Theme or new GUI?

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Theme or new GUI?
started by: marc66thomas

Posted by marc66thomas on Feb. 11 2007,18:39

I found JWM preferable to fluxbox. but miss the mounter and sound utility thats built in.

I'm like a trained rat to use the XP gui. I found XPDE as a possible GUI or theme. http://www.xpde.com/releases.php Does anyone have experience using a winxp feeling GUI (not slow or in intense graphics since i have a slow cpu)
I'm fairly happy with JWM but need a bit more for complete satisfaction.

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 12 2007,02:46

I tried Xpde about a year ago...maybe a little longer, and hated it. Can't say what they may have done to improve it since then.

There are other desktops available that you could try. Personally I think icewm is a nice middle ground between the windows-like desktops and fluxbox, and is still pretty light.

You can still run the mounter (mount.lua) and dmix in Jwm. The little compact version with both apps put together is not automatically started in Jwm simply because that window manager does not have a slit (dock) in which to hold it.

Posted by marc66thomas on Feb. 12 2007,18:16

Quote (mikshaw @ Feb. 11 2007,21:46)

Personally I think icewm is a nice middle ground between the windows-like desktops and fluxbox, and is still pretty light.

mikshaw T.Y. for the suggestion for the gui "icewm"
I found the tar.gz and downloaded it. Now it's time to figure out how to install and activate it on boot. I boot using grub and assume that I'll need to tweak that.
I'm going to read the wiki on installing programs (MyDSL wraps up installs with a nice bow) and this GUI will extend my learning into an unscripted install.

I assume I open Emelfm as sudo su : find the tar.gz :Choose action: PLUGIN:unpack to /urs/local

Again thanks.

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 12 2007,19:41

MyDSL packages are all installed the same way, using the command "mydsl-load filename". This command is also wrapped into the myDSL application to provide a user interface for browsing files, either locally or online. If you unpack a *.tar.gz extension into /usr it may not work.

The icewm mydsl extensions include an readme file that describes at least one method of running icewm automatically. I can't recall if the icewm.tar.gz version has this file, though. That version was replaced by icewm.uci.

Posted by marc66thomas on Feb. 12 2007,19:48

so just throw the entire tar.gz to the "hda7/mydsl" folder?

this was downloader from the icewm site not MyDSL. I didnt find it on MyDSL.

Trying that now... it found the tar in mydsl dir. But on boot it gave me "icewm-1.2.30tar Write Error: No space left on device
tar: invalid tar magic"

PPS this is on a Frugal/hybrid install... am I still good to go?

Posted by lucky13 on Feb. 13 2007,15:18

Quote (marc66thomas @ Feb. 11 2007,13:39)

I found JWM preferable to fluxbox. but miss the mounter and sound utility thats built in.

You can start both the mount tool and dmix from the jwm menu.

Quote

Now it's time to figure out how to install and activate it on boot. I boot using grub and assume that I'll need to tweak that.

No, you won't. GRUB loads an operating system (Linux, Windows, BeOS, BSD, etc.), not the X window system. You can activate a window manager once the OS has loaded using .xinitrc so you'll tweak .xinitrc (for the record, Windows doesn't "start" in GUI mode, either -- your autoexec.bat file launches Windows). I would copy the old one to .xinitrcOLD and then you can edit what remains to to exec icewm. If you use the one from the repository, though, that should all be taken care of. Or at least it should have detailed instructions to get you up and running icewm.