Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Andy Mender]

Dear Grant,

I would sincerely second Openbox + tint2.
That's my all times favourite. Bear in mind that the stable
tint2wizard/conf doesn't handle the Launcher properly.
For that you need to emerge tint2 with the testing "~amd64" flag :).
There are some additional goodies in the more modern tint2 panel, too.

Best regards,
Andy

On 29 September 2016 at 21:52, Grant Edwards 
wrote:

> On 2016-09-25, Grant Edwards  wrote:
>
> >> I liked openbox though, so if LXDE refuses to handle multiple
> >> screens I may stick with openbox and try to find some other panel
> >> program that does work with multiple screens.
>
> I gave up on LXDE.  I messed around with it a bit more and it seems to
> have a hard-wired assumption that computers are single-user and
> single-screen.  Besides that, the LXDE community also seems to be
> rather small/inactive. I posted questions about multi-screen use to
> the LXDE forum, but the user forum only has a couple of posts per
> month, and few of them ever get any responses.
>
> > Openbox+tint2 looks promising.
>
> That's what I've settled on.  It took a couple hours of fiddling to
> setup a startup script, configure the panels, the window manager
> itself, and build a root window menu that's close enough to my old one
> that I don't flail about like Donald Trump making fun of the
> handicapped.
>
> For generating an openbox root menu, I recommend obmenu-generator.
>
> > I still have to figure out one last tweak to openbox's behavior.  When
> > you do ctrl-alt-right/left it switches virtual desktops on the screen
> > that has input focus, and I want it to switch on the screen where the
> > mouse pointer is.  I know it's trivial, and all you have to do is
> > click before hitting ctrl-alt-right/left.
>
> I haven't figured that out yet, so I'll have to adapt. :)
>
> --
> Grant Edwards   grant.b.edwardsYow! Does someone from
>   at   PEORIA have a SHORTER
>   gmail.comATTENTION span than me?
>
>
>

[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-25, Grant Edwards  wrote:

>> I liked openbox though, so if LXDE refuses to handle multiple
>> screens I may stick with openbox and try to find some other panel
>> program that does work with multiple screens.

I gave up on LXDE.  I messed around with it a bit more and it seems to
have a hard-wired assumption that computers are single-user and
single-screen.  Besides that, the LXDE community also seems to be
rather small/inactive. I posted questions about multi-screen use to
the LXDE forum, but the user forum only has a couple of posts per
month, and few of them ever get any responses.

> Openbox+tint2 looks promising.

That's what I've settled on.  It took a couple hours of fiddling to
setup a startup script, configure the panels, the window manager
itself, and build a root window menu that's close enough to my old one
that I don't flail about like Donald Trump making fun of the
handicapped.

For generating an openbox root menu, I recommend obmenu-generator.

> I still have to figure out one last tweak to openbox's behavior.  When
> you do ctrl-alt-right/left it switches virtual desktops on the screen
> that has input focus, and I want it to switch on the screen where the
> mouse pointer is.  I know it's trivial, and all you have to do is
> click before hitting ctrl-alt-right/left. 

I haven't figured that out yet, so I'll have to adapt. :)

-- 
Grant Edwards   grant.b.edwardsYow! Does someone from
  at   PEORIA have a SHORTER
  gmail.comATTENTION span than me?

[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-25, Alan McKinnon  wrote:

>> And I find it very useful to be able to leave 2 of the screens as-is
>> while I switch the third one to do something else.
>> 
>>> The results of your searches and experiments seem to suggest that it
>>> is n unusual configuration
>> 
>> It is, though I don't know why -- I find it far more useful than have
>> one giant desktop.
>> 
>>> and I'm wondering what particular itch this scratches.
>> 
>> It allows me to work efficiently on complex tasks while concurrently
>> responding to emails and handling interruptions.
>
> I do something with a sort-of similar result. One big desktop across
> all screens with at least 6 virtual desktop. Stuff I need always
> there (like mail and IM clients) go off to one side on the small
> monitor, pinned to all virtual desktops. None of the other real work
> stuff goes on the small monitor.
>
> This won't suit Grant though, as he said his nVidia card can't big
> desktop across 3 physical 1600 monitors

That part of the problem _might_ go away.  The card is scheduled for
replacement soon.  It's no longer supported by the latest nvidia
driver, and it has required me to mask xorg-server 1.18, which, in
turn has forced me to mask the latest stable versions of a couple
other things. That's not a big deal yet, but it's only going to get
worse.  So I've got a new nvidia card picked out.  The old one is only
8 years old, and it still works perfectly, but I guess that's
progress. Though all of the nvidia cards supported by latest drivers
have fans. :/

I've been testing the openbox/tint2 setup on my single-screen laptop
using an Xnest display with three screens.  So far, so good.


