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Blackbox (Finally) Updated
mpeg4codec writes "OSNews reported earlier this month that the lightweight Blackbox window manager has been updated to 0.70. Among the new features are EWMH compliance, anti-aliased fonts, unicode support, and backwards compatibility with previous versions' styles. Of course, it brings you all these new features (well, some are optional) while retaining its small binary size, small memory footprint, and short list of dependencies. I for one think it's about time."
Next to KDE 3.4 this is my favourite Window Manager of all time. And it doesn't have all the hideous widgets from Gtk based WMs. They sure are ugly.
Too bad that Fluxbox has already killed it off.
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
fluxbox and openbox are much better than blackbox anyways!
Blackbox has been working great on my machines for 4+ years. This new version looks kind of neat but I'm in no rush to upgrade just for AA fonts. EWMH complance doesn't mean anything to me.
So I went over to the screenshot site (second one from the bottom) and was under-impressed with what they had displayed. I said to myself, "Self, this looks like any other WM." To which I replied, "Yep."
I guess you could say I was crazy, but maybe I'm missing something here. What does this offer that other WMs don't offer?
And it just occurred to me that "small size" is not really a big selling point. Maybe if this was on a 486 with 8 megs of RAM, memory footprint would become a big deal, but if I'm running a system with an actual window manager, not to mention a window server like X, the least of my worries is lack of memory.
IceWM is where it's at. It's lightweight, fast, and has more essential features that blackbox is missing.
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
Who trusts something that moves so slow? I mean unless it's perfect or have the means to fix it yourself... unless it already does 100% of what you you 100% well.
If I report an annoying bug when will it get fixed? If I request a feature when will I get a response?
While KDE may not be perfect my bugreports get responded too fairly quickly and it's getting better all the time.
Perhaps, there is something that Fluxbox or Openbox (which appears dead..) can use I don't see this benefiting anyone but a few users and thus not really news worthey. Perhaps for embedded kiosk or something...
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
The link was useless.
Looking at their homepage (assuming you still can, as this is an early post), it looks as if nothing's been updated since November of 2004. The new version is available on the download page, though you'd think they'd post something to the effect of ".70 is now up" right on the front page.
I can only assume these cats are looking to keep a low profile, or to keep a static homepage that they never have to touch.
Nuances of their site design and motives aside, I'm enticed to try this out.
Ignore the rantings above. Poster is an idiot.
Maybe there's hope for the Duke yet!
Yet another freaking window manager for Linux. Why not improve on the existing ones instead of trying to fill bogus niches.
First of all, this is an update. So, they did improve on an existing one.
Second, different people have different needs/preferences for WMs, hence the wide variety. IMHO the variety is a strength not a weakness.
nil
Call me silly, but the WM & Desktop Environment should have a matching theme.
I know it's a matter of taste, but I can't stand it when I have one theme for my Window Manager, and a second theme for all those applications which run within the windows... it's ugly, less functional, and way, way outdated.
I suppose that BlackBox & IceWM might be faster then the default KDE or Gnome WM's, but performance isn't usually a big issue for me.
Although, I can see the benefit when I need to run a remote X application on a remote server, and I don't want a full fledged Gnome or KDE environment... just X, a lightweight WM over a SSH connection.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
If you're trying to get Linux and X running on a minimalist platform, small size suddenly becomes very important. Small size also implies fast, and if you're working on real-time graphics, that's a big plus. I don't think it's something I'm going to want, but freedom of choice is an important part of Linux. I wish them the best of luck.
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I realize that the preferred technique of debate here is a flurry of ad hominems followed by a couple slippery slope arguments and wrapped up with a huge leap of logic. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Well, yes, actually there is something wrong with it. By automatically labelling anyone who doesn't agree with you as "a knob" or "astroturfer" or some other epithet, you automatically end any rational debate. Maybe after several dozen posts it may be useful to end a debate with a well-formed insult, but to start off the debate by denigrating anyone who doesn't agree with you is hardly a recipe for enlightenment.
