* Jeffrey L. Taylor [02-04-17 12:47]:

For a long time I used Blackbox (a window manager). Each update of SuSE required downloading and building it again. I had several packages like this and it became time consuming. So I moved to use more "standard" packages. I started using KDE because it was the default Desktop Environment (DE) in SuSE, later OpenSuSE. I've noticed that I use no KDE applications by choice, only default. And my swap file even with 4MB of memory is becoming frequently half full with occassional crashes due to an yet unknown application runaway. Maybe switching to a lighter weight DE or window manager (WM) would be a cheap solution. What lighter weight DEs or WMs are people using?

Note: I use GNU emacs and Xemacs for my editor, LibreOffice for some word processing, and TeX for higher quality word processing/typesetting. Multiple desktops/workspaces are a requirement. Fancy effects are pretty, but ultimately disposable. I suspect a WM that is likely to remain part of OpenSuSE will fill the bill.

Other suggestions and/or experience?

I believe icewm is pretty standard, included in openSUSE, and has multiple workspaces and is quite configurable. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2017-02-04 18:46, Jeffrey L. Taylor wrote:

For a long time I used Blackbox (a window manager). Each update of SuSE required downloading and building it again. I had several packages like this and it became time consuming. So I moved to use more "standard" packages. I started using KDE because it was the default Desktop Environment (DE) in SuSE,

No, it is not the default. There is no default environment. It is simply the first in the list.

later OpenSuSE.

It is 'openSUSE'.

I've noticed that I use no KDE applications by choice, only default. And my swap file even with 4MB of memory is becoming frequently half

I doubt you have 4 MB of memory :-P

full with occassional crashes due to an yet unknown application runaway.

Well, this sentence is unclear. With just 4 MB of memory (or is it swap?) it is no wonder applications crash :-)

Maybe switching to a lighter weight DE or window manager (WM) would be a cheap solution. What lighter weight DEs or WMs are people using?

I use XFCE. No fanciness, simply works, has the needed features. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On Saturday, 4 February 2017 11:46:10 CET Jeffrey L. Taylor wrote:

[…] Maybe switching to a lighter weight DE or window manager (WM) would be a cheap solution. What lighter weight DEs or WMs are people using?

I can recommend "awesome". It even has a nice openSUSE branding :-) -> https://openqa.opensuse.org/tests/347583#step/awesome_menu/2 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sunday, 5 February 2017 17:25:46 CET Karl Sinn wrote:

Am 05.02.2017 um 17:07 schrieb Oliver Kurz:

...

On Saturday, 4 February 2017 11:46:10 CET Jeffrey L. Taylor wrote:

...

[…] Maybe switching to a lighter weight DE or window manager (WM) would be a cheap solution. What lighter weight DEs or WMs are people using?

I can recommend "awesome". It even has a nice openSUSE branding :-) -> https://openqa.opensuse.org/tests/347583#step/awesome_menu/2

I got curious and wanted to try awesome. I installed with yast2 but it doesn't start. I see a black screen when I try to log into it and then I come back to the login screen.

your ~/.xsession-errors-:0 will probably tell what the problem is. This is how I debug problems e.g. when I have a custom but outdated awesome configuration which fails to start. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 02/04/2017 12:46 PM, Jeffrey L. Taylor wrote:

For a long time I used Blackbox (a window manager). Each update of SuSE required downloading and building it again. I had several packages like this and it became time consuming. So I moved to use more "standard" packages. I started using KDE because it was the default Desktop Environment (DE) in SuSE, later OpenSuSE. I've noticed that I use no KDE applications by choice, only default. And my swap file even with 4MB of memory is becoming frequently half full with occassional crashes due to an yet unknown application runaway. Maybe switching to a lighter weight DE or window manager (WM) would be a cheap solution. What lighter weight DEs or WMs are people using?

Note: I use GNU emacs and Xemacs for my editor, LibreOffice for some word processing, and TeX for higher quality word processing/typesetting. Multiple desktops/workspaces are a requirement. Fancy effects are pretty, but ultimately disposable. I suspect a WM that is likely to remain part of OpenSuSE will fill the bill.

Other suggestions and/or experience?

I think you're doing something very very wrong. I have, for my whole experience with *Suse been using KDE. Back in the magia days I used gnome, but that's another story. I run an old Dell Optiplex with a 4-core Intel and 4G of memory. This is 13.2 with a few extra repositories. Ill get to that later. Regular readers will recall that I take a pleasure in dragging old, discarded equipment out of the 'Closet of Anxieties", stuff that might have run Windows >5 years go but couldn't run modern Windows now. There are also a few other machines around: a dual core laptop with 1.75G, 13.2, KDE that runs my the MySQL database. My desktop has a 1G drive with LVM and 14 logical partitions. That many because I divide my space into parts that can be backed up onto 5G DVDs. Well that was the idea when I started out ... I mention that because it means my kernel has a number of dynamic tables to accommodate this so isn't as small when running as with a simple setup. I'm also running a dropbox service, apache, dovecot, postfix, dnsmaq, proftp, ntp ... what else. My KDE4 has 6 workspaces and very little eye-candy. One workspace is devoted to Thunderbird and that has a 2G virtual and 500M resident. Yes I have about 15 IMAP accounts opened and buffered. One workspace is devoted to Firefox, which currently has two windows of about 40 tabs each. That has 10G virtual and just under 1.5G virtual. I also have workspace devoted to konqueror as a file browser, I.1G virtual just under 500K physical. Finally there is a workspace with Konsole and 4 vts, 600M virtual and 300M physical. Of course there is a lot of junk supporting this a the key components of KDE, like any DM, add up. All in all , htop tells me I'm using 2414k of the 3812K available, but I suspect its actually more. Lets face it, Linux tries to use all available memory, somehow. # free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3903968 3357428 546540 194416 77668 924876 -/+ buffers/cache: 2354884 1549084 Swap: 5858300 489768 5368532 oh and # swapon -s Filename Type Size Used Priority /dev/sda2 partition 5858300 476220 -1 So I think you're doing something very, very wrong. The only time my swap gets impacted is when I start up Darktable in another workspace and load up a "filmroll" of 30-40 RAW images and their corresponding JPGS. I don't have a powerful graphics card so darktable has to do thing computation-wise. I will grant you that I use VIM or gVIM rather than Eight megabytes and Constantly Swapping when I need an editor. My fingers learnt how to run that long before Linux existed. And yes, there is an option with that to use emacs key assignments. http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=300 I see no reason why I need one of the so-called 'lightweight' DMs when the weight of the applications I use so overwhelms the DM Perhaps things would be smaller if I user Kongeror as a web browser instead of GTK one since it uses the shared KDE libraries already loaded. Similarly Dolphin as a file browser and Kmail for email. But I see so many problems with Kmail and it needs support from other things that I don't have loaded, so I'm reluctant to try. I rather like many of the Thunderbird/Firefox plugins, not least of which the one that lets me edit in gVIM :-) But I think you must be doing something very, very wrong. You'll notice that noting I've mentioned is 'non standard' or needs me to compile anything myself. If I were you I'd find out what the crashes were. That's a certain indicator of something wrong! -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org