Whenever I report a bug related to multi-screen support, the excuse is
always "none of the developers have access to multi-screen systems, so
nobody can work on this".  Really?  People who are developing X11
desktop infrastructure don't know enough to type "Xnest -scrns 3
-geometry 640x480 :1"?  I think what they actually mean is "none of
the developers use multi-screen setups in their daily work, so nobody
cares about this enough to fix it." I'd have a lot more repspect for
that -- at least it's honest.


-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 25/09/2016 16:02, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2016-09-25, Neil Bothwick  wrote:
>> On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 00:13:48 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:
>>
>>> I may try MATE next, but I'm not optimistic.  All references I can
>>> find to multiple screens in the MATE docs are not actually talking
>>> about multiple X11 screens.  They're talking about a single X11 screen
>>> spread across multiple monitors using twinview or xinerama or xrandr.
>>
>> I'm curious. What is it you are doing that needs desktops on separate X11
>> screens?
> 
> I do software development that often involves fairly complex test
> setups where I sometimes need 1 screen for source code, 1 screen for
> documentation, 1 screen for various simulators or test programs, 1
> screen for a web browser connected to the DUT, and another screen for
> general web-browsing and email handling.
> 
> And I find it very useful to be able to leave 2 of the screens as-is
> while I switch the third one to do something else.
> 
>> The results of your searches and experiments seem to suggest that it
>> is n unusual configuration
> 
> It is, though I don't know why -- I find it far more useful than have
> one giant desktop.
> 
>> and I'm wondering what particular itch this scratches.
> 
> It allows me to work efficiently on complex tasks while concurrently
> responding to emails and handling interruptions.

I do something with a sort-of similar result. One big desktop across all
screens with at least 6 virtual desktop. Stuff I need always there (like
mail and IM clients) go off to one side on the small monitor, pinned to
all virtual desktops. None of the other real work stuff goes on the
small monitor.

This won't suit Grant though, as he said his nVidia card can't big
desktop across 3 physical 1600 monitors


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-25, Grant Edwards  wrote:
> On 2016-09-23, Grant Edwards  wrote:
>
> [need to pick new desktop environment -- which could just be a window
> manager with a couple extra bits]
[...]
> Windowmaker seems a bit too oriented towards "icons on the desktop"
> which isn't how I want to work.
[]
> LXDE looked good.  [...] However, when I built lxde-meta and tried it
> on a 3-screen machine, it fell over pretty badly.
[...]
> I liked openbox though, so if LXDE refuses to handle multiple screens
> I may stick with openbox and try to find some other panel program
> that does work with multiple screens.

Openbox+tint2 looks promising.  Tint2 is a lightweight panel app that
doesn't have the "only one instance allowed" restriction like lxpanel
has. You run a separate instance of tint2 per panel, and it doesn't
care how many instances you run or how many different screens or
XServers they're running on.  For optimal attractiveness, you may have
to hand-tweak the tint2 colors and fonts to match the openbox theme,
but that's a small price to pay for something that actually works.

I still have to figure out one last tweak to openbox's behavior.  When
you do ctrl-alt-right/left it switches virtual desktops on the screen
that has input focus, and I want it to switch on the screen where the
mouse pointer is.  I know it's trivial, and all you have to do is
click before hitting ctrl-alt-right/left. 

But I'm old; change is hard :)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Dutch Ingraham]

On Sun, Sep 25, 2016 at 03:09:23PM +0100, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 14:02:18 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:
> 
> > > I'm curious. What is it you are doing that needs desktops on separate
> > > X11 screens?  
> > 
> > I do software development that often involves fairly complex test
> > setups where I sometimes need 1 screen for source code, 1 screen for
> > documentation, 1 screen for various simulators or test programs, 1
> > screen for a web browser connected to the DUT, and another screen for
> > general web-browsing and email handling.
> > 
> > And I find it very useful to be able to leave 2 of the screens as-is
> > while I switch the third one to do something else.
> 
> I hadn't really thought of it like that, but being able to switch virtual
> desktops separately on each monitor sounds like a really useful feature.

I got used to that type of workflow with dwm, and I'm now spoiled; like the OP,
I find it terribly inconvenient to change all monitors when I only want to
change one.

