Re:XWC by SCHecklerX (Score:2) Saturday December 29, @10:24AM
    My way... (Score:5, Informative)
    by madleech (madleech at gulp hotmail dot com) on Friday December 28, @09:20PM (#2761279)
    (User #240267 Info)
    Here's what i use.
    • ROX-Filer for the file manager. It manages desktop icons, and has a panel as well if you want one. It's based on Gtk+, but doens't involove any gnome.
      rox.sf.net [sf.net]
    • Oroborus for the window manager. It's default theme is beautiful and it is amazingly quick. Uses only xlib for drawing.
      www.kensden.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Oroborus/ [blueyonder.co.uk]
    • FSPanel, for F*ing Small Panel. The whole app is only 10k under linux! Plus it works and includes a pager (optional patch).
      www.chatjunkies.org/fspanel/ [chatjunkies.org]
    On my box it takes about 2 seconds to fully load everything! how's that for performance. KDE 2.1.0 took close to a minute to load.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Is it me or is this article not exactly useful? (Score:3, Interesting)
    by biglig2 on Friday December 28, @09:21PM (#2761280)
    (User #89374 Info | http://www.bigwig.net/biglig/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 18, @12:23PM)
    Flame on!

    "use GIMP for image editing"? Thanks guys, would never have thought of that one. Better yet: "install KDE even if you don';t use it as the apps are good"

    Look, I found in the back of my dead machine closet an old 386 laptop (woo, way back) and I want to set it up for my brother to encourage him to not email me instead of not calling, so I need a really low-fat linux. Whats the advice there? No PCMCIA or CD-ROM and about 4Mb of RAM, so KDE is out. Suspect X might be too. I'm going to try debian via floppy and fake a PPP connection via COM1 into my LAN for apt-get goodness.

    Also, since when have newbies needed guides to setting up unusual configs? I'm an experienced systems engineer, I run a laptop thats well documented, whose manufacturer puts millions into Linux, and happens to be a model Alan Cox personally owns. Despite all this, I can't get the fecking sound card to work. (It works now, because I wanted to listen to MP3 using it pver the holidays, so I uninstalled Linux and put Win2K on it, which detects and configures and makes work all the hardware out of the box) You have more problems than "newbies can't work out which window manager to put KDE on top of to save on space", people.

    That's it, from now on I'm drinking decaf.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Well, pick a simple distribution. (Score:1)
    by Decimal on Friday December 28, @09:34PM (#2761306)
    (User #154606 Info | http://www.blazarsoft.com/)
    Redmond Linux is supposed to be pretty simple. Haven't installed it just yet, but will pretty soon here.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    I'm happy living in the past (Score:3, Interesting)
    by sunhou on Friday December 28, @09:52PM (#2761338)
    (User #238795 Info)
    When I got RedHat 5.0 almost 4 years ago for my laptop, I used fvwm2 with the AnotherLevel macros, which were one of the defaults at the time.

    Now, on my latest desktop machines, I still use the same setup (although on a newer version of Linux). I had to copy over my old startup files to get the newer RedHat to fire up a desktop that looks like what I was used to. I also use this on a couple of 486's I have.

    With this setup, I get multiple screens if I want, a very thin title bar at the bottom (so it doesn't take up much real estate, very important to me), and I have programmed various function key combinations to warp to (and bring to the foreground) the various windows I use:

    • F5 goes to my chinese xterm with simplified characters window
    • F6 goes to my main local terminal window
    • F7 goes to my second local terminal window
    • F8 goes to my main terminal window which is logged into my office computer
    • F9 goes to my netscape window (or the next one, if I have multiple ones open, which I always do)
    • F10 goes to my emacs window
    • F11 lowers the current window
    • Ctrl-Shift-F5 goes to my chinese xterm with traditional characters
    • Ctrl-Shift-F7 goes to my xdvi window
    • Ctrl-Shift-F8 goes to my gv window
    • Ctrl-Shift-F9 goes to my xv window


    The sysadmin in my dept laughed when I told him about all that, but a few days later he told me he'd done the same thing, mapping a zillion function keys. Once you use them a bit and remember them, it's so much faster than the mouse (and he probably has about as much aversion to the mouse as I do).

    I tried to do all this function key mapping under Gnome a year or two ago, but couldn't figure out how to do it, so I gave up on it. Anyway, the stuff I do works fine under fvwm2 / Another Level, so there's nothing driving me to switch.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Amen! (Score:2)
    by BrookHarty on Friday December 28, @10:35PM (#2761401)
    (User #9119 Info | http://www.ironwolve.com/)
    I installed suse 7.3 on my sparc 5 today, lets just say 3 hours later, KDE took 5 minutes to load, control panel also takes 5 minutes to load. OUCH!
    Back to Icewm, and at least its some what snappier.

