Hello once more,

I am running KDE desktop on my Suse 9.1 Linux system. I have 190M on the laptop (with 1G of SWAP space) and have been informed that KDE takes up a lot of memory and that Blackbox would be a better choice. I did not know that KDE took up so much memory I hope that I will be able to add some memory to my laptop (crossing fingers).

I have just been using KDE for about a week now and it seems to make the handling of the system more like Windows - not that that is such a really bad thing but it does make life easier

Would it be possible to obtain the same with Blackbox? For example, KDE has an editor that is similar to MS Windows and it also allows one to edit the devices on the system via a type of Control Panel (similar to Windows). Again, not that that is all wonderful but it does make life a little easeir.

TIA

Blackbox does indeed use a lot fewer resources than KDE, but it's pretty minimalist. A lot of people like that, but you may also want to try IceWM (see http://www.icewm.org/ ), which is lightweight but not quite as extreme. If you don't like to edit configuration files, you can use IceWM Control Panel (see http://icesoundmanager.sourceforge.net/), which lets you use a graphical interface to alter your settings.

Personaly, I like Fluxbox on my Gentoo system and it works flawlessly. To edit the menu you just have to edit one file and it is very lightweight as it is based on Blackbox, but with more features. You can also use iDesk which allows you to have Windows-like icons on your desktop (might be for all Blackbox based WMs)

Just my 2cents

--Steve

Fluxbox is pretty darn good for lower-end machines, I'd go for it.

However, if you REALLY want a treat, go with BadWM. It's an awsome extremely minimalist WM with practically no real features I run it on my desktop and laptop (desktop has 256mb ram, laptop has 192) and I rarely have to make use of my swap space.

Hello to all

Thank you for your help. I think I will need a bit more memory for my HP Pavilio zv 5000 laptop since I am trying to run Netbeans + Oracle + tomcat and apache. All seem to be up and running just running a little slow. What happened to the days where 190M was considered a lot

Soooooo - I am on the quest now to find more memory but I did choose another WM to start. Blackbox came with the Suse 9.1 distribution so all I had to do (under the kde wm) was to start up Yast and install the software.

After doing so, I was able to switch the window managers by logging off first and then logging back in with an ID and password. On my login popup, there was a drop down box that allowed me to choose which Window Manager I wanted.

So, I have a large choice now and will be switching back and forth based on what is needed.

Thank you to all again for pointing me in the right direction - now if I can just get that RAM!