This kind of thing happens so much on Slashdot that I guess it's just considered the norm. How sad it is that this chance for rational discussion of WM merits (and your post actually does have some good points about the merits or lack thereof of Blackbox) into a name calling match.
Blackbox is an existing window manager -- it's been around longer than most of the ones that the kids drool over every time a screenshot gets posted. And this "bogus niche" seems to be rather large -- not only do many people use it on their desktop, but I've seen it being used in commercial settings on several occasions. How about you do something productive with your time, rather than complaining when somebody decides to devote their energy into something besides the newest Windows / OSX clone window manager?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Seeing as this Black Box fathered so many other window manangers that "Black Box Style" is a term used to describe several window managers these days, this is good news to see a new version come out.
I love blackbox. I run it on all my machines. I try different windows managers, but it always comes back to blackbox. It is light and it supports WM Dock Apps perfectly!
Thanks to whoever!
Nope, next update is to Emacs so the whole Emacs/VI holy war can erupt and somebody can poke there head up and say pico or joe.
The people who built the later cathedrals in the rennaiscance were of the same opinion. Backed by incredibly wealthy patrons and a surplus of masons, they laughed at earlier era's notions of simplicity. The least of their worries was running out of ink on the blueprints, or running out of tasks for the artisans to perform. "More curliques!" was their battle cry.
And thus they invented Baroque. It's a nice style, if you're into that kind of thing. But it's hardly a universal aesthetic.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Yeah. What are we paying these opensource developers for anyway? Oh, wait...
How exactly is this going to enable me to make free long distance calls?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
It's about time it came out with EWMH .. I've already switched to fluxbox (yeah, and fluxgen is a very helpful guy on irc).
You might want to say that Forking is bad for the health of any project - but sometimes such branching off can keep a project alive. If there hadn't been a fluxbox - I'd have dumped blackbox for good.
Is there any reason for blackbox anymore ?. (well, other than the "choice" factor).
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
This is not a troll, I don't use Blackbox. Can someone please tell me what it offers over Fluxbox, if anything?
Le français vous intéresse?
There is more than a little truth in this statement. You want existing window managers to be improved? Go ahead, improve them. That's part of the beauty of free and open source software. You can feel free to make the changes you would like to see be made.
http://jeffkrimmel.com
apparently. http://icculus.org/openbox/
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
I used to make themes for Enlightenment about five years ago, and lately I've been feeling like making themes again. However the WM landscape has changed a lot. Blackbox is awesome but it seems like the themes aren't very flexible - such as moving the close widget around, and such.
Of hand, does anyone know of a WM that's relaly easy to customize, but also very flexible?
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
....a Metacity theme that would work well on an 800x600 display. (it's a laptop, it's paid for, it runs Linux quite well with the exception of Metacity/GTK's insistance on using HUGE buttons)
FWIW, XP looks and runs fine. If I could just get the same sizing, this laptop would be rid of the Microsoft scurge. Believe me, I'm SO feckin' fed up with MS.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
Remember, you didn't pay for this, so don't go disrespecting someone's hard work just because it doesn't update enough for you. There are people who like blackbox. And besides, it's just kind of a cool window manager.
What does this offer that other WMs don't offer?
It's got a really bad name. Although, it may beat out Luna.
I prefer the likes of BadWM. Sadly, though, it is in dire need of an update. People are working on it, sorta :/ BadWM is what a minimalistic WM should be (IMHO) - no window decorations except for a border around the window, quick keyboard commands, and it handles virtual desktops. I really don't like having a titlebar on my windows.
:P
I've been using Ion2 recently, and it isn't too bad either.. it's fast, although switching from BadWM to a tiling WM is a bit difficult
As far as those saying WMs shouldn't have to worry about memory footprints.. I have 768 megs of RAM, and I still don't like a WM that hogs RAM. I do memory-intensive work, and I don't want my WM taking up all my RAM just so it can look pretty. Even if I had 2 gigs of RAM, I'd still prefer BadWM or Ion2.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Nope, next update is to Emacs so the whole Emacs/VI holy war can erupt and somebody can poke there head up and say pico or joe.