[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-25, Neil Bothwick  wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 14:02:18 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>> > I'm curious. What is it you are doing that needs desktops on separate
>> > X11 screens?  
>> 
>> I do software development that often involves fairly complex test
>> setups where I sometimes need 1 screen for source code, 1 screen for
>> documentation, 1 screen for various simulators or test programs, 1
>> screen for a web browser connected to the DUT, and another screen for
>> general web-browsing and email handling.
>> 
>> And I find it very useful to be able to leave 2 of the screens as-is
>> while I switch the third one to do something else.
>
> I hadn't really thought of it like that, but being able to switch virtual
> desktops separately on each monitor sounds like a really useful feature.

It is.  Once you get used to being able to do that, it's hard to give
it up.

-- 
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 10:24:24 +, J. Roeleveld wrote:

> I think it's what I would love for KDE to have as well.
> I have a desktop with 2 displays connected.
> 
> I also have a few virtual desktops.
> 
> I would like each display to have a seperate set of virtual displays.
> This woulx allow me to switch 1 display to a different desktop while
> keeping the other display unchanged.

Not much use to Grant, who wants something slighter more lightweight than
KDE, but could this be achieved with KDE's Activities? I've not used
Activities much but I'll have a dabble when I'm back at my desktop.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

People who eat natural foods die from natural causes.


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[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-25, Mick  wrote:
> On Sunday 25 Sep 2016 10:24:24 J. Roeleveld wrote:
>
>> I think it's what I would love for KDE to have as well.
>> I have a desktop with 2 displays connected.
>> 
>> I also have a few virtual desktops.
>> 
>> I would like each display to have a seperate set of virtual displays. This
>> woulx allow me to switch 1 display to a different desktop while keeping the
>> other display unchanged.
>
> This may not suit the OPs requirements, but you can achieve what you want 
> with 
> enlightenment (i'm currently running 0.20.6), which has separate and 
> independent virtual desktops on each display.

Last night I tried to switch to a single-screen/three-monitor setup
using xrandr, and it wouldn't work -- my nvidia card apparently can't
drive two 1600x1200 monitors that way, it can only do it as separate
screens.  Or maybe I need a newer nvidia driver (the nvidia card is
pretty old and isn't supported by the latest drivers).

If I could run single-screen, and still have separate desktops on each
monitor, that would be fine.

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 14:02:18 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:

> > I'm curious. What is it you are doing that needs desktops on separate
> > X11 screens?  
> 
> I do software development that often involves fairly complex test
> setups where I sometimes need 1 screen for source code, 1 screen for
> documentation, 1 screen for various simulators or test programs, 1
> screen for a web browser connected to the DUT, and another screen for
> general web-browsing and email handling.
> 
> And I find it very useful to be able to leave 2 of the screens as-is
> while I switch the third one to do something else.

I hadn't really thought of it like that, but being able to switch virtual
desktops separately on each monitor sounds like a really useful feature.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

User-friendly: (adj.) trivialized, slow, incapable, and boring.


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[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-25, Neil Bothwick  wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 00:13:48 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>> I may try MATE next, but I'm not optimistic.  All references I can
>> find to multiple screens in the MATE docs are not actually talking
>> about multiple X11 screens.  They're talking about a single X11 screen
>> spread across multiple monitors using twinview or xinerama or xrandr.
>
> I'm curious. What is it you are doing that needs desktops on separate X11
> screens?

I do software development that often involves fairly complex test
setups where I sometimes need 1 screen for source code, 1 screen for
documentation, 1 screen for various simulators or test programs, 1
screen for a web browser connected to the DUT, and another screen for
general web-browsing and email handling.

And I find it very useful to be able to leave 2 of the screens as-is
while I switch the third one to do something else.

> The results of your searches and experiments seem to suggest that it
> is n unusual configuration

It is, though I don't know why -- I find it far more useful than have
one giant desktop.

> and I'm wondering what particular itch this scratches.

It allows me to work efficiently on complex tasks while concurrently
responding to emails and handling interruptions.

