Hi all,

I have a general question which I got when trying out different
windows managers/desktop environments. When I try to use windowmaker
(I wanted to make my computer faster as it's getting old), it
certainly is fast for initialization. But after that when around
10-15 windows are opened and distributed in different workspaces, I
found moving around different workspaces and windows pretty slow (I
compared with KDE which I usually use.) and thus I still decided to
stick with KDE for the moment. Maybe the comparison is not fair as
KDE definitely needs longer time to initialize. But my question is,
is there a reason for that?

Thanks.

Manu


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

Am Donnerstag, 27. September 2007 21:02 schrieb Manu Hack:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a general question which I got when trying out different
> windows managers/desktop environments. When I try to use windowmaker
> (I wanted to make my computer faster as it's getting old), it
> certainly is fast for initialization. But after that when around
> 10-15 windows are opened and distributed in different workspaces, I
> found moving around different workspaces and windows pretty slow (I
> compared with KDE which I usually use.) and thus I still decided to
> stick with KDE for the moment. Maybe the comparison is not fair as
> KDE definitely needs longer time to initialize. But my question is,
> is there a reason for that?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Manu
You might need more RAM

regards Andy :-)


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On 9/27/07, Manu Hack <manuhack@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a general question which I got when trying out different
> windows managers/desktop environments. When I try to use windowmaker
> (I wanted to make my computer faster as it's getting old), it
> certainly is fast for initialization. But after that when around
> 10-15 windows are opened and distributed in different workspaces, I
> found moving around different workspaces and windows pretty slow (I
> compared with KDE which I usually use.) and thus I still decided to
> stick with KDE for the moment. Maybe the comparison is not fair as
> KDE definitely needs longer time to initialize. But my question is,
> is there a reason for that?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Manu

Don't know about windowMaker, but you might try:

fluxbox
icewm
pekwm
fvwm2

You might find some pretty light, and some besides offering lots of
fun and good looking features... I use fluxbox and a machine with
512M main, and 64M ati-rage is performing pretty well...

--
Javier


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

"Javier Vasquez" <jevv.cr@gmail.com> writes:

>
> Don't know about windowMaker, but you might try:
>
> fluxbox
> icewm
> pekwm
> fvwm2
>
> You might find some pretty light, and some besides offering lots of
> fun and good looking features... I use fluxbox and a machine with
> 512M main, and 64M ati-rage is performing pretty well...

I know my choices may seem rather extreme by some, but if one is really
seeking a lightweight wm I would suggest adding xmonad (with dzen2) to
the above list. I have tried many small tools in this area, including
ratpoison, ion3, and stumpwm, and xmonad is easily the fastest and has
the smallest memory footprint I have found yet. As I have no experience
with haskell compiling it was something of a learning experience, but it
really wasn't too bad and has been more than worth it. It does just
about everything I ever liked in ion3 (the next smallest IMHO), and all
without Tuomo! :-)

Patrick



--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On 9/27/07, Andy <1aw@gmx.de> wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 27. September 2007 21:02 schrieb Manu Hack:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have a general question which I got when trying out different
> > windows managers/desktop environments. When I try to use windowmaker
> > (I wanted to make my computer faster as it's getting old), it
> > certainly is fast for initialization. But after that when around
> > 10-15 windows are opened and distributed in different workspaces, I
> > found moving around different workspaces and windows pretty slow (I
> > compared with KDE which I usually use.) and thus I still decided to
> > stick with KDE for the moment. Maybe the comparison is not fair as
> > KDE definitely needs longer time to initialize. But my question is,
> > is there a reason for that?
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > Manu
> You might need more RAM
>
> regards Andy :-)

I agree. But I'm still confused as to why KDE can outperform (at
least up to my experience) a supposedly light weight wm (maybe
windowmaker is not lightweight enough, will try fluxbox later) on the
same machine. Is that because of something like memory management or
something like that?

The reason I'm asking is that I want to change because before I
thought I can improve the efficiency by using a more lightweight wm
but it turns out it's not true in my case. So maybe as long as the
memory is enough to use KDE (or GNOME), KDE can be faster than those
lightweight wm because they use more memory?

Manu


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

I understand your frustration.

I have an old powerbook laptop (Speed: 500MHz, RAM: 512MB). Mac OS X, GNOME, and KDE hogged to much resources. So I started from scratch and installed a base install of Debian. I then installed just the necessary packages and I am using a very very lightweight window manager called DWM (http://www.suckless.org/wiki/dwm). I can't tell you enough how beautiful this window manager is. Very very small and efficient. In fact, I am a much more productive user because of this window manager. It just makes like so much easier (for me at least). There are no dependencies except basic X11 dev headers. It only installs one binary file. It takes getting used to and maybe a few tweaks to get it right but it is definitely worth it.

Try it out. If you have any questions regarding DWM, please post back.