Don't laugh, the new (CVS) version of GNU Emacs uses GTK+ and integrates into GNOME or XFCE quite nicely (except for keybindings, of course, which can be changed to suit). I'm quite keen for the next version to actually arrive - comiling from CVS is all well and good, but it isn't exactly a stable finished product.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
My question is why would you want to run anything besides Blackbox/Fluxbox/Openbox/ or some other small WM? It launches programs, that's all you need. I find desktop enviroments a waste of computing resources. The mindset of "use it if you got it" is the reason why software is so bloated.
Who cares how much RAM you have and how much other programs are using? Regardless of the power of my computer, I would always choose Fluxbox over KDE or Gnome.
Seriously. Grab the Resident Set Size number from "top" or "ps" and compare it to...
wait for it...
fvwm 2 (latest dev build).
My Slackware compile has both the regular fvwm2 and FvwmButtons clocked in at 2800K+.
Blackbox's RSS supposedly clocks it in at 2200K.
Let's see...
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
wow, I can't believe:
... :P http://www.bb4win.org/
1) You didn't get that it was an existing WM by the "Updated" part
2) You didn't get that it was an old existing WM by the "finally" part
and
3) YOU NEVER HEARD OF BLACKBOX!? Jeesh, someone even made a clone of it for Windows as to make the OS usable
xfwm4 kicks ass. I was trying out xfce today but I miss my usb and cdrw drives popping up on my desktop when I put them in. I realized the only thing I really wanted was a faster full-featured gtk2 terminal and xfwm4 (metacity sux). It's fast, light, and has builtin support for x compositing!, So now I'm using xfterm4 on gnome with xfwm4 with a customized 0 pixel border theme. Who needs window borders when you have dropshadows to distinguish the window edge?
In Soviet Russia, the window manages YOU!
Blackbox worked great on my old Duron box. Its as close as you can get to being in the console while in X.
But literally yesterday, I was configuring X for a new system with an LCD monitor. My distro had the old version of Blackbox -- without anti-aliasing fonts (*gak*). I use the console most of the time to save my eyes. No anti-aliasing on a LCD monitor is almost as bad as using X on a old monitor.
I did alot of hand-wringing over it -- I think fluxbox may have too much eye-candy -- but I switched.
More power to Blackbox though, the concept is still the best.
Okay, I glanced at the article but I get the feeling from the /. post that people are expecting a certain timeline from open-source projects and I just want to say, "What are you thinking?!?!?" Projects take a life of their own when open-sourced and you cannot expect to see the same turn-around time like, um, M$ does every two years. Sheesh.
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
Different strokes for different folks.
What next? An update to linuxconf? An update to fvwm95?
Linuxconf: Last release: 1.34r3 2005-01-18 12:08:47
"Don't feed the trolls"
"[Boxers] and [Briefs] are much better than [a cardboard box] anyways!"
This is important to me as I'm running linux on a playstation 2. I use mwm which I've always liked since I first used it quite some time ago. The binary clocks in at 1985399 bytes. In my research I've compiled and tried many different wms, one being blackbox which clocked in at 7965606 bytes, about 4x the size of mwm. Maybe I didn't compile it with some minimalist options turned on? Don't get me wrong I feel blackbox is a great product, but so far mwm is the best fit for my sit.
No entry found for Humously.
Did you mean Humorously?
I know you would've been pulled on this before, but its been such a long time, that I, for one, am totally sick of seeing it.
I have been looking for a nice distro to put on my Acer Travelmate 2200 for sometime. All I want is something that works with my wifi card, supports my sound card, and my wireless optical Logitech mouse. If I could combine that distro with a good environment, I'd be sold. Please email me suggestions.
Linux blog http://nsajeff.com/blog
I'm surprised no one has mentioned pekwm, which just released a new dev release not to long ago.
. png
http://pekwm.org/
Here's a shot: http://img9.exs.cx/img9/885/pekwmdevpypanelrox9ss
Emacs and Vi are now the same program. Just make viper-mode your default in Emacs. Amazingly, the command sets for Emacs and Vi are almost disjoint, so you can use both at the same time. It really works.