    Side note, my sun blade 100 kept puking at random points of the suse install, that box will scream with kde when the linux is fully ported. BTW, damn it sun, support the creator 3d elite!
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    xwc seems to have disapeared (Score:3)
    by jmd! (jmd@@@pobox...com) on Friday December 28, @11:02PM (#2761435)
    (User #111669 Info | http://pobox.com/~jmd)
    The filemanager he mentions seems to be bitroting. Can anyone recommend a windows explorer style file manager for X that I don't have to worry about eating my files? I just searched through freshmeat's 190 matches for "file manager", and found only one file manager that looked usable... and it was binary only.

    I normally don't care for such a thing. I get along fine with mv, bash/zsh's advanced replacements (for file in *.fred; do mv $file ${file%.fred}.barney; done), and a little perl script I cooked up to do regexp renaming (remv [turbogeek.org]). But occasionally a certain file management task comes along that leaves me begging for explorer.exe, and its in place edit, and its quick multifile selection that doesn't choke on quotes and spaces.

    Anything out there for me?
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Xfce goodness (Score:1)
    by christurkel on Friday December 28, @11:09PM (#2761445)
    (User #520220 Info | http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/)
    I use this set up as a lo-cal Linux setup on my Thinkpad, a Pentium 133 32 megs of RAM: Xfce is my desktop. Kinda CDE ish but it is fast, has built in GNOME support and functional file browser. AbiWord for word processing. I don't use spreadsheets that much so I go with Gnumeric if I do. Mozilla is my browser. Postillion for mail, along with pine. The GIMP, of course. I don't play alot of games so there is only a pac-man clone, space invaders, and of couse, Doom. All this runs really well.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Some other options (Score:2, Interesting)
    by X-Nc (god@x-nc.EEEnet minus threevowels) on Friday December 28, @11:17PM (#2761454)
    (User #34250 Info | http://www.x-nc.net/)
    Another option for the WM is XFce [xfce.org]. It's got the speed of IceWM and Blackbox yet it has more power and capabilities than KDE or GNOME. No, I am not making this up. Go get it and try it. There is no desktop environment or window manager that can come close to matching half of the capibilities that XFce has. No bullshit; no hype. It's just true.

    For a file manager, XFtree, which comes as part of XFce, is increadable. You will not believe what it can do. And if you need any kind of connection to a WinXX network, XFsamba is increadable. There is no better Samba tool. Period. rox is good too, though.

    Dillo was mentioned and it is worth having a look at. It's very usable if you don't need frame support.

    Someone mentioned running text based tools as an option. I would have to say that the #1 file manager I use is mc in an xterm. And links in an xterm does great for web stuff.

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    very on-topic! (Score:3, Interesting)
    by 7-Vodka on Friday December 28, @11:36PM (#2761471)
    (User #195504 Info)
    Wow. I've recently had to deal with this in a big way. On vacation. Only computer i can use right now is a p200 toshiba laptop with 32MB of RAM and a 56k pcmcia modem.


    First thing I did was clear some room and d/l some floppy images and install debian ( for the first time! )


    Anyway, i'm used to kde. so I apt-get kde. When i boot into it UGH! it's slower than any computer i've ever used before!


    The big problem is the hard disk. I would wager it's slower than that of most 386's. It's CRAP. If the swap fills up more than 10MB that's it. it immediately begins to crawl slower than a slug over the salt plains.


    I had to apt-get blackbox and give that a go. It worked a charm. But, still a little disheartened by konqueror, which as it turns out, is more ram hungry than IE5, I decided to find another web browser. I found Dillo! Dillo is awesome. It's got some problems rendering and doesnt support any advanced features, but what do you want for 97k? I've been using it ever since. Even with several windows open it doesn't even touch swap!


    I also found that gtk programs like gaim are much less resource intensive than their kde equivalents.


    on a side note. Debian is awesome. My jaw dropped when i started using apt-get. Also, the distro seems very well put together. I love the little touches like the menu program which controls menus in all the WMs and DEs. Just using debian on this laptop has already made me vow to switch away from mandrake when i get back to my normal box. It's very weird that a distribution put together by volunteers has turned out to be my favourite, I've tried many others before sticking with mandrake because it's what i give out to my friends.


    Another side note. Although i hate windows, win95 actually runs quite well on this machine. It's crap but it's lean i guess.

