[gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   A discussion on another list made me realize I'm a little tired of
Gnome. It does what I need, mostly, but it feels sort of old and dry.
I haven't run KDE in years but I'm hesitant to build it and keep it up
to date. I really think I'd like something more minimalistic. I ran
fluxbox years ago and liked that it was small and fast but at the time
getting to apps was a hand-crafted menu editing task that I'd rather
not repeat today.

   QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
added or removed with emerge?

   From a pure-fun standpoint something 3D might be fun, but I don't
need it and expect that my old ATI Radeon X300 card probably isn't up
to the task anyway.

   How do others choose a window manager and what do you value in your
window manager that makes you stick with it?

Thanks,
Mark

lightning ~ # eix | grep x11-wm
* x11-wm/aewm++
* x11-wm/aewm++-goodies
* x11-wm/aewm
* x11-wm/afterstep
* x11-wm/amiwm
* x11-wm/awesome
* x11-wm/blackbox
* x11-wm/compiz
* x11-wm/compiz-fusion
* x11-wm/ctwm
* x11-wm/dwm
* x11-wm/echinus
* x11-wm/emerald
* x11-wm/enlightenment
* x11-wm/evilwm
* x11-wm/fluxbox
* x11-wm/flwm
* x11-wm/fvwm
* x11-wm/icewm
* x11-wm/ion
* x11-wm/jwm
* x11-wm/larswm
* x11-wm/lwm
* x11-wm/matchbox
* x11-wm/matchbox-common
* x11-wm/matchbox-desktop
* x11-wm/matchbox-panel
* x11-wm/matchbox-window-manager
[I] x11-wm/metacity
* x11-wm/openbox
* x11-wm/oroborus
* x11-wm/oroborus-extras
* x11-wm/pekwm
* x11-wm/plwm
* x11-wm/ratpoison
* x11-wm/sawfish
* x11-wm/selectwm
* x11-wm/stumpwm
* x11-wm/treewm
[I] x11-wm/twm
* x11-wm/vtwm
* x11-wm/windowlab
* x11-wm/windowmaker
* x11-wm/wm2
* x11-wm/wmii
* x11-wm/xmonad
* x11-wm/xmonad-contrib
lightning ~ #

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Alex Alexander]

fluxbox is a nice, lightweight, usable WM :)

--
Alex Alexander || wired
Gentoo QT && KDE Herd Tester
http://www.linuxized.com



On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 15:53, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>   A discussion on another list made me realize I'm a little tired of
> Gnome. It does what I need, mostly, but it feels sort of old and dry.
> I haven't run KDE in years but I'm hesitant to build it and keep it up
> to date. I really think I'd like something more minimalistic. I ran
> fluxbox years ago and liked that it was small and fast but at the time
> getting to apps was a hand-crafted menu editing task that I'd rather
> not repeat today.
>
>   QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
> terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
> added or removed with emerge?
>
>   From a pure-fun standpoint something 3D might be fun, but I don't
> need it and expect that my old ATI Radeon X300 card probably isn't up
> to the task anyway.
>
>   How do others choose a window manager and what do you value in your
> window manager that makes you stick with it?
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
>
> lightning ~ # eix | grep x11-wm
> * x11-wm/aewm++
> * x11-wm/aewm++-goodies
> * x11-wm/aewm
> * x11-wm/afterstep
> * x11-wm/amiwm
> * x11-wm/awesome
> * x11-wm/blackbox
> * x11-wm/compiz
> * x11-wm/compiz-fusion
> * x11-wm/ctwm
> * x11-wm/dwm
> * x11-wm/echinus
> * x11-wm/emerald
> * x11-wm/enlightenment
> * x11-wm/evilwm
> * x11-wm/fluxbox
> * x11-wm/flwm
> * x11-wm/fvwm
> * x11-wm/icewm
> * x11-wm/ion
> * x11-wm/jwm
> * x11-wm/larswm
> * x11-wm/lwm
> * x11-wm/matchbox
> * x11-wm/matchbox-common
> * x11-wm/matchbox-desktop
> * x11-wm/matchbox-panel
> * x11-wm/matchbox-window-manager
> [I] x11-wm/metacity
> * x11-wm/openbox
> * x11-wm/oroborus
> * x11-wm/oroborus-extras
> * x11-wm/pekwm
> * x11-wm/plwm
> * x11-wm/ratpoison
> * x11-wm/sawfish
> * x11-wm/selectwm
> * x11-wm/stumpwm
> * x11-wm/treewm
> [I] x11-wm/twm
> * x11-wm/vtwm
> * x11-wm/windowlab
> * x11-wm/windowmaker
> * x11-wm/wm2
> * x11-wm/wmii
> * x11-wm/xmonad
> * x11-wm/xmonad-contrib
> lightning ~ #
>
>

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 6:03 AM, Alex Alexander<alex.alexander@gmail.com> wrote:
> fluxbox is a nice, lightweight, usable WM :)
>
> --
> Alex Alexander || wired
> Gentoo QT && KDE Herd Tester
> http://www.linuxized.com
>
>

Yep. And so small I built it by the time your response came back and
am answering your message from within it. Granted, black screen and
the menus don't see any of the apps I have installed, so that's the
same old problem. Isn't there some app for automatically picking up
apps on putting the menu together auto-magically?