Very Good!
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
I like how I can use Blackbox for windows and use the same themes.
:)
http://www.bb4win.org/news.php
People walk up and seem me using rxvt from cygwin and bb4win and they dont realize im in windows, till I open Exchange.
I've tried both IceWM and Fluxbox, and to tell the truth I didnt see any speed increase over IceWM with fluxbox. And since IceWM had anti-aliased fonts and a nice toolbar, I started using it as my main light weight WM.
I keep seeing posts that complain that "Well, this is great if memory is a problem, but for me it isn't so here's a list of reasons why I wouldn't never use it..." Why post useful drivel like this? (Oh, right, slashdot...) If your machine can handle a heavy GUI, you're *probally* going to use KDE/Gnome (or maybe XFCE). If you use a computer that's less than 600mhz, you're probally going to use Blackbox, Openbox, Fluxbox, etc. Or, once again, maybe XFCE (It's sexy, isn't it? ;))
This is really great to see that they're trying to update the light WMs, while still letting them remain useful in the same way they (hopefully) will always be: A good way to revive old hardware w/o having to install Windows NT or 98.
why didn't they call it Blackbox 1.0? :)
It's really more of a brownish pink.
Yah, like running a windows manager to replace the horrible fucking look apple gave to x11. I run blackbox along with the normal apple finder, and people are like "what the freak is that ?!?", and "you are teh 1337", and "please don't pwn me".
And I'm all, "thats blackbox, i compiled it, bee-yatch, now lean back", and "just give me your password now and we'll call it even"
music lover since 1969
So, I'm reading lots of comments here about how people have nice new computers with lots of RAM & fast CPUs, so they don't need to worry about memory footprint etc. I call BS. Just because you have good enough hardware to cope with bloatware is no reason to use bloatware. My desktop at home is an Athlon64 3200+ w/ 2 GiB RAM. It could handle any WM I choose to throw on it. I choose lightweight WMs (fluxbox, currently), and I will try the new blackbox. Not because I'm limited by my hardware, but because I prefer the clean design that is inherant in lightweight WMs. And I don't use or want many of the features and eyecandy in some of the heavier WMs, so there's no reason for me to use one, even though my hardware could handle it easily.
Now, don't get me wrong, if you prefer KDE or Gnome or Enlightenment or whatever over blackbox, then that's fine; but don't use "I have good hardware" as a reason not to use a lightweight WM. Say "I like X, which lightweight WMs don't have" and I will respect you. Disagree, likely, but I will respect your opinion.
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
Did anyone else notice that the article was originally posted 3 weeks ago? 7 March 2005!
I think there's lots of hackable devices that would love to have a nice tiny VM.
Out of curiosity, what do you use that RAM for? This is a serious question.
but then i'd have to be running emacs.... oohhh. :(
;)
and lord knows i dont want emacs getting anywhere near my actual vi. i like lisp, but not for my text editor.
Myren
Blackbox is not even listed as EWMH compliant yet, what is taking so long?
http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/wm-spec
just kidding...
Get your Unix fortune now!
Hm. While I'm not refuting anything you've said about Blackbox, I would like to add that OSX is merely an extension of NeXT Step which is available as WindowMaker.
WindowMaker, as such, is a fairly light weight window manager in its own right and is famous for programmability.
So, whether you were trying to be harsh on the OS X or not I don't know, but do remember what OS X really is under the eye candy!
(On a side note, I personally think those Apple enguneers actually made OS X less usable than NeXT. I would blame Jobs, but I'm sure there's some half baked industrial design "guru" somewhere at fault.)
I've tried both IceWM and Fluxbox, and to tell the truth I didnt see any speed increase over IceWM with fluxbox. And since IceWM had anti-aliased fonts and a nice toolbar, I started using it as my main light weight WM.
Personally I find IceWM noticably faster than Fluxbox on my system. I really want to like the *box varients - there's a lot of nice things about them, especially tabs - but IceWM beats them all in speed, look and feel, and as a result has been my only WM for over four years now.