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Linux Developers read this (Score:2, Flamebait)
    by jfmiller on Friday December 28, @11:36PM (#2761473)
    (User #119037 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    • Performance - It should be acceptably fast and stable on older hardware
    • Graphical Interface - most newbies and non-geeks prefer this to the command line
    • Functionality - It should do everything that normal users (whatever they are) expect of that type of app.
    • Ease of Installation - It should be reasonably simple to install, without needing kernel recompilation and without too many obscure dependencies.
    • Ease of Configuration - You shouldn't need to be a vi or scripting guru to knock it into shape
    • Ease of Use - It should be reasonably easy to learn the usage.

    Every Developer should read this list aloud to themselves 20 to 100 times a day and live as if it were immutable law. If they did, the idea of linux gaining a noticable share of the consumer market would be much closer to reality.

    JFMILLER

    p.s. for those of you who will claim that Linux is only for those who can figure out how to use it, I say to you, "You are not numerous enought to be signifacant in any world but your own"

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    How do I keep track of programs and libs? (Score:1)
    by Kit Lo on Saturday December 29, @12:00AM (#2761503)
    (User #45824 Info)
    One of my latest worries 'bout using Linux is keeping track of what programs I am (or am not) using in my computer. How do I know what versions of whatever programs am I using? How about libraries? I know Gnucash requires the latest in everything, but that requires major upgrading software-wise - what if every "cool" Linux app has to be like that?

    Even better, how about a more... easy-to-understand-for-Joe-Schlub kind of listing for programs to be used by me? Win98 has on default "Program Files," and most installation programs *assume* stuff is going to installed there. However, I'm too dumb to know what is /usr/local/bin, /usr/bin or otherwise.
    And I still worry about having older versions of anything at all making a security risk.

    No, I will not subject myself to using package formats. I want things to still be compiled to the best of their ability to be fitting with my computer.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Wordperfect 8, Enlightenment (Score:2, Interesting)
    by Linuxathome on Saturday December 29, @12:12AM (#2761521)
    (User #242573 Info)
    As a sidenote, I run a dinky Cyrix 300+MHz with 128MB RAM and an all-in-one cheap PCChips motherboard. Not much power, but stabler than ANY of the windows machines that I've ever played with. I've had uptimes of up to 90 days with no problems in between cold boots to update recompiled kernels. I've also setup a lo-fat desktop system with some overlap with this person's setup. Except the following:


  • Enlightenment (yes, I can run E without Gnome or any other other desktop for that matter on top). Themes for E, I think, are visually very appealing compared to IceWM. E doesn't have a taskbar like IceWM, you really have to rely on all your mouse buttons (left, middle and right) for app menus to pop-up. But I like this aspect since it keeps the desktop very clean.
  • Wordperfect 8.0. There is still wp8 tar.gz files floating around there on the net to install. It's free for personal use and although it's not a full suite like StarOffice or the like, it still is fast and powerful. Because it's an older piece of software, there may be some problems with running it in newer rpm based distros. You'll have to install older glibc libs and ld-configs--they'll take care of that problem.
  • Although it doesn't quite count as a word processor, LaTeX is well worth the effort to learn! Add this to pybliographer and bibtex and you have a setup that rivals Windows with Word and EndNote any day.
  • He's right about text editors and user loyalties. I'm just nuts over my emacs (also another piece of software well worth learning).
  • I used to use Eterm as my terminal, but has been supplanted by his choice, rxvt.
  • For the web browser, if I can't use lynx, I usually use Netscape 4. Just about all the other browsers can't compare in speed and functionality.
  • For the mail client, nothing beats Pine. I'm paranoid over all the email viruses being propagated by Outlook and clients similar to it. My motto is, "if it can't be sent as text, then it shouldn't be sent as email."


    I don't use KDE--it's too bloated for my system. Although I have Gnome installed, it's really just for the libs to run Gnome software such as gkrellm, gaim and pybliographer.

    • [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    stick with plain X11 and screen-oriented pgms (Score:4, Informative)
    by markj02 on Saturday December 29, @01:32AM (#2761615)
    (User #544487 Info)
    I'd recommend learning mutt [mutt.org] as the e-mail client, one of the screen oriented news readers (if you care about news), vim as a text editor, and links [browser.org] or lynx [browser.org] as a web browser. The "screen" program can be used to multiplex. If you want something more coherent, you can get most of that functionality within Emacs or Xemacs [xemacs.org]. All that stuff has some mouse support, but it also works great over dial-up and doesn't use a lot of resources by modern standards.