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Martin Herrman]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yep. And so small I built it by the time your response came back and
> am answering your message from within it. Granted, black screen and
> the menus don't see any of the apps I have installed, so that's the
> same old problem. Isn't there some app for automatically picking up
> apps on putting the menu together auto-magically?
>
> Cheers,
> Mark

"The Xfce 4 Appfinder is part of the Xfce 4 Desktop Environment and
features application search on the whole system. It searches for
.desktop files based on the freedesktop spec and makes an index of the
found apps."

Source: xfce website:
http://www.xfce.org/documentation/4.2/manuals/xfce4-appfinder

Does Gentoo use these .desktop files?

[gentoo-amd64] Re: How do I choose a second window manager?

[Duncan]

Martin Herrman <martin@herrman.nl> posted
40bb8d3b0906170618g152b5f8fxc79889f0d6213bf6@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
below, on  Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:18:24 +0200:

> "The Xfce 4 Appfinder is part of the Xfce 4 Desktop Environment and
> features application search on the whole system. It searches for
> .desktop files based on the freedesktop spec and makes an index of the
> found apps."
> 
> Source: xfce website:
> http://www.xfce.org/documentation/4.2/manuals/xfce4-appfinder
> 
> Does Gentoo use these .desktop files?

In general, yes, as it's a freedesktop.org standard now and both KDE and 
GNOME use them too.  However, whether individual (non-main-DE) apps 
packages include them would depend on either upstream (if it ships, so 
will Gentoo in most cases) or the the initiative of the individual Gentoo 
package maintainer, if upstream doesn't ship one.

On the title question, I've never used it, but based on what others have 
said and the originally requested features (including an auto-managed 
menu), I too would recommend XFCE.  It seems to be /the/ middle ground 
between a "full feature" DE and a bare-bones WM, and gets very high 
reviews in general.  If I ever decide KDE's not for me any more, or 
perhaps for my netbook when I get around to putting Gentoo on it, if I 
don't like KDE's performance, I've always thought I'd try XFCE first.  

But on my main machine, at least kde3 has been great.  I can't say the 
same for kde4 (yet?), for a couple reasons.  First, one of the big kde4 
features is 3D eye candy... that my aging Radeon 9200 can't handle at the 
1920x2400 desktop size I run (it maxes at 2048 each, X and Y), and 
without that, there really isn't enough better (and a lot changed enough 
I'm not comfortable with it) to upgrade from kde3.  Second, I've so 
deeply customized kde3 to my own needs and style, and kde4 is so much 
changed, that it's simply different enough that even with full 3D 
features, it'd take me awhile to get kde4 setup similarly effectively/
comfortably.

So, I have both kde3/4 merged, and occasionally run 4 and mess around 
some, but for actually doing anything productive, it's kde3 (or the text 
console).  Sometime later this year I plan to upgrade to, probably, one 
of the later r500 based Radeons (which run thru the x1950 models), and 
meanwhile, kde-4.3.0 and likely 4.3.1 will be out, and we'll see how kde4 
does then.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 6:43 AM, Duncan<1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> Martin Herrman <martin@herrman.nl> posted
> 40bb8d3b0906170618g152b5f8fxc79889f0d6213bf6@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
> below, on  Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:18:24 +0200:
>
>> "The Xfce 4 Appfinder is part of the Xfce 4 Desktop Environment and
>> features application search on the whole system. It searches for
>> .desktop files based on the freedesktop spec and makes an index of the
>> found apps."
>>
>> Source: xfce website:
>> http://www.xfce.org/documentation/4.2/manuals/xfce4-appfinder
>>
>> Does Gentoo use these .desktop files?
>
> In general, yes, as it's a freedesktop.org standard now and both KDE and
> GNOME use them too.  However, whether individual (non-main-DE) apps
> packages include them would depend on either upstream (if it ships, so
> will Gentoo in most cases) or the the initiative of the individual Gentoo
> package maintainer, if upstream doesn't ship one.
>
> On the title question, I've never used it, but based on what others have
> said and the originally requested features (including an auto-managed
> menu), I too would recommend XFCE.  It seems to be /the/ middle ground
> between a "full feature" DE and a bare-bones WM, and gets very high
> reviews in general.  If I ever decide KDE's not for me any more, or
> perhaps for my netbook when I get around to putting Gentoo on it, if I
> don't like KDE's performance, I've always thought I'd try XFCE first.
>
> But on my main machine, at least kde3 has been great.  I can't say the
> same for kde4 (yet?), for a couple reasons.  First, one of the big kde4
> features is 3D eye candy... that my aging Radeon 9200 can't handle at the
> 1920x2400 desktop size I run (it maxes at 2048 each, X and Y), and
> without that, there really isn't enough better (and a lot changed enough
> I'm not comfortable with it) to upgrade from kde3.  Second, I've so
> deeply customized kde3 to my own needs and style, and kde4 is so much
> changed, that it's simply different enough that even with full 3D
> features, it'd take me awhile to get kde4 setup similarly effectively/
> comfortably.
>
> So, I have both kde3/4 merged, and occasionally run 4 and mess around
> some, but for actually doing anything productive, it's kde3 (or the text
> console).  Sometime later this year I plan to upgrade to, probably, one
> of the later r500 based Radeons (which run thru the x1950 models), and
> meanwhile, kde-4.3.0 and likely 4.3.1 will be out, and we'll see how kde4
> does then.
>
> --
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