--
Amit Uttamchandani <atu13439@csun.edu>


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On Sep 27, 2007, at 12:52 PM, Amit Uttamchandani wrote:

> I understand your frustration.
>
> I have an old powerbook laptop (Speed: 500MHz, RAM: 512MB). Mac OS
> X, GNOME, and KDE hogged to much resources. So I started from
> scratch and installed a base install of Debian. I then installed
> just the necessary packages and I am using a very very lightweight
> window manager called DWM (http://www.suckless.org/wiki/dwm).

I have to say, the screenshot has me intrigued. It's got a
pleasingly geeky sort of retro text GUI look, like something Xerox
PARC might have come up with in the 1970s.




--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 09/27/07 16:30, David Brodbeck wrote:
>
> On Sep 27, 2007, at 12:52 PM, Amit Uttamchandani wrote:
>
>> I understand your frustration.
>>
>> I have an old powerbook laptop (Speed: 500MHz, RAM: 512MB). Mac OS X,
>> GNOME, and KDE hogged to much resources. So I started from scratch and
>> installed a base install of Debian. I then installed just the
>> necessary packages and I am using a very very lightweight window
>> manager called DWM (http://www.suckless.org/wiki/dwm).
>
> I have to say, the screenshot has me intrigued. It's got a pleasingly
> geeky sort of retro text GUI look, like something Xerox PARC might have
> come up with in the 1970s.

Heh. To me, it looks like a very spare DESQview.

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFG/CcYS9HxQb37XmcRAsZaAKDNp5xq8iwnb9pOQF8LWSZbgxUYjwC gnyOl
mkTEwzWIcWcmrmrZMxJZbog=
=qsqj
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

Javier Vasquez wrote:
>
> Don't know about windowMaker, but you might try:
>
> fluxbox
> icewm
> pekwm
> fvwm2
>
> You might find some pretty light, and some besides offering lots of
> fun and good looking features... I use fluxbox and a machine with
> 512M main, and 64M ati-rage is performing pretty well...
>

I am also a fluxbox fan, but recently I have started playing with
fvwm-crystal (http://fvwm-crystal.org/) on my Toshiba laptop and it is
pretty nice.

and fyi, i use debian with fluxbox on my P133, 16mb, compaq laptop.


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 04:41:12PM -0400, Manu Hack wrote:
> On 9/27/07, Andy <1aw@gmx.de> wrote:
> > Am Donnerstag, 27. September 2007 21:02 schrieb Manu Hack:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I have a general question which I got when trying out different
> > > windows managers/desktop environments. When I try to use windowmaker
> > > (I wanted to make my computer faster as it's getting old), it
> > > certainly is fast for initialization. But after that when around
> > > 10-15 windows are opened and distributed in different workspaces, I
> > > found moving around different workspaces and windows pretty slow (I
> > > compared with KDE which I usually use.) and thus I still decided to
> > > stick with KDE for the moment. Maybe the comparison is not fair as
> > > KDE definitely needs longer time to initialize. But my question is,
> > > is there a reason for that?
> > >
> > > Manu
> > You might need more RAM
>
> I agree. But I'm still confused as to why KDE can outperform (at
> least up to my experience) a supposedly light weight wm (maybe
> windowmaker is not lightweight enough, will try fluxbox later) on the
> same machine. Is that because of something like memory management or
> something like that?

its probably got more to do with memory *use* than management. By that
I mean, you may end up wasting memory by using kde apps within a
different wm. The kde apps will load up whole bunches of kde libs in
order to function in addition to the libs used by whatever wm you're
using. You haven't said what your 10-15 windows are doing, so I'm only
guessing. Also, it what ways does kde perform better than windowmaker?
is it in overall response of the system? screen drawing? window
dragging? just switching from one app to another within the same
workspace?

>
> The reason I'm asking is that I want to change because before I
> thought I can improve the efficiency by using a more lightweight wm
> but it turns out it's not true in my case. So maybe as long as the
> memory is enough to use KDE (or GNOME), KDE can be faster than those
> lightweight wm because they use more memory?

you should do some more comprehensive testing to see if you can figure
out what's going on. keep an eye on a top instance or two and sort
them by processor usage and memory usage. That will give some
insight.

A

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFG/C/FaIeIEqwil4YRAoPLAKDZKS5R467IDsNh3ZWTngS0ImHBjACdH t7N
VuFKLDDs5bXuqTlW+L3rLo4=
=n/k8
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

> I have to say, the screenshot has me intrigued. It's got a
> pleasingly geeky sort of retro text GUI look, like something Xerox
> PARC might have come up with in the 1970s.
>

It is very efficient. Especially tiling modes. I can't use any other Windowmanager now. I just can't. With DWM, you're focused on the application and the task at hand. Try it out.