--
Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Sunday, September 25, 2016 02:27:06 PM Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 25/09/2016 14:17, J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > On Sunday, September 25, 2016 12:16:29 PM Mick wrote:
> >> On Sunday 25 Sep 2016 10:24:24 J. Roeleveld wrote:
> >>> I think it's what I would love for KDE to have as well.
> >>> I have a desktop with 2 displays connected.
> >>> 
> >>> I also have a few virtual desktops.
> >>> 
> >>> I would like each display to have a seperate set of virtual displays.
> >>> This
> >>> woulx allow me to switch 1 display to a different desktop while keeping
> >>> the
> >>> other display unchanged.
> >> 
> >> This may not suit the OPs requirements, but you can achieve what you want
> >> with enlightenment (i'm currently running 0.20.6), which has separate and
> >> independent virtual desktops on each display.
> > 
> > Looks interesting.
> > 
> > Which version in portage is the correct one?
> > I see a slot "0", which has version 1.0.17.
> > I see a slot "0.17", which has versions like 0.20.5 and 0.20.6.
> > 
> > And according to the website, 0.21.2 has been released.
> 
> "enlightenment" is really two completely different projects that share
> only a project name and a bunch of devs in common.
> 
> There was Enlightenment 16, currently maintained by Kim Woelders, this
> is SLOT 0 in Gentoo and the most recent release 1.0.17.
> 
> Rasterman and his trusty bunch of nefarious cohorts scrapped E16 about
> 13 years ago and started over and called their new project E17. It ha
> very little in common with E16 other than lots of bling :-)
> 
> E17 has steadily moved forward after taking 10 years for any release of
> any kind and is now up to 0.21.2 - there is no E18 or E19 or whatever
> they are all subsequent releases of E17. Gentoo has this in SLOT 0.17
> 
> It's all terrible confusing :-)

Nice a fork without a renaming. Really useful.

Which would be considered the most up-to-date/modern/reliable version?

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Mick]

On Sunday 25 Sep 2016 14:17:35 J. Roeleveld wrote:
> On Sunday, September 25, 2016 12:16:29 PM Mick wrote:
> > On Sunday 25 Sep 2016 10:24:24 J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > > I think it's what I would love for KDE to have as well.
> > > I have a desktop with 2 displays connected.
> > > 
> > > I also have a few virtual desktops.
> > > 
> > > I would like each display to have a seperate set of virtual displays.
> > > This
> > > woulx allow me to switch 1 display to a different desktop while keeping
> > > the
> > > other display unchanged.
> > 
> > This may not suit the OPs requirements, but you can achieve what you want
> > with enlightenment (i'm currently running 0.20.6), which has separate and
> > independent virtual desktops on each display.
> 
> Looks interesting.
> 
> Which version in portage is the correct one?
> I see a slot "0", which has version 1.0.17.
> I see a slot "0.17", which has versions like 0.20.5 and 0.20.6.
> 
> And according to the website, 0.21.2 has been released.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Joost

The website shows the latest and greatest.  There are a couple of overlays 
more or less in sync with the latest versions, but have the occasional bugs or 
instability.  I stick with portage these days.  You want the e17 packages, 
rather than the old e16.  Therefore go for (0.17/0.20.6).
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 25/09/2016 14:17, J. Roeleveld wrote:
> On Sunday, September 25, 2016 12:16:29 PM Mick wrote:
>> On Sunday 25 Sep 2016 10:24:24 J. Roeleveld wrote:
>>> I think it's what I would love for KDE to have as well.
>>> I have a desktop with 2 displays connected.
>>>
>>> I also have a few virtual desktops.
>>>
>>> I would like each display to have a seperate set of virtual displays. This
>>> woulx allow me to switch 1 display to a different desktop while keeping
>>> the
>>> other display unchanged.
>>
>> This may not suit the OPs requirements, but you can achieve what you want
>> with enlightenment (i'm currently running 0.20.6), which has separate and
>> independent virtual desktops on each display.
> 
> Looks interesting.
> 
> Which version in portage is the correct one?
> I see a slot "0", which has version 1.0.17.
> I see a slot "0.17", which has versions like 0.20.5 and 0.20.6.
> 
> And according to the website, 0.21.2 has been released.

"enlightenment" is really two completely different projects that share
only a project name and a bunch of devs in common.

There was Enlightenment 16, currently maintained by Kim Woelders, this
is SLOT 0 in Gentoo and the most recent release 1.0.17.

Rasterman and his trusty bunch of nefarious cohorts scrapped E16 about
13 years ago and started over and called their new project E17. It ha
very little in common with E16 other than lots of bling :-)

E17 has steadily moved forward after taking 10 years for any release of
any kind and is now up to 0.21.2 - there is no E18 or E19 or whatever
they are all subsequent releases of E17. Gentoo has this in SLOT 0.17

It's all terrible confusing :-)


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Sunday, September 25, 2016 12:16:29 PM Mick wrote:
> On Sunday 25 Sep 2016 10:24:24 J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > I think it's what I would love for KDE to have as well.
> > I have a desktop with 2 displays connected.
> > 
> > I also have a few virtual desktops.
> > 
> > I would like each display to have a seperate set of virtual displays. This
> > woulx allow me to switch 1 display to a different desktop while keeping
> > the
> > other display unchanged.
> 
> This may not suit the OPs requirements, but you can achieve what you want
> with enlightenment (i'm currently running 0.20.6), which has separate and
> independent virtual desktops on each display.