I suspect that XFCE might be a good one to look at. Thanks.

Any thoughts from folks about fvwm?

thanks to Marc for the pointer to fbpanel. I'll certainly take a look at that.

cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Marc Joliet]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1462 bytes --]

Am Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:10:42 -0700
schrieb Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>:

> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 6:03 AM, Alex Alexander<alex.alexander@gmail.com> wrote:
> > fluxbox is a nice, lightweight, usable WM :)
> >
> > --
> > Alex Alexander || wired
> > Gentoo QT && KDE Herd Tester
> > http://www.linuxized.com
> >
> >
> 
> Yep. And so small I built it by the time your response came back and
> am answering your message from within it. Granted, black screen and
> the menus don't see any of the apps I have installed, so that's the
> same old problem. Isn't there some app for automatically picking up
> apps on putting the menu together auto-magically?

I used to use fluxbox, though switched to awesome in the meantime. The same
thing irritated me, too. There is the fluxbox-generate_menu script, but it
produces a somewhat scarce menu. So I used fbpanel:

marcec@marcec ~ % eix fbpanel
[I] x11-misc/fbpanel
     Available versions:  4.12
     Installed versions:  4.12(11:50:28 01.04.2009)
     Homepage:            http://fbpanel.sourceforge.net/
     Description:         light-weight X11 desktop panel

That comes with a (not 100%, I believe science packages, e.g. gEDA, don't show
up) complete menu.

> Cheers,
> Mark

HTH
-- 
Marc Joliet
--
Lt. Frank Drebin: "It's true what they say: cops and women don't mix. Like
eating a spoonful of Drāno; sure, it'll clean you out, but it'll leave you
hollow inside."

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Matthias Krebs]

Am Mittwoch 17 Juni 2009 15:10:42 schrieb Mark Knecht:
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 6:03 AM, Alex Alexander<alex.alexander@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > fluxbox is a nice, lightweight, usable WM :)
> >
> > --
> > Alex Alexander || wired
> > Gentoo QT && KDE Herd Tester
> > http://www.linuxized.com
>
> Yep. And so small I built it by the time your response came back and
> am answering your message from within it. Granted, black screen and
> the menus don't see any of the apps I have installed, so that's the
> same old problem. Isn't there some app for automatically picking up
> apps on putting the menu together auto-magically?
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
x11-misc/menumaker

I use it with openbox, but fluxbox is supported, too. But it's comman-line, not 
automatic. 

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Martin Herrman]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Alex Alexander
<alex.alexander@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> fluxbox is a nice, lightweight, usable WM :)

I have used IceWM (http://www.icewm.org/) for years on an old P2
233MHz with 64Mb RAM. But you had to edit the menu by editing a text
file.

Ubuntu has a lightweight version (Xubuntu) which uses XFCE
(http://www.xfce.org/). You could download a xubuntu iso image and run
it from the live-cd to experience it's features.

XFCE seems to have a more active development (more recent releases)
than IceWM. That's also true for the e-builds:

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/xfce-base/xfce4/ChangeLog#ptabs

HTH,

Martin

P.S. anyone noticed that this time I didn't forget to send only plain
text instead of all the HTML stuff? :-D

> --
> Alex Alexander || wired
> Gentoo QT && KDE Herd Tester
> http://www.linuxized.com

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Paul Hartman]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>   A discussion on another list made me realize I'm a little tired of
> Gnome. It does what I need, mostly, but it feels sort of old and dry.
> I haven't run KDE in years but I'm hesitant to build it and keep it up
> to date. I really think I'd like something more minimalistic. I ran
> fluxbox years ago and liked that it was small and fast but at the time
> getting to apps was a hand-crafted menu editing task that I'd rather
> not repeat today.
>
>   QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
> terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
> added or removed with emerge?
>
>   From a pure-fun standpoint something 3D might be fun, but I don't
> need it and expect that my old ATI Radeon X300 card probably isn't up
> to the task anyway.
>
>   How do others choose a window manager and what do you value in your
> window manager that makes you stick with it?

