Xfce Default For Pdaxrom

[InSearchOf]

For Laze, Sashz and the rest of the pdaxrom community....

Has anyone ever thought of leaving the MatchboxWM and migrating over to XFCE as the default WM...
I would have created a poll but I wouldnt want a big shift of interest that might put some pressure on the developers.... I know this has defiently been thought up... but I'm not sure if it was actually brought up...

Just thowing the idea out there feel free to post you positives and negatives about this idea...

[desertrat]

Has anyone ever thought of leaving the MatchboxWM and migrating over to XFCE as the default WM...

IMHO IceWM would be a better choice. It's small (~3MB memory footprint), fast, loads of features builtin (eg clock, network monitor, cpu monitor are already builtin and don't require separate apps), fully keyboard controllable, yada yada yada.

The only problem so far is that I haven't managed to get IceWM to recognise hotkeys which use modifiers other than SHIFT and CTRL, ie SHIFT-Calendar works but FN-Calendar doesn't.

[Update 2006-05-02 07:23:03]

Here's screenshot of IceWM. As can be seen from the output of 'ps ax', icewm uses very little memory.

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

Notes on the screenshot:

- the clock is very configurable, what gets displayed is formatted as per the 'date' command. Obviously font and colours are also customisable.
- next to the clock is the cpuload monitor
- then the network monitor (you can specify any number of interfaces to monitor - eth0, wlan0, etc)
- then the battery monitor
- then system tray (holding Stardict and Sylpheed Claws 'new mail' plugin)
- then task bar
- then menu button

-- cheers

[Meanie]

Has anyone ever thought of leaving the MatchboxWM and migrating over to XFCE as the default WM...

IMHO IceWM would be a better choice. It's small (~3MB memory footprint), fast, loads of features builtin (eg clock, network monitor, cpu monitor are already builtin and don't require separate apps), fully keyboard controllable, yada yada yada.

The only problem so far is that I haven't managed to get IceWM to recognise hotkeys which use modifiers other than SHIFT and CTRL, ie SHIFT-Calendar works but FN-Calendar doesn't.

-- cheers
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maybe we should start a discussion on the various wm options and their pros and cons and see which one has the most pros.
probably the most interesting aspects is performance/memory use, automatic window resizing, keybindings, themes and fonts, screen rotation support.

I like iceWM too, already have my custom themes from PocketWorkstation that I can reuse  but I will try xfce first when I get to it.

btw, what are the most popular wm commonly used by people on pdaXrom? xfce, openbox, matchbox, fluxbox, icewm, kde, ...?

[MONVMENTVM]

I think it is not a big problem to build roms with more WMs.

I mean for example: pdaXrom.XFCE; pdaxrom.iceWM; pdaXrom.KDE...

It should'nt be a problem to do this but personally I would also prefer XFCE (with rox). Maybe I will also give KDE a try to see how fast it is on the Zaurus.


cheers

[InSearchOf]

I havent tried KDE and in most cases I never will unless it gets slimmed down majorly because of how heavy of a WM it is... XFCE isnt the lightest WM for our Z's but it isnt very bulky. I havent had any problems with it (That I can't deal with)

I'm at work now but when I get some time I will post of my Pro's and Cons with XFCE... I'm thinking there will be alot of Pro's then cons from me...

IMHO IceWM would be a better choice. It's small (~3MB memory footprint), fast, loads of features builtin (eg clock, network monitor, cpu monitor are already builtin and don't require separate apps), fully keyboard controllable, yada yada yada.

I haven't tried IceWM but someone could prolly package all the plugins in to a XFCE-Common package to avoid installing all the packages sperately but that would end up giving you every package... even the ones you dont require...

I'll be back with some more input

[scheck.r]

I like Zumi's FVWM package. It's real fast, light, cute but it still lacks some features and it seems not so easy to customize (although it IS very customizable). It's a pity that Zumi doesn't have enough time to implement everything he wants.
XFCE is real nice, cute, it seems easy to add new applets and so on, but I don't find XFCE lightweight enough for the Z.

[karlto]

I just had to add my two cents to this one!

I vote for xfce, as I find it fast and plenty lightweight. The absolute best thing though is the window resizing - as I use my SL6000 mostly in portrait mode, this is really noticeable vs other WMs. xfce *always* gets it right and resizes windows and dialog boxes to fit.

The one thing that would need fixing is the crashing panel - I use fbpanel instead as its quite stable and more lightweight, but it takes a little fiddling to get it set up out of the box, and the menu needs to be edited by text file. I could see that turning off new users.