RAM? The main advantage here is that the files take up little *drive space*. This is optimal for something like a Live MiniCD/Flash drive distro that needs all the space available for killer packages.
Where do you get off saying something like, "I for one think it's about time"? Did you contribute even a single line of code to get it to this point?
Please show a little gratitude to the developers. They're volunteers, after all.
If you were putting together machines for poor people in your town by refurbishing machines people are willing to donate to your cause, you would care about how large the OS is and how much RAM it requires to do ordinary tasks.
Digital Citizen
But why would I want to use such an inferior implementation of vi. ;-)
-josh
heh, that was nearly a coffee/monitor moment
By the way, this screenshot looks mighty sexy. Also, I am surprised I don't see more pre-made integrated desktop packages that glue blackbox and other small tools in a cohesive magical way, like Knoppix does.
http://zero-to-enterprise.blogspot.com/
I am laughing like a stoned lunatic because I know exactly what you're talking about (this, by the way, from someone with a silver "L33T H4X0R" label under the Apple on my TiBook) --- and for some reason "please don't pwn me" really cracks me up.
"There are hundreds of game theorists at the gates, sir, and they want to hold an election!"
There are two types of people: those prepared for the zombie apocalypse and those who will be eaten.
"Minimalism is Maximalism." - Peter 'Sonic Boom' Kember
Actually, with bb0.70 it is not possible to popup the root menu via bbkeys. This only works with bbkeys and Openbox or Fluxbox and its builtin hotkey support.
Anyone with advice is free to tell me how to do it. Until then I will stick to LarsWM.
A fun comparison I did
Did you enable laptop_mode? I find that running the default laptop_mode script (in linux/Documentation/laptop_mode.txt) with "noatime" set in fstab for all partitions reduced disk activity hugely.
"I realize that the preferred technique of debate here is a flurry of ad hominems followed by a couple slippery slope arguments and wrapped up with a huge leap of logic. Not that there's anything wrong with that."
That's funny coming from a guy who's last post tried to start a flame war.
You probably just need a bit more RAM to get Gnome going at acceptable speed. Slow disk drives in laptops make swap rather unbearable, but even a 266 MHz machine like my own can run KDE 3.3 decently. That's with 320 MB RAM.
no pun intended
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
Considering that we have Live-CD's that ship with KDE and have lots of killer-packages (hell, some ship with KDE AND OpenOffice!), I REALLY fail to see the point.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Cute screenshot indeed, but since it's a screenshot of bblean (a 'Blackbox for Windows' shell-replacement, not developed by Blackbox) what is it doing here?
...would like to also congratulate the article submitter for using "I for one" without welcoming our new insect overlords.
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
I personally think that all these window managers with so called "features" are just a big bloat. I use evilwm.
;-)
Hint: if you try it, get the source packet (eg `apt-get source evilwm`) and compile yourself, because you probably want to change some of the key bindings, at least if you have non-US keyboard
You can come even closer.
I use ion on my laptop(s) because it saves me lots of mouse-jockeying.
I also had it on my desktop at my last job for about 1yr. When you're working mostly with terminals it's a real productivity bonus to not have to move/resize them around all the time. - Just split/tile the screen the way you like and it's all there. No browser overlapping your "tail -f" on that logfile yet again...
And it just occurred to me that "small size" is not really a big selling point.
The spam in my inbox begs to differ.
running blackbox on your curent computer in place of KDE or Gnome makes it almost 1000 times faster.
imagine instant loading and login. Yes I said INSTANT. it takes lessthan 1/4 of a second from when I hit enter on my password to when I can start working. Not even XFCE can do that anymore.
blackbox is insanely fast. even with every possible add-in for it loaded it makes all the other WM's look like bloated and lightly polished turds. (except for twm, nobody polished that one.)
If you want your puter to look purdy and act all "neato" please use something else. if you prefer productivity and speed....
try blackbox.
There's a difference between a LiveCD and what the parent said, which was "Live MiniCD".
The difference is approximately 600 megabytes.