I use KDE4 and keep XFCE as a backup. I use KDM as login manager and
it easily lets me choose which one I want. I use only XFCE on my
laptop because compiling gnome or KDE is just too much work for it. I
could easily use XFCE (or Gnome) as primary desktop environment and be
happy, but I'm just used to KDE.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Paul
Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>   A discussion on another list made me realize I'm a little tired of
>> Gnome. It does what I need, mostly, but it feels sort of old and dry.
>> I haven't run KDE in years but I'm hesitant to build it and keep it up
>> to date. I really think I'd like something more minimalistic. I ran
>> fluxbox years ago and liked that it was small and fast but at the time
>> getting to apps was a hand-crafted menu editing task that I'd rather
>> not repeat today.
>>
>>   QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
>> terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
>> added or removed with emerge?
>>
>>   From a pure-fun standpoint something 3D might be fun, but I don't
>> need it and expect that my old ATI Radeon X300 card probably isn't up
>> to the task anyway.
>>
>>   How do others choose a window manager and what do you value in your
>> window manager that makes you stick with it?
>
> I use KDE4 and keep XFCE as a backup. I use KDM as login manager and
> it easily lets me choose which one I want. I use only XFCE on my
> laptop because compiling gnome or KDE is just too much work for it. I
> could easily use XFCE (or Gnome) as primary desktop environment and be
> happy, but I'm just used to KDE.
>
>

Hi Paul,
   I do a lot of audio work using apps and a kernel (rt-sources) from
the pro-audio overlay. Jack, Ardour, etc. Really low latency and NO
long window manager
delays are more important for me that they probably are for others. I
ran KDE years ago and it just didn't work very well, but in those days
even Gnome wasn't very good so I used fluxbox which was great. Well,
today Gnome is fine, and maybe KDE would be also. Historically it just
wasn't a good fit more me in the past.

   I guess the other thing that I'm interested in is getting beyond
this "flat/old Gnome is sort of like Windows" sensation that I am
feeling right now so to warrant the effort to actually use something I
suppose I am really looking for something with a really different feel
but it still really works in terms of getting jobs done. Something
that makes me feel good about even firing up the desktop.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Bob Sanders]

Mark Knecht, mused, then expounded:
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Paul
> Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>   QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
> >> terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
> >> added or removed with emerge?
> >>
> >>   How do others choose a window manager and what do you value in your
> >> window manager that makes you stick with it?
> >
> >
> 
> Hi Paul,
> 
>    I guess the other thing that I'm interested in is getting beyond
> this "flat/old Gnome is sort of like Windows" sensation that I am
> feeling right now so to warrant the effort to actually use something I
> suppose I am really looking for something with a really different feel
> but it still really works in terms of getting jobs done. Something
> that makes me feel good about even firing up the desktop.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark
> 
> 

Enlightenment 0.16 - either you like it so that even after switching
to others, you always come back.  Or you just don't get along with it.

The only time I've gone for a lighter weight WM has been on a netbook
where LXDE is run.

Bob
-- 
-  

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Paul Hartman]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>   I do a lot of audio work using apps and a kernel (rt-sources) from
> the pro-audio overlay. Jack, Ardour, etc. Really low latency and NO
> long window manager
> delays are more important for me that they probably are for others. I
> ran KDE years ago and it just didn't work very well, but in those days
> even Gnome wasn't very good so I used fluxbox which was great. Well,
> today Gnome is fine, and maybe KDE would be also. Historically it just
> wasn't a good fit more me in the past.
>
>   I guess the other thing that I'm interested in is getting beyond
> this "flat/old Gnome is sort of like Windows" sensation that I am
> feeling right now so to warrant the effort to actually use something I
> suppose I am really looking for something with a really different feel
> but it still really works in terms of getting jobs done. Something
> that makes me feel good about even firing up the desktop.

Well, if you want something different then KDE4 is definitely
different... for better or for worse :)

XFCE is more similar to Gnome in that both of them remind me of a Mac
OS desktop. (KDE4 is more like Vista/Win7) However, XFCE is a fraction
of the size of KDE or Gnome, which is nice. Being able to compile the
whole thing in just a few minutes is a good change of pace.

Check out http://xwinman.org/ for many other options.

[gentoo-amd64] Re: How do I choose a second window manager?

[Duncan]

Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> posted
58965d8a0906170914l4ebca650uba703a2a6b450d69@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
below, on  Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:14:50 -0500:

> Well, if you want something different then KDE4 is definitely
> different... for better or for worse :)

Agreed, but if he wants low latency, he'll probably want to be sure to 
turn off all the fancy 3D window effects, transparency and the like, and 
with that goes much of the reason for using KDE4. =:^(

If he has a fast graphics card and a relatively low resolution screen, he 
may be able to get away with very limited effects, but if I'm right, even 
that might be a bit too unpredictable in terms of latency.

