Fastest Window Manager Setup

Forum: DSL Tips and Tricks
Topic: Fastest Window Manager Setup
started by: Kuprin

Posted by Kuprin on July 24 2006,21:31

Is Fluxbox really as fast as it gets, regardless of appearance? Are there ways to speed up Fluxbox, without sacrificing too much smoothness in its look?

I don't want something that looks shit-ugly, but I'd like to know if anyone knows of more speed that I can squeeeeeeze out. I'll decide on the tradeoff after I see the downsides to it.

Posted by kerry on July 24 2006,21:40

speed is relative to the equipment your trying to run on. so what are your spec's? Fluxbox is pretty fast as is and you can customize everything,there are little limits when it comes to looks.

Posted by mikshaw on July 25 2006,04:28

Fluxbox is definitely not "as fast as it gets", if you mean is there anything other than fluxbox which is faster. However, it is a nearly perfect compromise between speed and features.

Getting rid of the background image and using a minimal style will free a few Ks of memory. Also shut off torsmo, fluxter, icons, and the wmswallow/docked.lua combo. These things won't make a noticeable difference on a new machine, but they will help if you need to put a lot of focus on conserving resources.

From what I have heard, jwm is actually a little lighter than fluxbox, but there are other window managers that beat both in size and speed. evilwm and dwm are two of the smallest and fastest window managers I've used, both a little under 30k, and I'm watching the development of a new one called quark that so far is smaller than either of those....though it's still pretty buggy. I honestly wouldn't recommend any of them to someone who likes his mouse, but fluxbox is, as i said, a happy medium.

Posted by Del on July 25 2006,05:27

Regardless of appearance? At boot prompt type 'dsl 2' (no quotes)

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on July 25 2006,08:13

heh, I don't think that counts as a window manager, since I think one usually refer to xwindows.

Posted by Del on July 25 2006,19:08

Ah, you're no fun

Besides, the question clearly states "Is Fluxbox really as fast as it gets, regardless of appearance?". No mention of XWindows at all :;):

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on July 25 2006,19:23

But the topic overrides everything :P

"Fastest Window Manager Setup" ... though I suppose you could vote for not using X at all

Posted by Kuprin on July 27 2006,14:12

You could vote for not using X at all, though it would throw off a lot of the things I'm trying to use. One thing I could easily do though, to pull a few more frames out of UT2004, is kill X while I'm playing. Thanks for the advice, all - Fluxbox it is!

Posted by mikshaw on July 27 2006,18:56

Quote (Kuprin @ July 27 2006,10:12)

One thing I could easily do though, to pull a few more frames out of UT2004, is kill X while I'm playing.

I don't see how this would work....if you kill X it takes every X-dependent application with it.

One thing you can do, though, is use UT2004 as your window manager when you play it. This way X will run, but fluxbox will not.