New to desktop environments, looking for a text oriented GUI
 

Hi all,
This is my very first post. I am new to Linux and I was browsing several of the Linux distros on Distrowatch.com looking at the desktop gui environments trying to decide on the one for me. I like the simple desktops the best such as OpenBox. I noticed that the distro's called "ArchBang" and "CrunchBang" use OpenBox for their default desktop environment. OpenBox seems to be a very text oriented GUI desktop environment (doesn't rely on icons to clutter up your desktop or slow down an older PC). I'm assuming that OpenBox is the simplest and most text oriented of all desktops gui's for Linux distro's, correct? Are there any that are even simpler and more text oriented still? Which two or three desktops would be considered just a little more complex, (or less text oriented then OpenBox and that rely just a little bit more on icons and graphics?)?

Thank you

Hi there

Openbox is simple no doubt and it can be modular too, u can add taskbar, icons, and other stuff, Lxde is nothing else but Openbox with other things on top of it just to mention one example.
Now if you really want simpler than that DMW is a good option, Wmii is about same with some differences.
There are many others of course is a matter of trying out some to see what fits you best.
List of some: http://xwinman.org/others.php

Regards

You might also want to try tiling window managers. Awesome tiling window manager is very popular. My favourite one is i3 (see screenshots: http://i3wm.org/screenshots/ )

Ratpoison is a windows manager that requires no mouse, only keyboard:

http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/

Salix has a ratpoison edition:

http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.ph...load_Ratpoison

Most tiling window managers require no mouse. On my i3 I use the mouse almost only within gui applications.

I looked at DWM, i3 and Wmii and they look even better still to me than OpenBox. However, when I go to Distrowatch.com and then to the search area and then look at their list of desktop environments, I don't see any of these listed, in other words, you can't search for a distro containing these desktop environments. They only list certain desktop environments that you can search for, why is this?

Because those windows managers are not the default GUIs for any of the distros. On the other hand you can install them on probably any distro.

If I were you, I'd install a few distros that sound interesting and then install dwm, i3 and wmii on those distros and see which distro is most appealing to you.

Those are in the repositories for sure but don't come as default GUI. Yet it isn't a problem since Linux is modular
and you can build it the way you want/like. As example my favorite distro is Debian and i do have old machines with low quantity of RAM that can't handle well Gnome, Xfce and such w/o suffer in performance, i don't install the default system either, i go with minimum install just basic system and xserver and Wmii or DWM sometimes Blackbox.
Dont be afraid if distros don't bring it as default, you don't have to do things their way. That is the beauty of GNU/Linux !!

Regards

I use wmii, Firefox with Pentadactyl plugin and vim as text editor. Can't get much more text oriented, the only thing that really needs the mouse is Flash content in the browser (besides using GIMP, unthinkable without a pointing device)

Thanks for the suggestions, but what do all the acronyms mean? It's obvious what "Ratpoison" means (it kills your mouse), but what does "Wmii", "i3", "DMW", "LXDE", "Xfce", "Fluxbox", "VIM" stand for?

Most of those abbreviations are the names of various window managers. Vim is a text editor ("vi improved").

This site will tell you more and provide useful links.

Most Linux distributions come with one or maybe two window managers or desktop environments by default; you can install and use any others you wish and switch back and forth among them as you choose. Slackware comes with six; you choose the default at time of install and can change it later.

About dot com has a good Linux tutorial. Parts of it are dated because anything tech is a moving target, but it's good on the basics.