Meanwhile, Mark, you do have the kernel set for a 1000 Hz clock rate, 
right?  And you have preemptive desktop turned on, and high resolution 
timers, right?  (These are under Processor type and features.)

You may also wish to experiment with Group CPU Scheduler (under General 
setup), if you regularly run background tasks as other users and you want 
to be sure your audio user gets his share of CPU.  With that on you can 
then tweak the /sys/kernel/uids/<idnum>/cpu_share numbers, keeping in 
mind that the default is 1024 while the root default is 2048, and that 
the <idnum> dirs will come and go as users do.  I don't do your sort of 
audio, and run the more moderate voluntary preemption and 300 Hz clock 
(with tickless also on), but combined with setting PORTAGE_NICENESS=19 in 
make.conf, I can run all sorts of emerge jobs, CPU loads in the hundreds 
if I want as long as don't run too far into swap, and still keep a 
relatively responsive desktop, and if I had full preemption and 1000 Hz, 
I think I could almost do your style of recording even while running 
emerges!  (Oh, I also have PORTAGE_TMPDIR pointed at a tmpfs, thus 
keeping unnecessary I/O to a minimum.  That makes a difference to 
responsiveness while merging too, as does having the memory to keep it 
out of swap while doing so.)

Of course, it may be that you simply don't run enough background tasks as 
other users to make any difference with the group scheduling stuff, and 
that was only added in 2.6.27 or some such, so if you're running an old 
kernel you won't have the group scheduling at all.  IOW, YMMV, but it's 
worth looking at.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:14 AM, Duncan<1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> posted
> 58965d8a0906170914l4ebca650uba703a2a6b450d69@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
> below, on  Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:14:50 -0500:
>
>> Well, if you want something different then KDE4 is definitely
>> different... for better or for worse :)
>
> Agreed, but if he wants low latency, he'll probably want to be sure to
> turn off all the fancy 3D window effects, transparency and the like, and
> with that goes much of the reason for using KDE4. =:^(
>
> If he has a fast graphics card and a relatively low resolution screen, he
> may be able to get away with very limited effects, but if I'm right, even
> that might be a bit too unpredictable in terms of latency.
>
> Meanwhile, Mark, you do have the kernel set for a 1000 Hz clock rate,
> right?  And you have preemptive desktop turned on, and high resolution
> timers, right?  (These are under Processor type and features.)

I'm using rt-sources which allows another preemption model, intendeded
for real-time, called 'Complete Preemption (real-time)'. My timer
frequency is 1KHz and I do enable high resolution timer support.

Note that running this way I am able to have audio come into my
machine, be recorded and also go back out of the machine to be sent to
other external audio hardware in less than 3mS. (actually 1.2mS * 2 )
It's fast - much faster than Windows/Avid-ProTools on the same
hardware which might need to run around 10mS. Considering that
somewhere around 10mS is where humans might begin to sense an echo I
need fast. I like fast. I pay for fast. This is one area where I have
no doubt I beat M$ by using Linux.

>
> You may also wish to experiment with Group CPU Scheduler (under General
> setup), if you regularly run background tasks as other users and you want
> to be sure your audio user gets his share of CPU.  With that on you can
> then tweak the /sys/kernel/uids/<idnum>/cpu_share numbers, keeping in
> mind that the default is 1024 while the root default is 2048, and that
> the <idnum> dirs will come and go as users do.  I don't do your sort of
> audio, and run the more moderate voluntary preemption and 300 Hz clock
> (with tickless also on), but combined with setting PORTAGE_NICENESS=19 in
> make.conf, I can run all sorts of emerge jobs, CPU loads in the hundreds
> if I want as long as don't run too far into swap, and still keep a
> relatively responsive desktop, and if I had full preemption and 1000 Hz,
> I think I could almost do your style of recording even while running
> emerges!  (Oh, I also have PORTAGE_TMPDIR pointed at a tmpfs, thus
> keeping unnecessary I/O to a minimum.  That makes a difference to
> responsiveness while merging too, as does having the memory to keep it
> out of swap while doing so.)

All of this probably make sense, and I'll do a little study on the
matter, but when running Ardour recording a band playing a live gig
it's a one-shot, you gotta get it right sort of event. There is only
one performance. During tracking (the process of recording the
artist's live sound to individual tracks) I generally run nothing but
Ardour with the Jack server to manage application audio routing and
timing, and then possibly one or two other audio apps. I may not see
my desktop for hours. There are no browsers, generally I even
disconnect network connections at the switch if in my home studio -
probably not necessary but 8 years ago it was very necessary in Linux
as even a packet arriving could cause delays. Typically I'm sitting in
the mixing console area with the live sound guys grabbing a feed from
the stage (for rock) or I'm mic'ing the stage myself for smaller
venues. (Jazz combos, big band, etc.)

