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HyperForum → Desktop → What's the lightest desktop environment?
Just a simple question.
What's the lightest desktop environment available for Hyperbola Linux (and soon BSD),
in terms of resource usage (CPU, RAM, etc.)?
At the moment, I'm convinced IceWM is the lightest but I wonder if there's anything else that's even lighter?
Thanks.
You can try jwm or dwm. 
Just a simple question.
What's the lightest desktop environment available for Hyperbola Linux (and soon BSD),
in terms of resource usage (CPU, RAM, etc.)?At the moment, I'm convinced IceWM is the lightest but I wonder if there's anything else that's even lighter?
Thanks.
Hmm... the lightest window manager might be dwm, the most usable that has a bar for time, date, etc... is i3-wm.
As for desktop environment, that would be lumina desktop. Hands down.
EDIT: I should have said this long ago when I found out, but it seems JWM is the most functional lightweight window manager...
Also, it is supposedly even lighter than dwm, depending on your ram size ofc...
Which puzzles me... anywho give it a try!
It can also be improved on by jwmkit, if you want to be able to logout, shutdown, poweroff, etc... with ease.
dwm? Guess I'll go for that then.
https://www.slant.co/options/1289/~dwm-review
Although according to the Slant review, it depends on X11 only and Hypberola is ditching it in favor of Xenocara, right?
dwm? Guess I'll go for that then.
https://www.slant.co/options/1289/~dwm-review
Although according to the Slant review, it depends on X11 only and Hypberola is ditching it in favor of Xenocara, right?
Xenocara is an implementation for the X-server and in usage since version 0.3 of Hyperbola. dwm should be functional without any further problems as it is also on OpenBSD (looking here: https://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/pub/ … s/amd64/). 
if you ask about lightest DE then it is LXDE
if you ask about lightest WM the answer is obvious: plain X11 (twm)
if you ask about lightest minimal WM maybe it is dwm
if you ask about lightest usable WM i think it is jwm
if you ask about lightest full featured WM in hyperbola i would recommend icewm
if you ask about lightest WM the answer is obvious: plain X11 (twm)
i would say (cwm) is the lightest WM >> calm window manager
vanilla twm + one xterm = 155 mb
vanilla cwm + one xterm = 135 mb
yep, we have a new winner but minus the titlebar function
vanilla twm + one xterm = 155 mb
vanilla cwm + one xterm = 135 mbyep, we have a new winner but minus the titlebar function
I have been liking that approach too, cwm + xterm. I found the following link showing how to use xterm to make a status bar in cwm.
I have been liking that approach too, cwm + xterm. I found the following link showing how to use xterm to make a status bar in cwm.
Interesting, thanks for the link. I have here an installation with JWM and nevertheless it is also important what is running. Hyperbola with JWM installed, compton as compositor and without dbus is just at 118M after the startup. Of course: No further desktop-management and just a little wallpaper-change with
hsetrootListing of processes running:
jwm
tilda
compton
cbatticon
dhcpcd-gtk
volumeicon
(bash, scripting for named above with hsetroot)Installation itself is 32bit as the ThinkPad X60s has no support for 64bit-environments.
Also to mention: 32bit is not to compare with 64bit itself. The same environment with same basics would need more RAM exactly on a 64bit-system.
200mb is about my use with dmenu and the basics of i3-wm + dmenu, i3statusbar, a python script for locking laptop after duration, killing touchpad when i boot into i3-wm type python script
I also use console-tdm and use redshift, without the geoclue thing I might add... 
Also, tlp is running and a few other minor things on Hyperbola.
My current RAM usage with i3:
12.7 MB for i3wm
10.2 MB for i3 status bar
My current RAM usage with i3:
12.7 MB for i3wm
10.2 MB for i3 status bar
I have been using jwm recently, the latest version, with some small changes... and am using less ram lately, but jwm is not for the faint of heart, be warned.
I learned how to autostart stuff with it. it seems to be lighter even than i3. Ironic though... heh.
Mesh Malachi wrote:My current RAM usage with i3:
12.7 MB for i3wm
10.2 MB for i3 status barI have been using jwm recently, the latest version, with some small changes... and am using less ram lately, but jwm is not for the faint of heart, be warned.
I learned how to autostart stuff with it. it seems to be lighter even than i3. Ironic though... heh.
Perhaps sorting more out: Do you miss something? Helping hand and discovering already more about JWM.
zapper wrote:Mesh Malachi wrote:My current RAM usage with i3:
12.7 MB for i3wm
10.2 MB for i3 status barI have been using jwm recently, the latest version, with some small changes... and am using less ram lately, but jwm is not for the faint of heart, be warned.
I learned how to autostart stuff with it. it seems to be lighter even than i3. Ironic though... heh.
Perhaps sorting more out: Do you miss something? Helping hand and discovering already more about JWM.
Well, I have a config I can upload for you all if you are interested, but, LOOK AT IT, before you USE it!
https://upload.disroot.org/r/t692B5a7#9 … rEkYJ0i9U=
this is my jwm config more or less.
aka, some applications are required in order to use this effectively, sakura and pcmanfm for starters I mean.
