Hello everyone

I own a laptop that has a widescreen, meaning I will be looking at 1280 by 768 pixels resolution.

Does a window manager that uses a lot of memory (read: With lots of eye candy) take a toll on battery life?

If so, I would be grateful if someone could suggest a real good Window Manager, that is easily configurable and _VERY_ light weight.

I am comfortable with the command line, and use the GUI only for browsing, and some minimal graphic packages (like GIMP and OpenOffice)

Basically I am looking to have a window manager to help increase my battery life.

Thank you very much

Regards
Hari

my default answer would be fluxbox these days, nice and simple but still generally attractive and competent.

You could try Fluxbox. I find that to be a really good WM, and it certainly does help increase battery life. If you're using KDE, for example, your CPU will need to run at a higher level so that it can render everything as it appears, causing your battery to go down much more rapidly than when using a lightweight WM like Flux.

There's also FVWM, which is HIGHLY configurable. I mean, you can make it as pretty and power-hogging or dull and battery-saving as you like! The screenshots on their site are a brilliant example of what can be done with it...

I've also heard quite a lot about Enlightenment, which also appears to be quite nice. Ultimately, the choice is yours! Looking for more WMs other than the ones I've mentioned? Check out this link.

J_K9

Wow ! That link is awesome ! Thanks a lot

By the way,since I am really keen on battery life and nothing else, I think I would go with Fluxbox.

But I will play around with as many as I can before that !

Thanks again

Regards

Hari

No problem, harisund! And welcome to LQ!!

-J

i agree, i use fluxbox on my laptop @1400x1050, it's the tux' nuts. (bees knees?)

doesn't get much lighter than this:
http://datalink.homelinux.com/screens/slacktop.png

I agree with everything above, fluxbox is my favorite window manager by far. And there are some cool themes availible too. http://themes.freshmeat.net is a great site for them.

There's lots of very good work being done in the GUI and window manager arenas these days. IceWM is a very good and very configurable WM and XFCE has made some major improvements while still being a fairly light GUI product.

Either makes a nice user interface.