For fans of lightweight desktops

samac · 05-10-2014, 02:25 AM

Alien Bob has just built this

Quote:

This is the first (pre) release of the merger of two
lightweight desktop environments: LXDE and Razor-Qt joined to become LXQt.
LXQt is a collection of 30 packages, 8 MB in total.

http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/pe.../ChangeLog.txt

BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THE DIRECTORY THAT YOU RUN THESE COMMANDS IN.

I've just downloaded and installed it like this

Code:

mkdir lxqt
cd lxqt
lftp -c "open http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/lxqt/pkg64/14.1/ ; mirror -c -e $lxqt"
mkdir openbox
cd openbox
lftp -c "open http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/openbox/pkg64/14.1/ ; mirror -c -e $openbox"
cd ..
su
(password)
installpkg */*.t?z

Then I logged out and logged back in with a new seesion, selecting lxqt. The system is very fast but because it is a pre-release version it doesn't have all the frills of a mature system. However if you like a very, very lightweight desktop, it is well worth a look.

samac

arsivci0 · 05-10-2014, 07:27 AM

Thanks for the heads up! I am not huge fan of very minimal DEs but I really liked this one.

dunric · 05-10-2014, 12:34 PM

For lightweight "desktops" there are already better and more mature alternatives like i3 or xmonad

GazL · 05-10-2014, 12:48 PM

Many folks wouldn't consider those to be a 'desktop environment'. My weapon of choice is dwm + dmenu, but it's good that there's something for the people who want something in-between the minimal window-manager environments and the big 3 full-fat desktop environments. 'lxqt' seems to fill this niche nicely at present. Their biggest challenge will be not to add too many unnecessary features and accidentally become a fatty (which is kind of what happened to xfce).

I wish them well.

ondoho · 05-10-2014, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dunric

For lightweight "desktops" there are already better and more mature alternatives like i3 or xmonad

yeah, why use X at all. 's not leet.

bamunds · 05-10-2014, 03:55 PM

My understanding is that the DE simply incorporates some basic programs, almost always a file manager, along with a window manager, almost always running X, in order to be more than the Window Manager which only manages the windows. My observations is that the problems with KDE, XFCE, GNOME and MATE are they also include a number of packages that are integrated so tightly that if you drop one of the provided "basic" programs then the whole DE seems to fall apart and not function properly. Clearly KDE is trying to make the experience of managing Linux easier for the non-technical user in order to prove it is as easy as managing a Microsoft Windows environment, they've succeeded. Since I've used both, I find that KDE has become very integrated and it is easy to manage, but the KDE also requires a lot of resources. This brings me back to why some people, who can't let a good old running horse die, decide to feed them low resource required distributions and DE's/WM's.

Personally, I'm liking FVWM-Crystal and Slackware e17. Both have a sense of a fully WM with some DE support, but letting you choose applications. This article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...p_environments )
on Wikipedia compares the applications included in DE's, semi-DE's and you can also lookup comparison of WM's. While dated now, I think it was originally written in 2011, it is still a very interesting article and comparison to understand the DE and WM mixes, although some new ones are missing.

I'm going to try the lxqt, simply because QT is included with KDE, so the dependencies should be minor. I admired LXDE claim to small footprint, but I've not loaded the SBOPkg available for it, because I have found what I need in the FVWM-Crystal and Slacke17. I really like FVWM-Crystal's way of handling the applications, but miss direct access to folders and documents, although I can customize the menu to show folders. I prefer ROX-Desktop approach that everything is a file, like in a file cabinet, and when you open the file, whether it is encrypted or formated for a program isn't the end-users concern, I simply want to see it in whatever application is suppose to show it. This is what non-technical users are looking for, if I want to type an email, why do I need to start the email application, why can't I just start typing on the page and then hit send email, or, if I want to see a listing of the costs of my small business, why before I open the file that has that data do I have to choose to open GNUCash or Gnumeric or Calc (make sure you get it right), the file should tell the computer what program to open for the end user to see the contents. That would be true productivity and end-user preference. Lacking that I want direct access to the program without a lot of opening menus and submenus, then opening the folder, then open the file, then provide password if encrypted, it's all too much to simply look at the content for two minutes to get the data. Maybe I'm missing it, but isn't there an easier desktop like ROX-Desktop (now dormant development). Until then I'm sticking with FVWM-Crystal or Slacke17.