Now, my hardware/kernel are really optimized for live recording, but
when I bring the machines home I still have to work on them. They are
used as standard desktop machines most of the time but serve as mixing
platforms after tracking. During these times real-time operation is
still important, but if I have a glitch in the audio the worst I have
to do is do the job a second time. It doesn't happen often, but it
does happen with Gnome once in awhile. In the old days it NEVER
happened with fluxbox, and probably still doesn't. As I say, my
migration away from fluxbox was really a management issue and not a
negative about the technology. fluxbox is great for my audio needs,
just wasn't so great for day-to-day life. However I'm really bored
with Gnome and hence why I started this thread.

>
> Of course, it may be that you simply don't run enough background tasks as
> other users to make any difference with the group scheduling stuff, and
> that was only added in 2.6.27 or some such, so if you're running an old
> kernel you won't have the group scheduling at all.  IOW, YMMV, but it's
> worth looking at.

Currently running 2.6.29.2-rt11, and is probably clear, when it's
important I don't run any background tasks as a user. Only system
things are allowed to take place, and even those are controlled as
much as I can.

Thanks and cheers,
Mark

>
> --
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman
>
>
>

[gentoo-amd64] Re: How do I choose a second window manager?

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> posted
5bdc1c8b0906171350n10d32d2at83600ee6b31baa80@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
below, on  Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:50:17 -0700:

> All of this probably make sense, and I'll do a little study on the
> matter, but when running Ardour recording a band playing a live gig it's
> a one-shot, you gotta get it right sort of event. There is only one
> performance.

I did enough of that years ago (80s) that I understand what you are 
talking about.  However, back then, it wasn't computerized, or more 
correctly, they were just starting to really get into it, with live 
computer processing at concerts, etc, but that was expensive pro stuff at 
the time, way past my piddly little "running the mixer for the praise and 
worship at the church" level.

But between that and my general computer knowledge now, I appreciate the 
effect latency has on a product, and why there simply can be no 
compromise.  I didn't and don't expect that you /would/ run an emerge 
while doing that, no way, Jose, as they say, but was simply illustrating 
the point that you /could/ or /almost/ could anyway.  Not that you ever 
/would/, but that if it's good enough to deal with /that/ sort of thing, 
it should be a walk in the park for the stuff you /will/ be wanting and 
needing it to do.

Anyway, the topic of sound engineering is still interesting enough to me 
that I love to hear or read people that are still in it talking about 
it.  So I really appreciated your post.  Plus, I know enough about it 
from then, and about computers now, that if the opportunity/need comes my 
way, I could jump back into it again, and then I /would/ be using all 
I've read about Jack, Ardour, low-latency kernels, etc, putting it all to 
use and asking people like you for pointers. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Frank Peters]

>
>   QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
> terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
> added or removed with emerge?
>

Openbox is my choice for a window manager.  Openbox is fast and small
and that well suits my minimalistic approach.  Openbox also provides
virtual desktops that are, IMO, indispensable to a graphical interface.

With Openbox there is no automatic method to create menus but the
configuration files are very easy to manually edit.  Once a basic
menu structure is established, a simple cut and paste operation can
be used to quickly update.

There is also a configuration tool available for Openbox, but since
I have never used it I cannot comment about it.

Frank Peters

[gentoo-amd64] How do I switch to a window manager?

[Steve Herber]

Can somebody answer a question, related to the favorite WM question, how
do I change to an alternative window manager?

I normally run xdm and update my .xinitrc or .xsession file to do this
but I feel that there should be a better way.  How do you do it?

Thanks,

-- 
Steve Herber	herber@thing.com		work: 206-221-7262
Software Engineer, UW Medicine, IT Services	home: 425-454-2399

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I switch to a window manager?

[Bob Sanders]

Steve Herber, mused, then expounded:
> Can somebody answer a question, related to the favorite WM question, how
> do I change to an alternative window manager?
>

Edit /etc/rc.conf and /etc/conf.d/xdm

Bob
-  

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I switch to a window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Steve Herber<herber@thing.com> wrote:
> Can somebody answer a question, related to the favorite WM question, how
> do I change to an alternative window manager?
>
> I normally run xdm and update my .xinitrc or .xsession file to do this
> but I feel that there should be a better way.  How do you do it?
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Steve Herber    herber@thing.com                work: 206-221-7262
> Software Engineer, UW Medicine, IT Services     home: 425-454-2399
>
>
>

I use gdm as a log in manager. On the bottom of the login screen there
is a pull down that allows me to choose which one I want to run and
whether to make it default or to only use it for this session.

Hope this helps,
Mark

[gentoo-amd64] Re: How do I switch to a window manager?

[Duncan]

Steve Herber <herber@thing.com> posted
Pine.LNX.4.64.0906170910450.29525@thing.com, excerpted below, on  Wed, 17
Jun 2009 09:39:13 -0700:

> Can somebody answer a question, related to the favorite WM question, how
> do I change to an alternative window manager?
> 
> I normally run xdm and update my .xinitrc or .xsession file to do this
> but I feel that there should be a better way.  How do you do it?