I was thinking, wow this is a stupid post. "Oh, I have lot's of money and don't have to worry about CPU cycles so therefore BB is not a good choice for me." What are you stupid. I know that. You know that and the Fscking Windows N00b who just started reading Slashdot and likes to post about his damn gaming box. I don't give a crap. Noone really gives a crap about you.
Now that I have gotten that off of my chest. BB is pratical. Even with alot of CPU power. Let me give you an example: I am currently modifying a version of the Damn Small Linux Project (yes I know it uses Fluxbox by default) called dsl-embedded. It uses qemu to boot Linux to demo our software. Very neat. So my point is, even with Dual Hyper-Opeterons qemu will run like shit if you have all that eye candy. I have no need to use something like KDE. BB or Fluxbox is perfect. I'm actually considering replacing Fluxbox with BB for that extra milla second of performce. I'm not trying to get Tre N00b to use Linux, just look at the Damn software in Linux when the manager only runs Windows.
So STFU
I used to be a rabid blackbox user, and helped contribute a patch or two (both to blackbox and to ROX-Filer so it would play well with blackbox). The big selling point for me was its small memory footprint -- this was especially important on my aging 366MHz machine.
However, a couple years ago, it felt like development towards 0.70 had stalled... and this after being on 0.65 for a year or two. I started investigating other window managers, just to see what was out there.
I discovered that xfwm4 had a similar footprint, but was already emwh compliant and offered some great eye candy as well. Not long after, I started trying OroboROX (visit the ROX website's software index for links to it). OroboROX offers similar functionality to xfwm4 with an even smaller footprint.
When I saw 0.70 had come out a few weeks ago, I wanted to see how things had progressed. It's certainly a nice window manager, and the emwh compliance is very well done. However, I did some benchmarking against OroboROX... and discovered that OroboROX actually used a smaller memory footprint than the new blackbox! And still has more eye candy!
So, kudos to blackbox, for finally getting to the 0.70 release... but I won't be using it.
And what is the point of Live MiniCD? Smaller size? Yeah, since CD's are so humungous that carring one around is simply too much... Size of the download? you MIGHT have a point there, but in modern world, it's becoming less and less of an issue.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
While CDE unquestionably blew the hell out of GNOME, KDE 1.0 was a much nicer experience, IMHO.
CDE is a little faster than KDE nowadays (on a 300MHz dual UltraSPARC II, Ultra 2 under Sol 9), but still kinda draggy. It is fast under AIX though.
"If you're trying to get Linux and X running on a minimalist platform, small size suddenly becomes very important. Small size also implies fast, and if you're working on real-time graphics, that's a big plus."
Nope. First off, small size does not imply fast. Plenty of applications trade memory footprint for a speed gain (e.g. by keeping often used data in-core).
Second, real-time graphics depends on the X server, integrated hardware acceleration features and other non-window manager issues. There's really no window manager component in the performance of real-time graphics.
That was actually the beauty of the ICCCM: the job of the window manager as a client of the X server was isolated out, such that its duties were all user-driven. Your window manager doesn't HAVE to be small and/or fast in order for your applications to be.
Fluxbox is a window manager. Gnome is a desktop environment.
Please stop confusing the two. You can, quite legitimately, use fluxbox as your Gnome window manager (though its support for Gnome desktop APIs is only in its early stages), so saying that "Gnome was just a pig" doesn't say anything about fluxbox and its comparative performance.
Metacity, on the other hand (Gnome's default window manager) may or may not compare favorably to Fluxbox (I haven't tried a bare Metacity to compare against), but in using just a window manager, you lose all of the benefits of a desktop environment: session management, cross-application configuration parameters, uniform high-level drag and drop, etc.
You may not care about these things, but they are the core of a modern desktop environment, and have NOTHING to do with what window manager you select.
And let me guess, concrete barracks style apartments, the nightmarish cities of the present ARE universal in their wretched inhumanity?
Your inability to understand baroque art speaks to the depravity of your own soul.
You live for no higher purpose, there is no great vision to which your heart yearns. You are one of the base masses, who sole purpose in life is to escape boredom by whatever sick method you can devise. Most especially, you debase any artform which requires brilliance, precision, and complexity.
