Revisiting Lxde

[chris_c]

When making a new SD boot disk I decided to revisit my lxde guide and see what had changed (if anything) with the angstrom lxde packages

First off I didn't bother with lxde-session at all rather just used the auto installed lxdesession-lite

using the lxde filemanager I can unmount devices works fine - and devices are automounted ok but using different rules to determine the mount point, this could be changed to reflect current XFCE behaviour no doubt

I'd forgotten just how fast it is! even applications start quicker (no really!), memory usage is down.

The only real issue is the menu, no sub cat's and some stuff gets bunged in other...

It does occur to me that ditching that menu and creating a pandora specific menu for a lightweight (which xfce sure aint!) experience wouldn't be a massive project...

 

[CPUnltd]

XFCE is lightweight (for the desktop... not so much for the Pandora, but it's not horrible either)... Plan on watching this thread, as I'm interested in alternative desktops for the Pandora (hoping to see work done on getting e17 going, will do it myself once I get my Pandora if it hasn't been started by someone else) and will definitely test whatever you get together once I get mine in the mail. Most circles I've been in say that Pypanel is a good one to work with when running LXDE, but I'm sure that something resembling minimenu could be built from scratch to handle the Pandora screen (something similar to XFCEs "kiosk mode" if nothing else)... will drop my Linux knowledge on this where I can as this progresses... post as often as you can on how things go for you...

 

[chris_c]

XFCE is lightweight (for the desktop... not so much for the Pandora, but it's not horrible either)... Plan on watching this thread, as I'm interested in alternative desktops for the Pandora (hoping to see work done on getting e17 going, will do it myself once I get my Pandora if it hasn't been started by someone else) and will definitely test whatever you get together once I get mine in the mail. Most circles I've been in say that Pypanel is a good one to work with when running LXDE, but I'm sure that something resembling minimenu could be built from scratch to handle the Pandora screen (something similar to XFCEs "kiosk mode" if nothing else)... will drop my Linux knowledge on this where I can as this progresses... post as often as you can on how things go for you...

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/57653-a-guide-to-installing-lxde/ here's the basics we worked it out as we went on - not complicated and it works...

I disagree with you that XFCE is lightweight even on a desktop it *used* to be - not no longer, it is often installed alongside 1/2 of the backend of gnome (services mainly) sadly its a case of feature creep - its a real shame but then I'm in the camp that thinks that an OS should be a collection of drivers and a file manager front end and little else...

 

[CPUnltd]

ok, I give you that point as far as XFCE not being as light as it used to be... but in that same light, I have seen plenty of metapackages that bring in only the basics and even some that strip out the gnome dependencies... Would be great if it was completely self-dependent like e17 (or even like awesome and Rox) but alas, to maintain "lightweight" status, they add features and call on gnome to back up those features so they are pseudo-lightweight. Not a horrible thing, but not a great thing either. Technically, LXDE isn't really truly it's own beast yet either, as it calls on Openbox as a backend (last I remembered) but have been picking up more "parts" of it's own as of recent... like having it's own login manager (granted, I am a personal fan of SLiM above and beyond anything else out there). In the end, it depends on how it is all packaged. Didn't look at your link yet, but will do so in a few, because I am curious...

 

[chris_c]

pseudo-lightweight

says it all really!

When I get time (HA HA HA) I would like to look at different window managers on my desktop, just to see if I can discover something really lightweight but feature full! I'll compile it for the Pandora if I have to XFCE is just too hungry

 

[CPUnltd]

since you have your Pandora (and I do not yet ) you should look into e17, I ran into a nice long list of WMs and DEs on the Arch Linux website (some I'd never even remotely found any other way before running into that page) and I have no problem linking to it, just gotta take care of something quick before the end of the hour... there are plenty to research from there so you can play all day and all night... Will be doing my homework on that as soon as I get my own unit... SOOO looking forward to that!!!

 

[Stuckie]

pseudo-lightweight

says it all really!

When I get time (HA HA HA) I would like to look at different window managers on my desktop, just to see if I can discover something really lightweight but feature full! I'll compile it for the Pandora if I have to XFCE is just too hungry

I quite like the combination of Fluxbox and Rox.. though perhaps a bit too basic for some people!

 

[demitar]

LXDE is very sleek indeed, but some battery indication is a must so I hacked in support for the pandora percentage reporting (unfortunately since it picked up the wrong battery I hardcoded the prefix for the pandora one - making the prefix an option or simply a list option could probably get it picked up upstream).

http://random.xvx.se/pandora/lxde/

 

[chris_c]

LXDE is very sleek indeed, but some battery indication is a must so I hacked in support for the pandora percentage reporting (unfortunately since it picked up the wrong battery I hardcoded the prefix for the pandora one - making the prefix an option or simply a list option could probably get it picked up upstream).

http://random.xvx.se/pandora/lxde/

nicely done, other than the menu issues which I can live with its all looking rather good!