Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 05:58:25AM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote: Every time before I've had to go with a newbie-friendly GUI for people who don't know computers and more importantly DON'T WANT TO LEARN about them, I've gone with either a Gnome or KDE setup. At any other time, I'd suggest one of the *box variants. But with a user with this little knowledge and this little patience... I'd recommend reading http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=Rf60.3dw.23%40gated-at.bofh.it http://www.igs.net/~tril/fvwm/ ..for some ideas. However, I think setting up and using a friendly, suitable WM are two different things, and you may have very little luck with the former. Windowmaker is fairly well set up by default in debian, and should cope on your old box. However it isn't the window managers in kde/gnome which take up all the resources, so if they want to run really big apps like mozilla/konqueror/OOo then a light-weight wm won't really help. -- Jon Dowland http://jon.dowland.name/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
On 25 Nov 2003, Kent West wrote: [snip] I, too, like icewm. It's got the Windows-like taskbar at the bottom (or top, or hidden in either place) that shows the different apps you have running, so switching between them is easy. (You'll want the icepref package if you want to configure icewm, unless you want to tweak the config files manually.) There are three disadvantages to icewm: 1) The menus aren't drag-n-drop like with something like KDE's menus, so modifying the menus aren't as easy (icemenu might help). 2) No desktop icons without another package that provides that capability (actually, I'm not so sure this is a disadvantage). 3) No integrated file manager (again, I'm not so sure this is a disadvantage). -- Kent Whether or not icewm is like Windows I don't know, since I've only used the opposition occasionally and happily can't remember much about it. But although I flirt with other window managers from time to time I always come back to icewm in the end. I agree with Kent's comments above: I dislike KDE (and probably Gnome, though I haven't used it) and don't want drag-and-drop or icons. What I particularly like about icewm is the menu you can call up with ESC-CTRL. You don't need the mouse for this; you just press the highlighted letter to access the relevant app, And items on the menu can be easily deleted or new ones added simply by editing one file. Anthony -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]|| http://www.acampbell.org.uk using Linux GNU/Debian || for book reviews, electronic Windows-free zone || books and skeptical articles -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
On Wed, Nov 26, 2003 at 09:22:42AM +, Anthony Campbell wrote: Additionally, I like icewm's nice tiny display in the taskbar: a) load on localhost b) load on LAN c) load on ppd connection On my AMD 133 MHz/128 MB RAM, I extended icewm from 6 to 12 screens by editing /etc/X11/icewm/preferences: WorkspaceNames= 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , a , b , c it doesn't seem to slow my system down. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
I've finally managed to get a few friends and family members with very little computer knowledge to switch to Linux. One in particular at the moment has me at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest. My friend's mother is fed up with Windows 98 and wants something better. Every time before I've had to go with a newbie-friendly GUI for people who don't know computers and more importantly DON'T WANT TO LEARN about them, I've gone with either a Gnome or KDE setup. In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. At any other time, I'd suggest one of the *box variants. But with a user with this little knowledge and this little patience, anything that she can't just pick up and use right away simply won't cut it. So any ideas? (If only I could get her to learn emacs... emacs + w3m + XF86 + gnus = perfection! :) -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
Alex Malinovich wrote: I've finally managed to get a few friends and family members with very little computer knowledge to switch to Linux. One in particular at the moment has me at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest. My friend's mother is fed up with Windows 98 and wants something better. Every time before I've had to go with a newbie-friendly GUI for people who don't know computers and more importantly DON'T WANT TO LEARN about them, I've gone with either a Gnome or KDE setup. In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. At any other time, I'd suggest one of the *box variants. But with a user with this little knowledge and this little patience, anything that she can't just pick up and use right away simply won't cut it. So any ideas? (If only I could get her to learn emacs... emacs + w3m + XF86 + gnus = perfection! :) WindowMaker. (wmaker package name) 5MB memory footprint. good looking. Lots of widgets if you want them. Personally WindowMaker is my WM of choice because it's so much faster than KDE or Gnome and I really don't see what the Desktop Environments give me that WindowMaker doesn't. Technically it's not a DE. XFCE is another one that I've heard of and it might qualify as a DE but I have only tried it a few times. Again, I didn't see any advantage. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
From Alex Malinovich on Tuesday, 2003-11-25 at 05:58:25 -0600: I've finally managed to get a few friends and family members with very little computer knowledge to switch to Linux. One in particular at the moment has me at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest. My friend's mother is fed up with Windows 98 and wants something better. Every time before I've had to go with a newbie-friendly GUI for people who don't know computers and more importantly DON'T WANT TO LEARN about them, I've gone with either a Gnome or KDE setup. In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. Same specs as my old laptop. I would recommend icewm or xfce. icewm has a smaller footprint, plus in appearance it is more like windows, so maybe it is the best pick. Make sure she has some low-memory desktop applications like abiword and gnumeric. Conrad -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
On Tuesday 25 November 2003 13:58, Alex Malinovich wrote: In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. I gave my old computer (P200, 32MB) to my brother, who had no experience with computers. I installed XFCE 3 and he's been very happy with that. I don't know if XFCE 4 needs more memory, but i doubt it. XFCE comes with filemanager (very fast) etc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