--
Amit Uttamchandani <atu13439@csun.edu>


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 09/27/07 18:58, Amit Uttamchandani wrote:
>> I have to say, the screenshot has me intrigued. It's got a
>> pleasingly geeky sort of retro text GUI look, like something
>> Xerox PARC might have come up with in the 1970s.
>>
>
> It is very efficient. Especially tiling modes. I can't use any
> other Windowmanager now. I just can't. With DWM, you're focused
> on the application and the task at hand. Try it out.

With other WMs, you're not focused on the app and task?

- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good!

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFG/EoMS9HxQb37XmcRAs51AKDrwxuXio+gSMS9VlxOV3ATotpcnwC fSKxk
RCVP728rk90K1NS2+LcRU+M=
=11mc
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

>
> With other WMs, you're not focused on the app and task?
>

Its hard for me to explain. I suggest you try it out. Of course, this is just my opinion and experiences. Just a suggestion.

--
Amit Uttamchandani <atu13439@csun.edu>


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 07:25:48PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> On 09/27/07 18:58, Amit Uttamchandani wrote:
> >> I have to say, the screenshot has me intrigued. It's got a
> >> pleasingly geeky sort of retro text GUI look, like something
> >> Xerox PARC might have come up with in the 1970s.
> >>
> >
> > It is very efficient. Especially tiling modes. I can't use any
> > other Windowmanager now. I just can't. With DWM, you're focused
> > on the application and the task at hand. Try it out.
>
> With other WMs, you're not focused on the app and task?

I've not used dwm but I assume its similar to wmii being written by
the same guys.

I agree with Amit. With other managers one spends a lot of time dealing
with manipulating the windows themselves -- maximizing, resizing,
shuffling them so they fit the way you want on the screen. I
personally find it particularly distracting if working on things
side-by-side: manipulating check registers while reading banking
websites; editing html while refreshing the page in a browser and so
forth. There are other instances where I find it distracting as
well.

With a keyboard oriented tiling WM a few things happen.

1) the initial placement and sizing of windows is completely out of
your control (you can hack scripts to get things to default the way
you want, but that is doable in just about any wm). You'll say that
this is already the case, and its true, but the default is pretty
sensibly different. Instead of splashing the new window up on the
screen willy-nilly, the new window gets its own frame and its own
piece of screen real-estate without interference from the
others. Unless you specifically tell the wm that you want to stack
windows on top of each other (that is, perpendicular to the plane
of the screen), then it will *not* do that. So, for example, if I'm
working in an x-term and I want another one, when it opens, the
first one gets resized to half the screen and the new one gets the
other half. Open another, and they each get squeezed into 1/3,
etc. Its a little wierd at first, but after practice, it really
begins to shine.

2) Manipulating windows is done from the keyboard. This is a huge
time/energy saver if you already are keyboard oriented. You never have
to leave the keyboard to get things organised the way you like. Its
similar to using screen. You toggle between windows with keystrokes,
resize windows with keystrokes, split the frame with keystrokes
etc. So that's all good, but the real beauty of this is that the WM
actually makes the decision about how to interpret your commands
(configurable, of course). When you tell it to move a window one
direction or another, it just does it and maximizes everything as much
as possible. There is *no* grabbing of frames, or toggle maximize or
anything like that.

3) this part answers your question... once you get used to it and get
it configured as you like it, your work method changes. (at least mine
does). I only ever have on the screen the things I'm currently working
on. I spend essentially no time manipulating windows as I've
configured it to behave the way I want in terms of window placement,
column and row size etc. I switch between tasks with ease without the
mouse. In short, I spend more, better focused, time on the work I'm
doing instead of the overhead of controlling the work environment.

I know that many WMs allow keyboard control, but something like wmii,
and I assume dwm, do it so much more simply and elegantly, it really
is amazing.

I will admit that they don't work so well with heavily mouse oriented
tasks (gimp for example), but for just about anything else, its
great. IMO.

A

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFG/Fy5aIeIEqwil4YRAi1LAJ43OhsfIi2iELiCTeOBOrB2PmSUWQC eLH/Y
4XpKgQ7QSeeQ+PFqXGa56n4=
=TKYp
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On 09/27/2007 03:41 PM, Manu Hack wrote:
>
> I agree. But I'm still confused as to why KDE can outperform (at
> least up to my experience) a supposedly light weight wm (maybe
> windowmaker is not lightweight enough, will try fluxbox later) on the
> same machine. Is that because of something like memory management or
> something like that?
>
> The reason I'm asking is that I want to change because before I
> thought I can improve the efficiency by using a more lightweight wm
> but it turns out it's not true in my case. So maybe as long as the
> memory is enough to use KDE (or GNOME), KDE can be faster than those
> lightweight wm because they use more memory?
>
> Manu
>
>

The problem could be a software conflict. A couple of years ago I had a
problem where gnome-panel would conflict with WindowMaker--causing the
system to become sluggish. Perhaps other Gnome programs conflict with
WindowMaker too.