Your post reads like an 8th grader's interpretation of some modernist's banter.
Go back to your MTV.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
E16 CVS has 69000 lines, is 650k, and links 11 libraries, which puts it as the largest on two of the three categories; yet even with all the eyecandy turned on, it still runs as fast as things like blackbox on my 266 boxen -- large size doesn't *always* mean slow :)
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
anti-aliased fonts! thats just bloat! we should learn to listen and type in binary (beep beep BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!)
seriously though i prefer blackbox to fluxbox and openbox (if i ever break kde or need my resources i use blackbox)
Not fair doing this pre-emptive strike.
BB was always my preference until I needed to have a keyboard shortcut for popping the main menu on the desktop. Alas, with no development back then, I moved on. THe clones started to populate the desktop with *gasp* icons! So I shied away from them, not even bothering to figure out how to disable them. I havent RTFA but if I still can't pop that main menu, I'll go back to my cave, away from sunlight.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Yes, a normal CD is too big to fit in my wallet. A business card sized CD fits fine.
I think this argument is getting silly though. If you don't like it, don't use it, and quit whining.
That whizzing sound was the joke going right over your head while you were looking for something to say to put people down. And you're comparing him to an 8th grader....snicker.
You also lose a lot of bloat.
Uhh....to brag about how much he has free, apparently.
You can call it bloat or beneficial features. It's all a mater of perspective.
I use BlackBox, not because of its small size, but because of its minimalist approach. I like that it doesn't try to be an "environment" with a huge task bar, built-in apps, etc. It's a window manager, it should do one thing and do it well, manage windows, which it does very well, thank you.
Call me old school if you like, but I get most of my work done in just a couple of applications and the command line. I don't give a fart for fancy graphics, spinning twerli-bobs, task bars, etc. I've got the menu that pops up when I right-click in the desktop and I have all the apps I use reqularly on there as well as some rxvt terminals for different purposes. What more user interface does anyone really need? (That's a rhetorical question, btw.)
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
You're comparing Fluxbox, which is just a WM with a bare environment, to GNOME (which is a WM + "gnome-session").
Metacity probably couldn't run on it's own without gnome-session or a large amount of configuration.
But you could definitely run fluxbox _instead_ of metacity inside a GNOME session. And you'd still have the same memory footprint, I imagine.
So really it's that a minimal WM + a decent starting configuration is a better fit for you than the full blown gnome-powered nautilis desktop.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I'm quite delighted (and always have been) with how efficiently written E is.
... except when epplets overran my .enlightenment config directory.
I've been using it since my Pentium 150 with a few megs of ram and I have always been happy with it
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
-an oldtimer
(but seriously, I'm curioius to hear what you think are the most useful features that all these new-fangled window managers have that twm does not (or tvtwm if you like virtual desktop areas))
I believe ratpoison is even more minimalistic than ion.
Linux is not Windows
As you use it constantly and it doesn't get swapped out it is a difference if your window manager uses 1 or 100 MB of RAM. Most likely your application will have to be swapped in the latter case and will run slower because of that.
However for me personally a window manager doesn't have to be small because of speed. Small WM tend to stay out of my way much better than big WMs or even DEs do. I know which apps I will use and I don't want anything to assume anything about me in that department and preload lots of crap only the mysterious average user needs but I don't. WMs are a matter of personal preference after all.
Linux is not Windows
I have 2 GB of RAM in my recently purchased PC and I use ratpoison as WM, not because of RAM, I couldn't care less about that. I use it because I like it staying out of my way and I noticed when using other WMs before that I wouldn't use anything in non-maximized windows anyway and used xterms for anything most of you probably use a GUI file manager for. It is just the way I work best and working any other way just because I have the RAM is a stupid way to think.