ALT + s opens sakura
ALT + m opens pcmanfm
incidentally, my current config uses 10-20 less mb to use jwm with it.
And it uses slightly less cpu power too. in my experience.
Thanks, zapper! Will check the configuration and upload mine also later.
conception: always prefer modularity and choose the absolute best application for every task.
wm: dwm + pertag patch
autostart: xinit-script
starter: dmenu
file-manager: shell / ranger (or alike)
gui file manager: rox-filer (definitly the choice for low-end machines!)
++ gui tools
image viewer: sxiv
pdf viewer: mupdf / epdfview
video: mpv
browser: surf / iceweasel-uxp (use hypervideo + mpv for internet-videos)
music:
cli: cmus
gui: audacious
...
editor: vis / nvim / emacs / kakoune / ...
gui editor: ?
devices: pmount or shell-scripts
network: shell scripts (wpa_supplicant / ip / dhcpcd)
terminal: st + scrollback patch
notificatons: shell scripts + xosd (osd_cat) / xsetroot (-> will be shown in dwm taskbar)
wallpaper: xwallpaper / feh
Use the shell for anything else (mksh for system tasks / fish - i recommend - for interactive use)
example (define aliases like this):
find . -name "*.pdf*" | fzy | xargs epdfview
... or define shell-keybindings (fish examples):
bind \cf 'vis (find . -type f | fzy); commandline -f repaint'
bind \cs 'ugrep -Q'
will run on a toaster...
p.s. typical use case:
253.20 MB /usr/bin/iceweasel-uxp --profile-manager
20.56 MB /usr/bin/cmus
19.73 MB /usr/share/ROX-Filer/ROX-Filer
12.26 MB st -e fish
11.34 MB st -t scratchpad -g 120x34 -e mksh
6.29 MB dvtm -M ~/bin/sys-net-man.sh ~/bin/sys-devices.sh mksh
6.18 MB dwm
2.06 MB mksh
2.05 MB mksh
1.59 MB /bin/sh /usr/bin/startx
1.57 MB /bin/sh
1.57 MB /bin/sh
Just a simple question.
What's the lightest desktop environment available for Hyperbola Linux (and soon BSD),
in terms of resource usage (CPU, RAM, etc.)?At the moment, I'm convinced IceWM is the lightest but I wonder if there's anything else that's even lighter?
Thanks.
\o burhen42, maybe my "mod" of DWM with patches 
Woah, thanks heckyel.
conception: always prefer modularity and choose the absolute best application for every task.
wm: dwm + pertag patch
autostart: xinit-script
starter: dmenu
file-manager: shell / ranger (or alike)
gui file manager: rox-filer (definitly the choice for low-end machines!)
++ gui tools
image viewer: sxiv
pdf viewer: mupdf / epdfview
video: mpv
browser: surf / iceweasel-uxp (use hypervideo + mpv for internet-videos)
music:
cli: cmus
gui: audacious
...editor: vis / nvim / emacs / kakoune / ...
gui editor: ?
devices: pmount or shell-scripts
network: shell scripts (wpa_supplicant / ip / dhcpcd)
terminal: st + scrollback patch
notificatons: shell scripts + xosd (osd_cat) / xsetroot (-> will be shown in dwm taskbar)
wallpaper: xwallpaper / fehUse the shell for anything else (mksh for system tasks / fish - i recommend - for interactive use)
example (define aliases like this):
find . -name "*.pdf*" | fzy | xargs epdfview... or define shell-keybindings (fish examples):
bind \cf 'vis (find . -type f | fzy); commandline -f repaint'
bind \cs 'ugrep -Q'
will run on a toaster...p.s. typical use case:
253.20 MB /usr/bin/iceweasel-uxp --profile-manager 20.56 MB /usr/bin/cmus 19.73 MB /usr/share/ROX-Filer/ROX-Filer 12.26 MB st -e fish 11.34 MB st -t scratchpad -g 120x34 -e mksh 6.29 MB dvtm -M ~/bin/sys-net-man.sh ~/bin/sys-devices.sh mksh 6.18 MB dwm 2.06 MB mksh 2.05 MB mksh 1.59 MB /bin/sh /usr/bin/startx 1.57 MB /bin/sh 1.57 MB /bin/sh
My setup is like that but with CWM as the WM and XTerm (sometimes I use Tektronix graphs with Plotutils, a great alternative to Gnuplot). I prefer mocp as I can detach the player and the music will continue playing.
I compiled TMUX and I prefer it over Screen, it's easier to setup.
On scripts, I prefer oksh (github.com/ibara/oksh) which is the portable OpenBSD shell
for our GNU world, closeish to mksh, and Perl for system scripts.
On browsers, well, netsurf-gtk for usual sites without JS, and Iceweasel-UXP with UBo and Umatrix. But first I try Dillo from Mercurial (install Dillo deps, hg clone hg.dillo.org/dillo, cd dillo, sh configure --enable-ssl --enable-ipv6 --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64;make; doas make install) with a custom User Agent matching the Lynx one.
The mercurial Dillo it's better than the one from the repos, at least for CSS.