Alex Malinovich wrote: I've finally managed to get a few friends and family members with very little computer knowledge to switch to Linux. One in particular at the moment has me at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest. My friend's mother is fed up with Windows 98 and wants something better. Every time before I've had to go with a newbie-friendly GUI for people who don't know computers and more importantly DON'T WANT TO LEARN about them, I've gone with either a Gnome or KDE setup. In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. At any other time, I'd suggest one of the *box variants. But with a user with this little knowledge and this little patience, anything that she can't just pick up and use right away simply won't cut it. So any ideas? (If only I could get her to learn emacs... emacs + w3m + XF86 + gnus = perfection! :) Here are two alternatives : http://www.xfce.org/ http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/ROX-Filer John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
Alex Malinovich wrote: I've finally managed to get a few friends and family members with very little computer knowledge to switch to Linux. One in particular at the moment has me at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest. My friend's mother is fed up with Windows 98 and wants something better. Every time before I've had to go with a newbie-friendly GUI for people who don't know computers and more importantly DON'T WANT TO LEARN about them, I've gone with either a Gnome or KDE setup. In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. At any other time, I'd suggest one of the *box variants. But with a user with this little knowledge and this little patience, anything that she can't just pick up and use right away simply won't cut it. So any ideas? (If only I could get her to learn emacs... emacs + w3m + XF86 + gnus = perfection! :) Here are two alternatives : http://www.xfce.org/ http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/ROX-Filer Sorry, this is the right link : http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/ John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
- Original Message - From: Ilkka Lindroos [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 9:13 AM Subject: Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop On Tuesday 25 November 2003 13:58, Alex Malinovich wrote: In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. I gave my old computer (P200, 32MB) to my brother, who had no experience with computers. I installed XFCE 3 and he's been very happy with that. I don't know if XFCE 4 needs more memory, but i doubt it. XFCE comes with filemanager (very fast) etc. My main desktop is an old PII, 266Mhz and it does very well with KDE and all the goodies. I haven't installed Debian on it, but had good success with Mandrake and SuSE. I DID however, increase memory from 92MB to 384MB. That made a great difference. If you can add more memory beyond the 32MB already in there, you'll notice a big improvement. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
Conrad Newton wrote: From Alex Malinovich on Tuesday, 2003-11-25 at 05:58:25 -0600: I've finally managed to get a few friends and family members with very little computer knowledge to switch to Linux. snip In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. Same specs as my old laptop. I would recommend icewm or xfce. icewm has a smaller footprint, plus in appearance it is more like windows, so maybe it is the best pick. I, too, like icewm. It's got the Windows-like taskbar at the bottom (or top, or hidden in either place) that shows the different apps you have running, so switching between them is easy. (You'll want the icepref package if you want to configure icewm, unless you want to tweak the config files manually.) There are three disadvantages to icewm: 1) The menus aren't drag-n-drop like with something like KDE's menus, so modifying the menus aren't as easy (icemenu might help). 2) No desktop icons without another package that provides that capability (actually, I'm not so sure this is a disadvantage). 3) No integrated file manager (again, I'm not so sure this is a disadvantage). -- Kent -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 05:58:25 -0600, Alex Malinovich [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I've finally managed to get a few friends and family members with very little computer knowledge to switch to Linux. One in particular at the moment has me at a bit of a loss as to what to suggest. My friend's mother is fed up with Windows 98 and wants something better. Every time before I've had to go with a newbie-friendly GUI for people who don't know computers and more importantly DON'T WANT TO LEARN about them, I've gone with either a Gnome or KDE setup. In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz ..ooo. Relic. A first generation P? Stuff in as much ram as it'll take. with 32 MB of RAM. While I'd love to put Gnome and Nautilus on there and call it a day, waiting 10 minutes for the desktop to load and another 2 minutes for the file-manager just won't cut it I'm afraid. At any other time, I'd suggest one of the *box variants. But with a user with this little knowledge and this little patience, anything that she can't just pick up and use right away simply won't cut it. So any ideas? ..fvwm95, icewm, and a few more can be set up to look like wintendo. (If only I could get her to learn emacs... emacs + w3m + XF86 + gnus = perfection! :) .. ;-) -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
scripsit Kent West: I, too, like icewm. It's got the Windows-like taskbar at the bottom (or top, or hidden in either place) that shows the different apps you have running, so switching between them is easy. (You'll want the icepref package if you want to configure icewm, unless you want to tweak the config files manually.) There are three disadvantages to icewm: 1) The menus aren't drag-n-drop like with something like KDE's menus, so modifying the menus aren't as easy (icemenu might help). 2) No desktop icons without another package that provides that capability (actually, I'm not so sure this is a disadvantage). 3) No integrated file manager (again, I'm not so sure this is a disadvantage). I'd like to add that icewm has a TaskBarDoubleHeight setting that gives you a text input box in which to enter shell commands. If you don't like mucking with menus to try to find a prog's icon, this is great, and less effort that starting up an xterm just to launch a GUI app and exit the xterm. The interface feels like what Windows 95 would have been if it had done properly, as opposed to things like xfce, which feels like CDE, or WindowMaker, which is NextStep-ish (or OS X-ish, if you prefer). For people coming from a Windows background (rather than Mac or Unix), icewm is probably the best bet. -- Pax vobiscum; pax cum omnibus. Thanasis Kinias tkinias at asu.edu Doctoral Student, Department of History Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop
Title: RE: Need a user-friendly, low-requirement desktop In this particular case, however, I'm dealing with a Pentium 233 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. snip I read of another choice called (if i remember correctly) XPed. I am going to look this up myself over our holiday and see how well it works. It will give the machine a _very_ distinct XP look which should help new users work easier in our world. Again, I haven't used it but it looks promising. I personally use Fluxbox and I also like IceWM. I use Fluxbox and Gkrellum on my old Compaq laptop (4130T, 133mhz, 32mb) and can say it suits my mobile needs. Preston