And to answer your question: I use the RAM for games, playing movies without using my harddisk much (that way it is free to burn my DVDs in the background which my old pc couldn't do) and generally to use more programs in parallel. I never do benchmarks (except for the basic "I notice video-lag" or "I notice my burner only writes 1x speed" benchmarks) and I never post any results or specs of my hardware online to brag about it. I decided to invest into RAM because this PC is new (a few weeks old) and I don't want to upgrade it for at least 2-3 years from now.
Linux is not Windows
If you tend not to use them it IS bloat.
If he doesn't miss them without a DE he tends not to use them.
QED
Linux is not Windows
Yes it is.
For me personally it was "too" minimal at that point, I couldn't get used to it.
When I tried (very long time ago) it didn't handle transients well (popup dialogs, like mozilla asking the cookie-question or so) and had other problems.
Maybe these things have changed. Well, trying them both takes no more than apt-get install ion3 ratpoison on debian...
You're an idiot. WindowMaker is an X window manager designed to look like the NEXTSTEP WorkspaceManager. It doesn't work like the NEXTSTEP WM (which operates at the DPS level).
The OS X workspace manager is in no way based on, or architecturally similar to, WindowMaker.
Then don't use it. But there are people who are using that kind of hardware, still, and running linux on it, and for them a lightweight windowmanager is worth having.
I am trolling
If it ain't baroque, don't fix it!
-- Gary F.
I just tested this and I ended up back at "window 1" the way you stated it should work. I'm using Fluxbox 0.9.10
Ah the young. So blind, so naive.
At that, I'd like to make it really clear that fanboys that scream at the top of their capslock that window manager or desktop [x] is better than everything else, why does anyone use anything else, it should be incorporated into X, etc. are neglecting the entire philosphy that makes X attractive in the first place. The availability and freedom of choice is what makes the system superior, not its restrictions. To tout one window manager to rule them all is to take one giant neanderthal leap backwards into the dark abyss of Microsoftism.
I'm pretty sure there would be some trouble if all burger joints were converted to Burger Kings based on the merits of their flame-broiling techniques. Although, I certainly wouldn't mind.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
Who cares about KDE and openoffice? I want a liveCD that has a complete TeX distribution, Maxima, and other math and science packages. Who needs a desktop environment? Waste of space, if you ask me.
AccountKiller
EOM
my n1gg4 !
music lover since 1969
Actually, it's more of a matter of how much RAM and processor power you have.
You are one of the base masses, who sole purpose in life is to escape boredom by whatever sick method you can devise.
Precisely. And my current sick method of escaping boredom is to tweak pretentious twits.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Who says it isn't? People still use such systems all the time, and Blackbox is part of what makes it possible.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
at least TeX made three major API/stability milestones before considering the project mature & finished and carrying on with the pi sillyness.
if you've got all the features rounded out and the API stable, call it 1.0 already. when you're to the point where adding anything would just be improvement upon the core idea, the project is 1.0 and ready to go. the zero point whatever nomenclature is for works in progress or for people too scared of creating some sort of milestone indicating that their software is "ready".
Yep, I'm coming from Windows, I'm under Linux since +/- 4 months.
... something dislike me (?)
... don't like it, don't like all that new stuffs ... Only a question of taste!
...
I tried:
- KDE WM => prefer to stay under Windows!
- Gnome WM => Like it but
- BlackBox WM => Yeah, GREAT!
I spent a lot of time (I'm a newbie lol) to configure my computer, Linux & BB.
Now I can say from my experience BB is great. Very great. I love it and I can thanks BB to keep me under Linux!
When BB 0.70 was available, I compiled immediatly this new version. And BB 0.70 has nothing less (and nothing more!) than FluxBox. I tried FluxBox
The menu's under BB 0.70 are more intuitive than under FluxBox (and BB 0.65)!! Very appreciate them.
Yes, I can say from my 26 years nerdy experience that BB (0.70) is great. Simply a question of taste, of feeling
I hope and wish BB will be maintened because I've the intention to stay still a long time under BB!!!
Great! Thanks to Sean 'Shaleh' Perry, Bradley T Hughes and other contributors.
BB? Just the way I like it!
Theo from Belgium.
PS/ sorry for my crappy English!
Fixed "mods lacking humour" bug.