Old Sun SPARC Ultra 10 + 256MB RAM
 

Which DE/WM would you recommend for this system?

Desktop?

xfce or fluxbox or ...there are lots of light weight ones

The system can be very effective ... only the RAM seems to be a little less for kde or gnome

Vote in the poll please. :-p

I also use Openbox (but there is no such option in your poll :p )

From experience I know Gnome/ KDE will run very slow(on Solaris anyway). You will want to run Xfce or CDE.


ED

I wouldn't recommend XFCE (of course neither KDE or Gnome) for such old system. XFCE is a great DE but doesn't look that light to me. It is very featured and I use it every day, but if I were you I'd make room to more memory and processing power with even lighter desktops like IceWM and Fluxbox (both voted). I'd consider Equinox, as well.

Ceterum censeo: A DE that can't serve a DESK is no DE. Thus I vote Fvwm. All others serve a disconnected collection of peepholes (OK, that's at least better than the microsofty 1-peephole system), but no desk bigger than the screen. They are useless for real work with lots of windows (don't tell me about using the microsofty taskbar). Plus, I want the DE to open quicker than it takes to compile (where are all the GHz gone?).

From my experience I would say XFCE should be OK. There are options in its configuration that add support for Gnome and KDE apps, including preloading some KDE libraries. They should be off for a system like that.

I like Gnome the most.
Fast and good.
Artfreddy

I've got a SPARC Ultra 5 with Ubuntu on it and it can handle Gnome but I don't really see the point. Although I've got Gnome on my desktop box this one runs smoother with less BS to worry about. Fluxbox is the way forward.

OS poll
 

I also thought there should of been "other" in the poll. I use my own IDE so I wouldn't expect that one :-) it was originally based on IceWM so I picked that. I think the new versions of IceWM are a little bloated compared to what it started with.

Which would you rather have: a DE that "looks" lightweight but is actually bloated, or one that that "...doesn't look that light..." but does not draw attention to itself by hogging resources?

I started using XFCE about four years ago, and I have no regrets.

What exactly do you intend using this computer for anyway?

Yup. That's the right question.

Why would you want to waste resources on suboptimal DE gadgets?
 

That would be my question. Looks like nobody gets it.
Last century I had a PentiumII 233MHz 128MB that wasn't less reactive than today's latest stuff. It had an Apache running, serving the Pager window of my Fvwm via ISDN, so people could have a live look at my desk...