    If you want some graphics and multiple windows, X11 is actually not that heavy-weight, although Gnome and KDE are. Consider running plain X11 with "twm", "fvwm", or Oroborus [blueyonder.co.uk]. Of those, "twm" is ubiquitous, while oroborus is a little more modern. For minimal graphical web browsing, consider the "dillo" web browser, although it won't work on complex sites. You could also download Opera [operasoft.com], although it's commercial.

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Thanks! (Score:1)
    by simetra on Saturday December 29, @01:57AM (#2761663)
    (User #155655 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    This article turned me on to icewm, and I've been dl'ing themes, customize, etc. for the last several hours. This is very nice. I like being able to customize everything in a script file rather than through the bloat of kde.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    lwm (Score:1)
    by Necronomicant on Saturday December 29, @02:08AM (#2761681)
    (User #520844 Info)
    I've been using LWM for the longest time. It's extremely lightweight, blazing fast, and attractive. Very easy to control the running applications and whatnot. It's too austere for many people but I've grown fond of its speed. linkage [boognish.org.uk]
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    My slim desktop (Score:1)
    by clasher (ke[ ]b@wam.umd.edu ['ffer' in gap]) on Saturday December 29, @02:09AM (#2761686)
    (User #2351 Info | http://www.wam.umd.edu/~kefferb)
    For my family I have three computers configured the same way. They each boot to XDM. From there each family member has a username and password to take them to a blackbox desktop. The program menu consists of the following

    Write a Document (which starts AbiWord)
    Browse the Web (Galeon)
    Listen to Music (XMMS)
    Instant Message (Gabber)
    Exit (logout)

    Also some machines have different hardware so they may also have the following depending on their config

    Watch TV (Xawtv)
    Watch DVD (Videolan Client)

    Also I have a link in the blackbox menu file to each home directory to a personal blackbox menu file (e.g. ~/.bbmenu) which I put programs specific to certain family members (e.g. Play Quake) for my brother.

    Also I have the Advanced submenu which includes Xterm and options to change styles and workspace settings.

    My family seems to have little problem picking this configuration up.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    uhm (Score:1)
    by Rumagent on Saturday December 29, @02:55AM (#2761777)
    (User #86695 Info)
    You do know that you can select what packages you want installed, right? - Things get bloated if *you* choose to do so.
    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    Ratpoison (Score:3, Informative)
    by Pete (pete@akira.apana.org.au) on Saturday December 29, @03:34AM (#2761820)
    (User #2228 Info | http://akira.apana.org.au/~pete/)
    I'm sort of surprised that nobody's mentioned Ratpoison [sf.net] yet, as it'd have to be the slimmest window manager out there. :)

    Here's a snippet of info from top(1) after I tried running a few of the "lightweight" window managers mentioned here (btw, thanks to whoever mentioned fluxbox, looks good):

    PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE S %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
    26154 pete 10 0 3076 3076 1872 S 0.0 0.5 0:01 sawfish
    26009 pete  9 0 1872 1872 1332 S 0.0 0.3 0:00 fluxbox
    26124 pete 11 0 1816 1816 1260 S 0.0 0.3 0:00 icewm
    26059 pete  9 0 1648 1648 1192 S 0.0 0.3 0:00 blackbox
    26094 pete 10 0 1528 1528 1012 S 0.0 0.2 0:01 fvwm2
    20798 pete  9 0  944  944  808 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 ratpoison

    Sorry if that's not terribly readable, but the important figures are SIZE, RSS and SHARE. Note that fvwm2, interestingly enough, appears even slimmer than blackbox (probably partly due to blackbox being written in C++). And, of course, note that ratpoison is significantly slimmer than any of them.

    Of course, you may not be the sort of person that would appreciate ratpoison :) - but if you've used screen(1) and like that, there's a good chance you'll be able to absorb the ratpoison zen.

    If you're the sort of person for whom screen real estate is all-important and you tend to use mainly terminals and a few browser windows, then give it a go - it combines extreme minimalism with useful functionality in a very nice way. No bullshit to get in your way.

    Plus, it's the only WM I've ever used that I haven't had to configure at all before being productive with it... of course, that could be partly because there's very little about it to configure... :-)

    Pete.

    [ Reply to This | Parent ]
    • lwm by don.g (Score:1) Saturday December 29, @05:18AM
      • Re:lwm by wdebruij (Score:1) Saturday December 29, @06:28AM
    • Re:Ratpoison by sti (Score:1) Saturday December 29, @11:52AM
  • 28 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • (1) | 2 (Slashdot Overload: CommentLimit 50)
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