--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

I couldn't have explained it any better. I guess if I get asked, I will simply forward your explanation to them .


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 07:33:06PM -0700, Amit Uttamchandani wrote:
> I couldn't have explained it any better. I guess if I get asked, I will simply forward your explanation to them .

thanks. I've become sort of a wmii zealot in the last little
while. It's been fun. hope I didn't steal your thunder.

A

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFG/G3EaIeIEqwil4YRAkO8AJ4p+XoPn+UOxBSiIZXYzOVhab2JNwC fVT5y
+QTqvnIiShX0e/cidC4GAQk=
=UUFI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

>
> thanks. I've become sort of a wmii zealot in the last little
> while. It's been fun. hope I didn't steal your thunder.

Lol no not at all. You should give DWM a try. I think there are improvements over wmii. Also, there is a new fork from dwm called 'awesome' (yeah i know, apparently the name lives up to the hype). Haven't tried it but I will def check it out.

http://awesome.naquadah.org/

--
Amit Uttamchandani <atu13439@csun.edu>


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

A properly configured olvwm WM.


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:59:56 -0500, Preston Boyington wrote:

[...]
> and fyi, i use debian with fluxbox on my P133, 16mb, compaq laptop.

Hello Preston,

what version of debian are you talking about? On a P133, 32MB, Dell Laptop
it seemed to me that the last Debian version usable (speed...) was Potato.


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

didier gaumet wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:59:56 -0500, Preston Boyington wrote:
>
> [...]
>> and fyi, i use debian with fluxbox on my P133, 16mb, compaq laptop.
>
> Hello Preston,
>
> what version of debian are you talking about? On a P133, 32MB, Dell Laptop
> it seemed to me that the last Debian version usable (speed...) was Potato.
>

actually i am using Woody on that particular machine with a 2.4 kernel.
at the moment i forget "why" i went with Woody... maybe at the time it
was "testing"?

probably in the near future i will go a "debian from scratch" route and
see how well i can get the little thing working. i no longer use it for
my day-to-day and now it sees most of its time wirelessly streaming
music from my server.


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 08:19:28PM -0700, Amit Uttamchandani wrote:
> >
> > thanks. I've become sort of a wmii zealot in the last little
> > while. It's been fun. hope I didn't steal your thunder.
>
> Lol no not at all. You should give DWM a try. I think there are improvements over wmii. Also, there is a new fork from dwm called 'awesome' (yeah i know, apparently the name lives up to the hype). Haven't tried it but I will def check it out.
>
> http://awesome.naquadah.org/

cool thanks

A

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFG/QyVaIeIEqwil4YRAuD2AJ9otJ5Ffqplr/wGpdVamF55Zv30nACg1gwE
IBL+kqh8AL+zjcCzeqrClvA=
=Qz9E
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Sep 27, 2007, at 6:45 PM, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> So, for example, if I'm
> working in an x-term and I want another one, when it opens, the
> first one gets resized to half the screen and the new one gets the
> other half. Open another, and they each get squeezed into 1/3,
> etc. Its a little wierd at first, but after practice, it really
> begins to shine.

Hmm. That seems like it'd be a pain with xterms, since text software
often doesn't take well to having its window resized. I try to keep
my xterms as close to 80x24 as possible to minimize problems with
things like aptitude.

On Fri, Sep 28, 2007 at 10:43:38PM +0200, Pál Csányi wrote:
>Where can I pass the -fn argument to xterm to set up font size, using dwm?

You can assign you xterm properties in .Xdefaults:

# fonts
xterm*faceName: Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:style=Bold
xterm*faceSize: 12

# other options
xterm*geometry: 127x50+1+1
xterm*tn: xterm
xterm*scrollBar: false
xterm*sl: 1000
xterm*colorMode: 1
xterm*Utf8: 1
xterm*loginShell: 1

--
Neil Watson | Debian Linux
System Administrator | Uptime 14 days
http://watson-wilson.ca


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

2007/9/28, David Brodbeck <brodbd@u.washington.edu>:
>
>
> On Sep 27, 2007, at 6:45 PM, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> So, for example, if I'm
> working in an x-term and I want another one, when it opens, the
> first one gets resized to half the screen and the new one gets the
> other half. Open another, and they each get squeezed into 1/3,
> etc. Its a little wierd at first, but after practice, it really
> begins to shine.
>
> Hmm. That seems like it'd be a pain with xterms, since text software often
> doesn't take well to having its window resized. I try to keep my xterms as
> close to 80x24 as possible to minimize problems with things like aptitude.

Where can I pass the -fn argument to xterm to set up font size, using dwm?

--
Regards, Paul Csanyi
http://www.freewebs.com/csanyi-pal/index.htm


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org