The one thing I hate most about Linux has got to be the X windows system. It just seems so slooooooow. I know not everyone will agree with me, especially those who get upset anytime anyone doesn't think everything about Linux is just perfect, but...

I would really like to see an alternative. It doesn't have to be all fancy with transparent windows and other weird features that I don't need. It just needs to put priority in loading the frigg'n window so I can at least know it really is loading.

Does anyone know of any alternatives?

BTW: I'm NOT using vesa, I'm using radeon and nvidia drivers (laptop and desktop, respectivly).

Well what implementation of X are you using
Xfree86 or Xorg

and what window manager are you using, the speed problem can be a problem with the window manager not with X

some lightweight window managers include:
Icewm, fvwm2, blackbox, fluxbox

Whereas the big window managers GNOME and KDE, they might seem to be slow than the ones mentioned before

>>Well what implementation of X are you using
>>Xfree86 or Xorg

Either one. I've used both.

>>and what window manager are you using, the speed problem can be a problem with the window manager not with X

Generally Gnome and KDE. Of the others you listed, Ice seems to be the only one that wouldn't make me go insane and I don't even like that one. I like having my little bar at the bottom of the screen with all my stuff on it. And I like things to look at least ok. Those other window managers are just too much for me... or should I say too little? I'm comparing all this with Windows.

You see, I'm still using Windows XP Home, BUT I've ridden myself of nearly every piece of software that actually costs money. I've got Windows, Easy CD Creator, and WinDVD all of which came with my laptop. So, my dependance on windows is at a min. I've got Debian (not Knoppix or others) installed as well, but I get so annoyed at how bad KDE and Gnome look and how slow they run. I'm actually wondering how hard it would be to create my own GTK based window manager... that might be cool. BTW, when I say they look "bad" I'm refering to the fact that no matter what resolution I set my computer at, everything looks so BIG. Under Windows, everything gets smaller as I increase the resolution, but it doesn't seem to happen that way under Linux and it annoys me to no end. I like haveing a vast desktop.

I'm just trying to ease myself into Linux and away from Windows. I'll be a college grad at the end of Spring 2005 and I'll have a job working with java and Oracle tech. Therefore, I do not need windows for ANYTHING at home. We use it on workstations at work, but the servers are HPUX.

I've loaded Windows with so much awesome freeware (most of which is more pleasing to me than the stuff you can buy), that I'm beginning to enjoy my experiance in Windows better than Linux. Windows actually works pretty good if you know what you're doing (and don't install SP2). But I want to be a Linux developer! Windows is going nowhere! All Windows developers do is create horrible little apps that do next to nothing and sell them at huge prices... or they create bloated software, full of crap I don't need and don't want. What happens when you install Dreamweaver? You have to run their license server 24/7, unless you want to turn it on and off as you need Dreamweaver, but that is such a hassle!!

And there are so many awesome open source projects I can tap into! Even Visual Studio is limited to what MS puts into it. It is not as able as I would prefer - as is Linux. It is also very bloated to begin with, so where does that put me? That's why I choose Dev-C++ over Visual Studio. I'll start with windows.h and a callback function before I even think about putting together the letters M, F, and C. And I would want everthing to work ok under WINE too of coarse.

So I guess I'm just trying to give myself a good kick in the butt to get rid of Windows. Having a faster window manager under Linux wouldn't hurt though. Maybe I'll try Ice again and try to spice it up a bit. After that I need to get the rest of my hardware working under Linux or get new hardware.

Any would anyone reading this just happen to know of more sure fire way to get Windows games to work without WINEX? I want to play Everquest II when it comes out!

Sorry about all the rants and for getting off topic... I'm just frustrated. I wish I could just make up my mind and get rid of Windows.

1) Turn off all unneeded services that are running

2) Take a look at differenct window manager/desktops
XFCE http://www.xfce.org
Rox http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/
Others are documented at http://www.xwinman.org/
Screenshot are available at http://www.lynucs.org/

3) You can make any window manager look good.
http://kde-look.org
http://gnome-look.org
http://art.gnome.org

4) The gnome panel can be used with a gnome compliant window manager. Last I remember it can be used with icewm and enlightenment

i've heard of but never used y-windows, also there is http://www.fresco.org though again i have never used it. I also read about another windowing solution in a linux magazine in w.h.smiths, but i am to poor to pay £5 for a magazine and cant remember the name, it began with an A

fluxbox...you want fluxbox. light, looks great, you can configure the right click menu to include any and all software you wanna launch...
i'm using an older 500mhz celeron with 191mb ram, dualboot between suse and slackware 10 and use fluxbox on both, and this thing is zippy and sweet. i'll never give it up.

As far as speed issues go... are you using either a 2.4 kernel with the pre-empt patch or a 2.6 kernel with pre-empt enabled? I noticed a huge increase in UI responsiveness (when the CPU is under load) when I started using a pre-emptable kernel. I find KDE to be manageable on my old 550 Mhz. PIII, though not great speed wise. Fluxbox however runs solid in the speed department.

As for window managers/desktop environments. I have been a fluxbox user for some time now. It isn't flashy. It is pretty darn simplistic. The configuration file for the right click menu (usually in $HOME/.fluxbox/menu) is super easy to understand (and thus edit with a text editor). You can have it put a bar on the bottom of the screen that shows your running programs and whatnot, and you can set window focus to a bunch of different models.

As far as your issues with things staying big when you increase the resolution... Run xdpyinfo and tell me what it says for Dimension and Resolution under screen #0. It should be something like this:

What does it says for resolution in dots per inch? Also, what font packages do you have install/selected? 100dpi fonts will naturally be smaller then 75 dpi fonts and so forth.

John

Wow, lots and lots of good info. Thank you all! This has been a good learning session for me. I didn't know you could work with the gnome panel under a different window manager. I just never thought of that before. I never made the connection that there is a difference between dots per inch and resolution either. When I get my computer fixed I'll give flux a try and see about turning on gnome panel... although I have no idea how I'd do that. But then again, I've also got to figure out how to increase my dots per inch too =)

I'll figure it out eventually. I can't give you info about my linux system right now because my computer is a bit messed up. I decided Windows XP was running too slow and I put Windows Server 2003 on my laptop to see how well it would work. LOL! It works much better than any version of XP. However, I think the reason my computer was so slow before was because I installed Windows XP SP2. Don't ever do that to anyone. It killed me. Oh yeah, and the point I wanted to make what that installing Win Server killed my computer's partition table and such or something like that. I messed around with dos tools for a few days before I figured out how to fix it. Even fdisk /mbr couldn't fix it. I deleted Windows completely and only had Linux sitting there, but I could NOT get grub reinstalled. I know I was doing it right. I have done it many times before. I had boot floppies, knoppix, and even a windows live cd to use. But it was Paragon partition manager that actually saved the day. I had to wipe the HD completely and let Paragon reformat everything. It even reset my mbr.

And now that I have it working again, my partition table is different and I've got now stuff to work on with Linux... I'm just going to reinstall Debian from scratch and redo it all. I love doing that anyway! My dream job would be to live in some city with people who don't know anything about computers and just run from house to house setting them up from scratch and securing them.

This time I'll get fluxbox and figure out how to increase dpi.

Thanks again guys!

--PS: and thanks for the other info too... like about y-windows! That project looks good! I hope he gets some more developers to help out and gets something ready in the next year or so. I would so love to use it! The man's (or woman's ?) got a dream and it's a good one! Looks like he's doing a good job too!