My "better way" is to not use a graphical login manager at all, but 
rather to login at the text login prompt, and start X (and my WM/DE 
(windo manager / desktop environment) of choice) from there.  Whether 
that's a "better way" for you or not, of course depends on you, but it 
Works for Me (tm)!

The various DEs and at least some of the WMs should put session scripts 
in /etc/X11/Sessions, with launchers (like startkde) in the path.  You 
can either use the launchers, or create your own.

I create my own launchers as scriptlets that make use of the generic 
startx.  Normally, startx depends on the XSESSION variable as set and 
exported in either the system scripts (rc.conf, IIRC for baselayout-1 
users) or in a user's startup scripts (.bashrc or the like).  However, 
that's kind of limiting since it leaves just one choice.  So for each 
session script in /etc/X11/Sessions, I create a scriptlet, say k4 for 
kde4, k3 for kde3, g2 if I had gnome2 installed, etc.  Each of these sets 
and exports the XSESSION variable to match the appropriate filename in 
the Sessions dir, and then invokes startx.  Now, with a single short (two-
character in the above examples, g2, k3, k4, etc) command, I can start 
any of the session types I want. =:^)

What's nice about this is that once the launcher scriptlets are setup, 
it's possible to take care of any other housekeeping as necessary, 
setting up any other environmental vars, whatever.  Any commands before 
the startx will run as X and that environment starts.  Any after it will 
run as it quits back to the text login.  Or, make it startx &, so it runs 
in the background and issue the bash disown command, and the script will 
startx in the background and then terminate, leaving you with a bash 
prompt again.  Then you can do what I do and run ". k3", so it runs it in 
the current shell, and it'll logout after startx as well, thus returning 
that VT to the login prompt.

As can be seen, it wasn't for nothing that I said my system is rather 
more uniquely customized than most. =:^)  But it fits the way I work and 
is thus the "better way" for me, which is what counts.  And of course 
Gentoo makes all that customization far easier than most distributions 
do, making it all the better! =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Joseph Booker]

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Maybe I am missing something, but what is wrong with
'fluxbox-generate_menu' ? (it's part of fluxbox itself)

-- 
Joseph Booker

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Joseph Booker<joe@neoturbine.net> wrote:
> Maybe I am missing something, but what is wrong with
> 'fluxbox-generate_menu' ? (it's part of fluxbox itself)
>
> --
> Joseph Booker
>

You're not missing anything from my POV. I didn't know about it. It
may address my issues with fluxbox from 5-8 years ago when those sorts
of tools didn't exist.

However, I've run fluxbox and could have gone down that path without
querying the list. (But having done so has allowed me to find out
about tools such as you mention. Anyway, I'm wondering what sorts of
new things folks are using, why they are using them, what they like
about them, etc. Mainly just poking around for ideas.

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[The Doctor]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Mark Knecht wrote:

>    QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
> terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
> added or removed with emerge?

I know you mentioned not really wanting to run one of the /*box/ window
managers because you'd run one before, but something just came to mind.
 I ran Openbox for a few years because it fit just the criteria that you
described, and returning to their website I found a page that describes
how to integrate it with Gnome, so you could still use the menus without
having to hand-edit the menu config file.

I might try that later, actually.

You might also want to look into XFCE to see if it'll work the way you
want it to.  I've played with it a little on my media machine but don't
have a whole lot to say about it right now.

- --

The Doctor [412/724/301/703]

PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F  DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1
WWW: http://drwho.virtadpt.net/

"Take back, take back, take back the dancefloor!"

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Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAko6SpEACgkQO9j/K4B7F8ETEQCg0fDP+qQ908fh/ziAazuELOlC
7uQAoIY7L0XaaXJDhXrskpIRoa/iKopA
=Hr5c
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 7:09 AM, The Doctor<drwho@virtadpt.net> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>>    QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
>> terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
>> added or removed with emerge?
>
> I know you mentioned not really wanting to run one of the /*box/ window
> managers because you'd run one before, but something just came to mind.
>  I ran Openbox for a few years because it fit just the criteria that you
> described, and returning to their website I found a page that describes
> how to integrate it with Gnome, so you could still use the menus without
> having to hand-edit the menu config file.

Good to know. thanks!

It's not that I don't want to run one of the /*box/ products. More
that I just want a *reasonable* amount of menu management as I install
and uninstall apps.

>
> I might try that later, actually.
>
> You might also want to look into XFCE to see if it'll work the way you
> want it to.  I've played with it a little on my media machine but don't
> have a whole lot to say about it right now.

XFCE seems pretty nice. It has a light feel, menus are handled, at
least in the sense of the apps I had installed and were showing up in
Gnome menus are there in XFCE. I don't like that it doesn't, at least
out of the box on my computer, support multiple file drag & drop
actions, but maybe it supports that sort of thing through cut & paste.
Not sure. (Just thought of that one.)