Looks interesting.

Which version in portage is the correct one?
I see a slot "0", which has version 1.0.17.
I see a slot "0.17", which has versions like 0.20.5 and 0.20.6.

And according to the website, 0.21.2 has been released.

Thanks,

Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Mick]

On Sunday 25 Sep 2016 10:24:24 J. Roeleveld wrote:

> I think it's what I would love for KDE to have as well.
> I have a desktop with 2 displays connected.
> 
> I also have a few virtual desktops.
> 
> I would like each display to have a seperate set of virtual displays. This
> woulx allow me to switch 1 display to a different desktop while keeping the
> other display unchanged.

This may not suit the OPs requirements, but you can achieve what you want with 
enlightenment (i'm currently running 0.20.6), which has separate and 
independent virtual desktops on each display.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[J. Roeleveld]

On September 25, 2016 10:49:15 AM GMT+02:00, Neil Bothwick  
wrote:
>On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 00:13:48 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>> I may try MATE next, but I'm not optimistic.  All references I can
>> find to multiple screens in the MATE docs are not actually talking
>> about multiple X11 screens.  They're talking about a single X11
>screen
>> spread across multiple monitors using twinview or xinerama or xrandr.
>
>I'm curious. What is it you are doing that needs desktops on separate
>X11
>screens? The results of your searches and experiments seem to suggest
>that it is n unusual configuration and I'm wondering what particular
>itch
>this scratches.

I think it's what I would love for KDE to have as well.
I have a desktop with 2 displays connected.

I also have a few virtual desktops.

I would like each display to have a seperate set of virtual displays. This 
woulx allow me to switch 1 display to a different desktop while keeping the 
other display unchanged.

I currently simulate this by setting apps to occupy all desktops on occasion, 
but it is not as convenient.

--
Joost
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 00:13:48 + (UTC), Grant Edwards wrote:

> I may try MATE next, but I'm not optimistic.  All references I can
> find to multiple screens in the MATE docs are not actually talking
> about multiple X11 screens.  They're talking about a single X11 screen
> spread across multiple monitors using twinview or xinerama or xrandr.

I'm curious. What is it you are doing that needs desktops on separate X11
screens? The results of your searches and experiments seem to suggest
that it is n unusual configuration and I'm wondering what particular itch
this scratches.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injections?


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Philip Webb]

160925 Grant Edwards wrote:
> So far I've looked at Windowmaker and LXDE.

You should look at Fluxbox, which is simple & configurable.
I don't know whether it can handle multiple monitors,
but otherwise I've used it happily for some years.

-- 
,,
SUPPORT ___//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT`-O--O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-23, Grant Edwards  wrote:

[need to pick new desktop environment -- which could just be a window
manager with a couple extra bits]

So far I 've looked at windowmaker  and LXDE
.

Windowmaker seems a bit too oriented towards "icons on the desktop"
which isn't how I want to work.  It's possible that I could coerce
windowmaker into acting more like I want it to. But, in my experience,
you can tell by the default configuration how the developers think and
how they intend something to be used.  The further away that is from
what you want, the more of a struggle it is (even if in theory you
should be able configure it do what you want).

LXDE looked good.  After a few minutes playing with Lubuntu, I had a
single-screen screen setup I was happy with.  I also built lxde-meta
and tried that on a single screen machine. That worked fine.

However, when I built lxde-meta and tried it on a 3-screen machine, it
fell over pretty badly.

All three screens had wallpaper, but that's all that two of them had.
Two of them had no window manager, no panels, no root menu -- nothing
other than wallpaper and the defult X11 "X" cursor.

I knew that the openbox window manager (used by LXDE) uses a separate
instance for each screen.  It seems that the LXDE startup stuff
doesn't know that.  I started openbox manually on the two "extra"
screens and it seemed happy.

However, I was still without panels or root window stuff on two of the
three screens.  When creating a new LXDE panel, there's no way to
specify what screen it goes on.  I tried manually starting instances
of lxpanel on the other two screens, and lxpanel just complains that
there is already a running instance and quits.