For gaming I play libre IF games with nfrotz, it just depends on ncurses:
http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/inf … -0.3.3.tgz
https://jxself.org/git/ (Linux-libre maintainer for Trisquel and more distros) has a bunch
on his Git repos, the are compiled with Inform6 and the library (inform it's inclused on its
repos too, just run "git clone --recursive" on the game repos.
Also, creating one with the "Inform Beginner's Guide" it's a piece of cake.
"Spiritwrak" it's a "spell guessing" game which look suspiciously close
to the hacker spirit on trying CLI commands to guess how they work .
On All Thing Devours, it's a time travelling puzzle...against yourself.
Very good.
Slashem it's a great CLI game, too:
(git clone https://github.com/BarclayII/slashem-up; cd slashem-up; sh configure --with-owner=$USER --with-group=games --prefix=/opt/slashem;make;doas make install; doas ln -s /opt/slashem/bin/slashem /usr/local/bin).
Maybe you know Nethack as a roguelike. It's like a forked Nethack but better.
The game has a much better gameplay than most propietary ARPGs.
On graphical games I'd play Flare, but it lacks some new worlds, a campaign in your home town and well, some Rogue role with poison/paralysis attacks.
Hey, can you provide links for the flare-mods you have mentioned? Not a generic problem adding them when they have the fitting free, libre and permissive licensing.
These didn't exist, they were a suggestion.
Ah okay. Nevertheless: flare will later get an update to 1.13.04.
...
On browsers, well, netsurf-gtk for usual sites without JS, and Iceweasel-UXP with UBo and Umatrix. But first I try Dillo from Mercurial (install Dillo deps, hg clone hg.dillo.org/dillo, cd dillo, sh configure --enable-ssl --enable-ipv6 --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64;make; doas make install) with a custom User Agent matching the Lynx one.
The mercurial Dillo it's better than the one from the repos, at least for CSS.
...
The browser is the main problem for a low-end machine. Iceweasel-uxp needs up to 15 seconds to start on my "toaster" - also surf isn't as lightweight as i would want it to, but dillo cannot display many sites correctly and netsurf lacks some features (but is overall a nice one)
i wish there would be a cli-browser that can render pages accuratly - or a movement/reform of the web: providing "easy-to-use-with-cli-browser"-versions of websites (btw hyperbola.info looks nice in a cli-browser)
p.s. tmux is quite nice. A modular, lightweight alternative is: dtach + dvtm
anthk wrote:...
On browsers, well, netsurf-gtk for usual sites without JS, and Iceweasel-UXP with UBo and Umatrix. But first I try Dillo from Mercurial (install Dillo deps, hg clone hg.dillo.org/dillo, cd dillo, sh configure --enable-ssl --enable-ipv6 --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64;make; doas make install) with a custom User Agent matching the Lynx one.
The mercurial Dillo it's better than the one from the repos, at least for CSS.
...The browser is the main problem for a low-end machine. Iceweasel-uxp needs up to 15 seconds to start on my "toaster" - also surf isn't as lightweight as i would want it to, but dillo cannot display many sites correctly and netsurf lacks some features (but is overall a nice one)
i wish there would be a cli-browser that can render pages accuratly - or a movement/reform of the web: providing "easy-to-use-with-cli-browser"-versions of websites (btw hyperbola.info looks nice in a cli-browser)
p.s. tmux is quite nice. A modular, lightweight alternative is: dtach + dvtm
Edit ~/.dillo/dillorc and set the User Agent to:
http_user_agent=Mozilla/4.0 (PSP (PlayStation Portable); 2.00)Lots of pages will be usable.
As for alternatives:
https://simple-web.org Libre Translate/GT/Peertube and so on interfaces
https://metalune.xyz/projects.gmi Ditto, with more instances
http://68k.news News, readable even under Lynx.
On Lynx: gopher://magical.fish
Huge "gopher hole" with tons of services and Lynx to gopher blogs, news sites, Reddit proxies to read some stuff (gopher://gopherddit.com) and so.
About the video pages you would reach on Dillo, these are best opened with mpv and hypervideo. Install both
and then edit ~/.config/mpv/config
ytdl-format="bestvideo[height<=?420]+bestaudio/best"The syntax is "mpv https://whatever.com/full_video_url_here"
On Lynx, edit ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile (depending on your shell)
and set this line:
export LYNX_CFG=$HOME/.lynx.cfgCopy /etc/lynx.cfg to ~/.lynx.cfg.
Then, edit it such as these lines look like this:
.ex 7
VIEWER:application/postscript:gv %s&:XWINDOWS
VIEWER:image/gif:xiv -a s&:XWINDOWS
VIEWER:image/x-xbm:sxiv -a %s&:XWINDOWS
VIEWER:image/png:sxiv -a %s&:XWINDOWS
VIEWER:image/tiff:sxiv -a %s&:XWINDOWS
VIEWER:image/jpeg:sxiv -a %s&:XWINDOWS
VIEWER:video/mpeg:mpv -a %s &:XWINDOWSIf you have another string which says "xli", change it to sxiv -a.
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