Either way, matchbox/openbox is more of a pda/organiser type UI, whereas a more powerful WM would suit the more powerful nature of the Zaurus!

[adf]

my .02:

XFCE is very nice, powerfull, versatile ..though I've had problems with the panel disappearing. It is supposedly  ( I didn't do the tests) heavier than other options...  do we have a clear idea what the actual impact on ...say running other heavy software might be?

ICEWM is great.... but the panel moves on rotation and doesn't come back.  Still icewm/rox is an good combo

The current default is nice...fairly light, everything works...can't  hide the panel, though---loss of real estate on that tiny screen is an issue

fvwm is very similar to the current sdefault, only lighter, abd it does some strange stuff on resume sometimes. I've been using this one for the past month...  i'd realy like a hideable panel here, too

KDE is cool, but way heavy.

My ideal?  desktop Icons and good reliable hotkeys available, hideable panel, easy rotation,  solid suspend /resume, clear useful accurate system monitors, as light as possible. Maybe none of the above, or a franken-combo, or an improved version of one of the above will meet these criteria.  Has anyone given e17 serious thought/configuration/testing?

[danboid]

Don't forget

Equinox Desktop Environment - very small memory footprint. Does a good job of mimicking the Win9X desktop.

http://ede.sourceforge.net/page/

ROX Desktop - Desktop based around everyone's favourite light GUI file manager

http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/static.html

I prefer both of these over XFCE, which forms the mid-ground between these and KDE/GNOME in terms of resource demands.

[adf]

ede looks great!

[InSearchOf]

I noticed a few posts about the panel disappearing....

i havent had my panel disappear ever...

I dont know how my setup differs from you guys but i do use the xfce/rox combo...

Question for one of the EDE users... could you post a screenshot or PM me one

Does a good job of mimicking the Win9X desktop.

Even though that description doesnt appeal to me :-)
I would still like to see a screenshot

[Meanie]

I noticed a few posts about the panel disappearing....

i havent had my panel disappear ever...

I dont know how my setup differs from you guys but i do use the xfce/rox combo...

Question for one of the EDE users... could you post a screenshot or PM me one

Does a good job of mimicking the Win9X desktop.

Even though that description doesnt appeal to me :-)
I would still like to see a screenshot
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yes, screenshots are a nice idea. we should get one for each wm so at least we all know how they sorta look like for starters

even on openbox, some of the applets disappear after resume/rotation. one of the scripts i noticed restarts the keyboard applet so its always there. maybe the same thing needs to be done for the rest of the disappearing applets.

[InSearchOf]

I agree meanie... I will grab a screen shot and post up in a few minutes....

Edit

Ok a few minutes has passed... attached is my screenshot...

[karlto]

- xfce panel disappearing:

It doesn't so much disappear as crash when you try to change settings. Once you have it running and don't want to change things it's usually all right, but is sometimes difficult to get to this state. I believe it has something to do with the menu plugin? Chero could probably tell us all about it.

- rotating:

xfce rotates fine, but fbpanel does the same thing as mentioned with icewm. I relocated it to the top, and it seems it just doesn't move or resize when rotating. Perhaps an extra command to get it to reload in the rotate script might help (as Meanie mentions above). fbpanel is much smaller and less intrusive than most though.

- e17:

Very nice, but a bit finicky. I couldn't manage to edit the menus properly -something funny is going on with the text input boxes too. Also have difficulty starting it sometimes (it just exits without any messages). Reasonably fast (slightly slower than xfce, but not bad). Not so simple to work with, but then enlightenment has always been about working outside the box rather than just copying everything else. Rotating is a no-go (everything slows to a crawl, screen blinks on and off, takes minutes to complete, and then things disappear!).

- performance:

I don't use any desktop icons as I prefer a minimal layout as you can see by screen shots. For those running rox-desktop etc I guess running the extra programs for this functionality would reduce performance against matchbox which has it built in. Can't beat having a useful taskbar though (matchbox needs this at least), and the killer feature for me is the window resizing which actually works!

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[Chero]

Screenshots : http://users.telenet.be/zaurususer/screens2/ (mainly xfce, but also e17)

As for the discussion : I'll add more tomorrow evening, i'm quite busy till then.

Changing the default window manager : I don't think it would change that much, most of us set pdaX up with the window manager of our choice, that's the beauty of it.

Have fun,
Chero.