Matchbox Vs E17

[Sphinxter]

Would games have more resources and better performance with a lighter window manager? Is the difference worth it?

As much as I would like Enlightenment, if I can squeeze more fps and get more free RAM using something lighter like Matchbox, I'd use that instead.

You might have that backwards, Enlightenment is the one with a very small footprint and smoking performance.

Really? That seems rather odd! I'm all for Enlightenment then

No I was wrong, footprint 50k matchbox vs. 100k e17, matchbox using only xlib is the lower performer of the two.

 

[Kramy]

Am I the only person that wants LXDE? :lol:

Screenshot

 

[bzar]

Am I the only person that wants LXDE? :lol:

Screenshot

LXDE is nice, but not very touchscreen friendly. No, I'd rather have enlightenment.

EDIT: Ok, that screenshot you put a link to looks at least small screen friendly. Anyway, as far as I know, it still depends on multiple mouse buttons and such.

 

[musicalwoods]

Am I the only person that wants LXDE? :lol:

Screenshot

Yes!
EDIT: Wait, no! I want to see it too. XD

I have my special config file with every shortcut and window setting already saved away.
I absolutely love Openbox WM...

EDITEDIT: As for mouse buttons and whatnot, a heck of a lot of that functionality can be configured in the openbox config file, so a Pandora-specific config file for it would probably be pretty darn easy to do. I'd totally have it default to undecorated, maximized windows...

 

[DJWillis]

Caveat: Sorry if I am waffling, lack of sleep.

Ahhh,

Something I feel I can talk about (just)

Am I the only person that wants LXDE? :lol:

Screenshot

That is LXLauncher running on top of LXDE . LXDE runs on the Pandora as is. LXLauncher is not quite so stable however, that needs a little work to get it into shape.

As for the differing Pandora images, it's all really down to the individual developers choice and what environment they feel comfortable using (they can pick and choose what they run on their development unit, they are not forced to run anything).

All the Pandora images are built using 2 main tasks (ok, this is a massive oversimplification for the purpose of this post).

This first 'task' builds the Pandora core image, this is a set of apps (and other OpenEmbedded/Angstrom components) that will result in a regular Pandora image without any GUI or XServer (developers will know this as the pandora-core-image.ubi/.tar.bz2).

Things such as kernel, modules, drivers, OGLES, CLI tools, libPND, nano/vi etc. are in this task. Anything you need for a good solid image without a GUI.

The next task adds uses the above 'core' and adds the XServer (It has always been XOrg and not KDrive for the record), Window Manager, DE (maybe a DM) and GUI apps, wizards etc. (anything that is not 'core' or requires a GUI really).

There are several of these tasks for the Pandora.

The popular ones with developers include the E17 based one (obviously), there are also ones based on several other popular environments.

In fact, below is a list of the GUI environments that currently get regularly built for the Pandora from OpenEmbedded/Angstrom metadata (either by me or by my little autobuilder). It's not an exhaustive list and as a rule, if there is metadata in OpenEmebedded for it, chances are you can get it going easily.

• Enlightenment E17 (with options to enable illume etc. to make it more 'touchscreen friendly) - E17 has been getting a lot of code love from Angstrom devs (and Raster ) and it's a very popular choice on the Beagle
• Matchbox (both 1 and 2). This was planned to be the default, the way we develop the images we can still be flexible on this. Works well but maybe a little less 'modern' looking than some of the others. It's also a better window manager than desktop environment.
• LXDE (caveats that LXPanel is not very stable and the whole environment feels like it needs time to mature a little on ARM)
• Gnome 2.26 (runs a lot better than expected but it's hamstrung by the fact it can eat memory quickly)
• XFCE 4.4.* (not a bad choice, performs well)
• XFCE 4.6.* (WIP, getting this going well using OpenEmbedded is a current pet project of mine as I see that 4.6.* has some really interesting potential and I personally like it )

Not really sure what else I can say but if someone has a direct question I'll try and answer.

I'll probably try and embellish the above text and put a post up on my blog about images. I have one in drafts about the XFCE 4.6.* work anyway; maybe doing some other related posts it is a good idea.

 

[gruso]

Excellent info DJW, thanks!

 

[mindlord]

That's a pretty impressive list of compiled and running WM's for the Pandora. Thanks again for the hard work DJWillis.

 

[dflemstr]

The next task adds uses the above 'core' and adds the XServer (It has always been XOrg and not KDrive for the record), Window Manager, DE (maybe a DM) and GUI apps, wizards etc. (anything that is not 'core' or requires a GUI really).

Is there any chance that the scripts used for this task could be published? Or are they already published?

If so, can I find the step1 image that you're using somewhere? I would really like to create alternative images for the Pandora, including a barebone one with nothing more than "bash" and "screen", and including one with a compiled-down low-memory version of KDE4.

I guess that I could take an official image from the Pandora dev team and just "ipkg remove" the official VM and then add whatever I want to it after that (because you DO embrace the package system, right??), but it would be nice to start from scratch somehow.

 

[DJWillis]

Is there any chance that the scripts used for this task could be published? Or are they already published?

If so, can I find the step1 image that you're using somewhere? I would really like to create alternative images for the Pandora, including a barebone one with nothing more than "bash" and "screen", and including one with a compiled-down low-memory version of KDE4.

I guess that I could take an official image from the Pandora dev team and just "ipkg remove" the official VM and then add whatever I want to it after that, but it would be nice to start from scratch somehow.

http://git.openpandora.org - Not pushed in a little while as my personal tree has a lot of WIP stuff in it but you can build from the published trees.

You will need both the OE metadata and our overlay to build anything (and of course a working BitBake environment).

openpandora.oe.git/recipes/tasks/task-pandora-core.bb maybe of some interest.

The really tiny image you talk about could be make from the standard OpenEmbedded MINI and MICRO images I would think with just the Pandora machine data and kernel.

 

[Phawx]

I am still a huge fan of E17. It looks like the best way to get a full computing experience with the available real estate we have.

 

[RavenX]

you should research e17 a bit more. check out "illume" module - or for that matter - just select it when e starts - as your preferred profile. it's very "matchboxy" with some extra joy. that's the same wm - just a module has twisted it's ui to be more touchscreen/finger friendly for example. if you look at elementary (toolkit) it's entirely finger/touchscreen oriented right now. and it's a walk in the park to use. even in c. mind you EFL (the libraries built for E17) have one thing they aimed to do - make it easy to do custom ui's, make them efficient, flexible and themeable. things like edje help abstract the look of a ui to the code that drives it. it puts it off into a replacable data file (eg - theme).

but - yes. you can change wm at will. wm's will still work interchangable for most apps (only those that try and integrate into a particular env and assume a management policy or set of hooks, api's or features will suffer - your regular "pop up a window, maybe go fullscreen, etc." apps won't matter. performance won't be different either as thew wm is not involved in an app drawing in its window. if you do compositing... that's a different matter. one that would need a very lengthy discussion.

FYI, for those who don't know, unless I miss my guess, raster, better known as rasterman, is the man behind Enlightenment. So, he probably knows what he is talking about

Glad to see you participating in the forums.

I, for one, can't wait to get Enlightenment on my Pandora. I first used it way back at E13.