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Lightweight desktop

I've been using linux debian for the past year on my pentium1 166mhz computer with 64mb ram.
That might seem old to you but if you choose the right lightweight applications you can set up a very usable computer.

In this document I'll describe which applications I use and more. I won't be discussing the underlying technology of the operating system. I use Linux Debian but the applications described in this document can normally be used in all linux distributions and BSD's. I do use almost the same setup on my XP1700 arch linux machine.

Logging in
Once the system has booted the user gets a black and white screen asking for the username and password, this is the program getty (I use fgetty to be specific). The admin can give a message which is shown above the query for the username by editing the file /etc /issue.
I added the logindetails for a guest account and added how to shutdown the computer with CTRL+ALT+DELETE: my /etc/issue

CTRL+ALT+DELETE is normally configured to reboot, but I changed it to shutdown. In linux you can change it in /etc/inittab .

I have put a line in my ~/.bash_profile (or put it in an other script which is executed automatically when logging in) to start X automatically:
ps ax|grep -q "[ ]`which X`" || exec xinit >/dev/null 2>&1
Window manager
Then I can choose which window manager starts in ~/.xinitrc . My .xinitrc.
I have 2 window managers which I use. Ratpoison and Icewm.

Ratpoison only lets you use the keyboard to manage windows, it works alot like screen (a program for running multiple shells in 1 terminal). I like screen a lot and in my .xinitrc I have it set up so that screen starts in an aterm together with ratpoison. So all I get is bash (in screen) when X has started.
My ~/.ratpoisonrc and ~/.screenrc. The most important thing I've changed is that the right windows key replaces ctrl+t for ratpoison and the left windows key replaces ctrl+a in screen.

Ratpoison is a very lightweight and fast window manager but might be too lightweight for regular users.

Icewm is what I let everyone use on the computers I set up. It looks a lot like windows and so is easy to use for people who are used to windows. But it's much more then just a windows look a like. Everything can be perfectly done from the keyboard with great shortcuts. There's even the CTRL+ALT+SPACE shortcut which changes the taskbar to a commandline so you can type the program you want to start. Icewm has a great fullscreen function too, works very fast and also has easy to change config files in ~/.icewm/ .

I find these the most important settings to change:

1) Change the theme to the SilverXP theme or Icebuntu theme
2) In /etc/X11/icewm/preferences:
OpaqueMove=0
OpaqueResize=0
MenuMouseTracking=1
TaskBarShowCPUStatus=1 and TaskBarShowNetStatus=1 . I only set them to 0 on very slow computers to save resources.
ShutdownCommand="sudo shutdown -h now"
RebootCommand="sudo shutdown -r now"

I also always change lines having x-terminal-emulator to aterm.

Here are my icewm cfgs: preferences, toolbar, menu, keys.

If I use debian I can let the menu be automatically made by the debian menu. But in all other operating systems I use the menumaker program (binary is named mmaker). It makes a great menu for icewm, which I just have to edit a little to get right, with this command: "mmaker Icewm -t aterm".

In ~/.xinitrc I also let a welcome text show up when Icewm has started to guide the users a little if they need it.

There is also a package called the icewm control panel (in Arch it's icewm-utils) which gives you GUI tools to edit everything of IceWM easily.
Fonts
I use freetype fonts like bitsream vera, I also install the microsoft fonts. I also put a .fonts.conf in my home folder: my .fonts.conf gives me nice fonts.
The desktop
I don't use desktop icons (if you need it use idesk), but I like a nice wallpaper (definatly with transparent aterm!). I set it with feh. I've added the line "eval `cat $HOME/.fehbg` &" in my ~/.xinitrc so the wallpaper I chose with feh will be set everytime I start the computer.
I find my favorite wallpaper on Devian art.

UPDATE: On my Arch systems I just start icewm with the command icewm-session and set the background using the Icewm Control Panel (icewm-utils).

Sometimes I like torsmo (or conky) to be on the desktop showing system information. But mostly I don't.
X Terminal
As terminal I use aterm with transparency enabled. It's fast and beautiful. Here's my ~/.Xdefaults.
Note the last lines in my .Xdefaults, these make the cursor look much better. Though on slow computers I might just use the standard cursor.
File manager
Emelfm is my favorite file manager.
It can mount with a right click, it's fast, 2 pane and very customizable.
For my users I let emelfm start with showing on the left their home directory and on the right the /mnt/ directory showing cdrom and floppy directories.

I also make a good filetypes file so they just have to doubleclick on files, not having to know which programs to use.

Emelfm might look ugly but that's just the gtk theme. I installed another gtk theme and it's quite nice looking. Use gtk-theme-switch to switch gtk themes.

In emelfm you can change the buttons to do what you want and add your own ones. I added a button "images" to start "xzgv -z .", to browse images using xzgv.

Some of my emelfm config files in ~/.emelfm: settings, filetypes buttons

I also use bash a lot to manage files. It's fast with cd, cp, mv, chmod, ...
My bash cfg's: /etc/bash.aliases and /etc/bash.bashrc

And midnight commander is also a very nice file manager in the console.
Image viewer
xzgv is a very fast imageviewer which can show quite many formats. If I need a more featured image program I use imagemagick.
Browser
There's no clear favorite for me as browser. I have opera, firefox, links2, dillo and elinks installed. If I need a full featured browser I usually use opera as it has much more features then firefox and works a bit faster. But if I need a fast graphical browser I use "links2 -g". And as console browser I use elinks, which is great.
Editor
As graphical editor I use nedit. But I'll mostly use vim in the console, which is the greatest editor in my opinion. Nano is nice for small things.
Word processing
Definatly Abiword, it's GTK2 but still quite fast.
Music
I found that xmms uses fewest resources and it has a lot of features. I use the debian theme or the chalkitup theme.
In the console I use mocp, it has a good interface and is fast.

To set the volume I use alsamixer.
Videos
Mplayer is the best videoplayer for me. It's fast and can play any video when the full codec pack from mplayer's website has been extracted to /usr/lib/codecs/.
There's also an firefox and opera plugin to play streaming video's using mplayer.
Email
As graphical mail program I use sylpheed-claws, it has many features and an easy gui.
In the console I use muttng. Very easy to use, fast and configurable.
You can see a big list of applications on my other page : linux applications.


I use this same setup on my 166mhz and on my 1500Mhz, as it's very fast, very usable and still beautiful.


Screenshots taken on my p1:
Ratpoison, actually you can't see anything from ratpoison as it doesn't waste any parts of the screen with a taskbar. What you see is aterm with screen and vim inside.
Icewm, showing xmms.
Icewm, showing emelfm.
Icewm, showing opera.

On my XP1700:
IceWM, Opera, xmms and screen.
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