A newbies perspective, wanting a better experience than MSWindows.

philanc · 05-10-2014, 06:10 PM

Regarding "Ultra light desktop" as the thread title goes... we have some figures in the LXDE.org blog http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1117

It looks like LXQT memory usage is a bit larger than Xfce (in a similar configuration - 95MB vs. 89MB). It may qualify as "ultra light" for Gnome or KDE aficionados, but not for everybody

Richard Cranium · 05-10-2014, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bamunds

I really like FVWM-Crystal's way of handling the applications, but miss direct access to folders and documents, although I can customize the menu to show folders.

Try Rodent as a file manager for FVWM-Crystal.

Richard Cranium · 05-10-2014, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Cranium

Try Rodent as a file manager for FVWM-Crystal.

On second thought, don't. For a self-proclaimed nerd, the person who writes this is pretty effing sloppy with his/her/its build scripts.

If you're running 32 bit Slackware, the individual builds will work OK (I think). 64 bit? Not so much, or so I've seen today.

Pity.

jtsn · 05-10-2014, 11:36 PM

Quote:

LXQt is a collection of 30 packages, 8 MB in total.

plus over hundred MB used by Qt. It's the same thing as calling a Java program inside a 100 KB .jar file "lightweight", or something using GNU Mono etc...

ponce · 05-11-2014, 02:45 AM

regarding why Qt has been chosed to develop the next version ol LXDE, a lot of talk had been done on the lxde mailing list around one year ago: mainly

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp...xde.devel/3205

in a few words: gtk+2 is discontinued, gtk+3 is a total mess, other toolkits lack of needed features, so the choice is forced...

jtsn · 05-11-2014, 02:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ponce

the choice is forced

Either something is a "choice" or it is "forced". But both can't be in the same sentence.

LXQt may be a KDE alternative, but for sure it is nothing for the "fans of ultra light desktops".

ponce · 05-11-2014, 04:02 AM

there's a PCMan's message in the thread I linked:

Quote:

Originally Posted by PCMan

Please focus on constructive and technical discussions and avoid flame wars.
We're here to build better software, not to argue what programming language or toolkit is better.
There is no silver bullet. It's all about "balance".
The fastest program,, of course, is written in assembly.
Compared with it, all C programs are bloatware.
Do you use assembly for GUI development?
Read the source code of gtk+ and glib and you'll know why it's not as lightweight as you think.
See this:
https://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/tree/gobject
All of the source code here are used to emulate OOP. Most of the things the gobject library does "at runtime" are done by C++ compilers at compile time without any cost at runtime.

For every GObject class, you need to write hundreds of lines of duplicated boilerplate code just to emulate what C++ compuiler does.
That's the real hidden cost.
I'm afraid that these unnecessary lines of code are even more than the ones C++ template generates. Besides, today's C++ compiler are very smart and will optimize out unnecessary code. So bloat of "source code" or the intermediate object files is no issue.

Programming languages and toolkits are just tools.
Whether the result is good or not depends on how you use it and that's the value of programmers. It's who uses the tools that matters, not the tools themselves.

I'll stop responding to the thread here.

ondoho · 05-11-2014, 04:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ponce

regarding why Qt has been chosed to develop the next version ol LXDE, a lot of talk had been done on the lxde mailing list around one year ago: mainly
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp...xde.devel/3205
in a few words: gtk+2 is discontinued, gtk+3 is a total mess, other toolkits lack of needed features, so the choice is forced...

before you posted pcman's reply, i was reading the thread you linked...
it really made me think about the toolkits...
gtk2 is dead?
gtk3 is a mess (and bloat)?
qt is bloat?
what are we going to use then?
or are they really just flaming?

samac · 05-11-2014, 04:31 AM

For all the pedants out there I have changed the title of the thread to "For fans of lightweight desktops". Perhaps now we can celebrate the choice of another desktop environment rather than churlishly getting hung up on the the nuances of a word.

samac