So, no panels for screens 2 and 3.

AFAICT, under LXDE, pcmanfm is what's supposed to own/manage the root
window. It was equally (if differently) broken: I could run it on the
other screens, but it always opened windows on the screen 1.

I liked openbox though, so if LXDE refuses to handle multiple screens
I may stick with openbox and try to find some other panel program that
does work with multiple screens.

I may try MATE next, but I'm not optimistic.  All references I can
find to multiple screens in the MATE docs are not actually talking
about multiple X11 screens.  They're talking about a single X11 screen
spread across multiple monitors using twinview or xinerama or xrandr.

-- 
Grant Edwards   grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm wearing PAMPERS!!
  at   
  gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Sebastián Pedersen]

On 24-09-2016 01:26 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2016-09-24, waltd...@waltdnes.org  wrote:

On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:45:26PM +, Grant Edwards wrote


Would anybody care to make a recommendation?


How about ditching "Desktop Environment" altogether and using a
"Window Manager" instead?


That's probably a good idea: rather than starting with a DE and
removing stuff, start with a good window manager and add to that if
needed.


I use ICEWM.  It has to be configured with a text editor, but you can
then set it and forget it.


[...]


  * some sort of task-bar (auto-hide required)

  * some sort toolbar OK (as long as it's auto-hide)


  Got it all.  But you have to edit the config file with a text
  editor.


That's perfectly fine.

I'll take a look at icewm.


I don't think it's a XFCE replacement, but since it has been mencioned 
to take a WM as starting point, I mencion that I've been usin I3 WM and 
I'm quit happy about it.

https://i3wm.org/

Just a comment, in case it help in any way.

Cheers.
Sebas

[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-24, waltd...@waltdnes.org  wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:45:26PM +, Grant Edwards wrote
>
>> Would anybody care to make a recommendation?
>
> How about ditching "Desktop Environment" altogether and using a
> "Window Manager" instead?

That's probably a good idea: rather than starting with a DE and
removing stuff, start with a good window manager and add to that if
needed.

> I use ICEWM.  It has to be configured with a text editor, but you can
> then set it and forget it.

[...]

>>   * some sort of task-bar (auto-hide required)
>> 
>>   * some sort toolbar OK (as long as it's auto-hide)
>
>   Got it all.  But you have to edit the config file with a text
>   editor.

That's perfectly fine.

I'll take a look at icewm.

-- 
Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-24, David Haller  wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Fri, 23 Sep 2016, Grant Edwards wrote:
>>Would anybody care to make a recommendation?
>
> Ever checked out WindowMaker (x11-wm/windowmaker)? The default config
> is quite clunky though, but there's many themes and stuff.

I think I tried once upon a time (back when I was looking for a fvwm
replacement and ended up switching to XFCE).

> But I'm not sure what you mean by root-window menu / task-bar /
> toolbar.

You got it right.

>>I don't want any storage auto-mounter, network manager, modem manager,
>>or any of that sort of thing.  Anything with "manager" in the name is
>>probably right out.
>
> Neither do I :) As well as most anything with "Kit".

Back in the SunOS/Solaris days, it was anything ending in "tool".

> But no fear, you need to do that only once, I did that in IIRC 2002 or
> so with WMaker 0.65 and never touched that config ever again. I think
> there was once some feature renamed or so, but you get that with
> xemacs/mutt/tin as well.
>
> So, IMO it's should be worth a look. But _do_ have a look through the
> config-tool at the options (like the focus and moving stuff) and
> ignore the UI-look, that can be tuned a lot, the default is rather
> boring (but functional).

Thanks, I'll add WindowMaker to the list.

> Apart from that: LXDE comes to mind.

That too.

-- 
Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Recommend a good replacement for XFCE?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2016-09-24, Alecks Gates  wrote:
> On 09/23/2016 06:45 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:

>> I've been running XFCE for many, many years, and I was perfectly happy
>> with it until 4.11 came out.  Support for multiple displays[1] was
>> broken in xfdesktop by a commit made in 2013. It's been broken ever
>> since, and there doesn't appear to be any intention of fixing it.

> Have you considered MATE?

Yep.  I've been doing some googling/reading, and LXDE and MATE look
like the two leading contenders.

I'm going to try LXDE first.  MATE's gnome heritage set off some
warning bells -- which I should probably ignore, since MATE's 'atril'
pdf viewer is what rescued me from evince's gnome-related problems.

-- 
Grant