I did build EWM (E16 I think) this morning. It's quite interesting, in
the sense that there are multiple desktops and things. Very
minimalistic. Seems to have a large list of configurations I can do.
The problem as an uninformed new user is I have no clue how to even
start an app like Firefox! That one will take a bit of study.

Anyway, I appreciate your ideas and inputs. I'll look at openbox this afternoon.

Cheers,
Mark

>
> - --
>
> The Doctor [412/724/301/703]
>
> PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F  DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1
> WWW: http://drwho.virtadpt.net/
>
> "Take back, take back, take back the dancefloor!"
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iEYEARECAAYFAko6SpEACgkQO9j/K4B7F8ETEQCg0fDP+qQ908fh/ziAazuELOlC
> 7uQAoIY7L0XaaXJDhXrskpIRoa/iKopA
> =Hr5c
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> XFCE seems pretty nice. It has a light feel, menus are handled, at
> least in the sense of the apps I had installed and were showing up in
> Gnome menus are there in XFCE. I don't like that it doesn't, at least
> out of the box on my computer, support multiple file drag & drop
> actions, but maybe it supports that sort of thing through cut & paste.
> Not sure. (Just thought of that one.)

Multiple file drag & drop works fine for me in XFCE. I just created a
folder, highlighted 4 icons from my desktop, dragged them into the
folder and voila, there are 4 things in it.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Paul
Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> XFCE seems pretty nice. It has a light feel, menus are handled, at
>> least in the sense of the apps I had installed and were showing up in
>> Gnome menus are there in XFCE. I don't like that it doesn't, at least
>> out of the box on my computer, support multiple file drag & drop
>> actions, but maybe it supports that sort of thing through cut & paste.
>> Not sure. (Just thought of that one.)
>
> Multiple file drag & drop works fine for me in XFCE. I just created a
> folder, highlighted 4 icons from my desktop, dragged them into the
> folder and voila, there are 4 things in it.

Interesting. Didn't work here for me out of the box. My Gnome desktop
had a bunch of files on it. In XFCE I created a folder, dragged my
mouse across 2 or more of these files. They looked selected but when I
clicked on one of the files and started dragging it the file I clicked
on what the only one deposited in the folder. The other files remained
selected.

I'll look around for some setting about this. Seems very basic though. Strange.

Good to know it should work though.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Paul
> Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> XFCE seems pretty nice. It has a light feel, menus are handled, at
>>> least in the sense of the apps I had installed and were showing up in
>>> Gnome menus are there in XFCE. I don't like that it doesn't, at least
>>> out of the box on my computer, support multiple file drag & drop
>>> actions, but maybe it supports that sort of thing through cut & paste.
>>> Not sure. (Just thought of that one.)
>>
>> Multiple file drag & drop works fine for me in XFCE. I just created a
>> folder, highlighted 4 icons from my desktop, dragged them into the
>> folder and voila, there are 4 things in it.
>
> Interesting. Didn't work here for me out of the box. My Gnome desktop
> had a bunch of files on it. In XFCE I created a folder, dragged my
> mouse across 2 or more of these files. They looked selected but when I
> clicked on one of the files and started dragging it the file I clicked
> on what the only one deposited in the folder. The other files remained
> selected.
>
> I'll look around for some setting about this. Seems very basic though. Strange.
>
> Good to know it should work though.

I'm using xfce 4.6.1 in case you're on a different revision than me.

LXDE is another similar one you may want to check out. I haven't tried
it personally but it looks similar to XFCE, but perhaps even more
lightweight. I think it is a full desktop environment based around the
openbox window manager.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Paul
Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Paul
>> Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> XFCE seems pretty nice. It has a light feel, menus are handled, at
>>>> least in the sense of the apps I had installed and were showing up in
>>>> Gnome menus are there in XFCE. I don't like that it doesn't, at least
>>>> out of the box on my computer, support multiple file drag & drop
>>>> actions, but maybe it supports that sort of thing through cut & paste.
>>>> Not sure. (Just thought of that one.)
>>>
>>> Multiple file drag & drop works fine for me in XFCE. I just created a
>>> folder, highlighted 4 icons from my desktop, dragged them into the
>>> folder and voila, there are 4 things in it.
>>
>> Interesting. Didn't work here for me out of the box. My Gnome desktop
>> had a bunch of files on it. In XFCE I created a folder, dragged my
>> mouse across 2 or more of these files. They looked selected but when I
>> clicked on one of the files and started dragging it the file I clicked
>> on what the only one deposited in the folder. The other files remained
>> selected.
>>
>> I'll look around for some setting about this. Seems very basic though. Strange.
>>
>> Good to know it should work though.
>
> I'm using xfce 4.6.1 in case you're on a different revision than me.
>
> LXDE is another similar one you may want to check out. I haven't tried
> it personally but it looks similar to XFCE, but perhaps even more
> lightweight. I think it is a full desktop environment based around the
> openbox window manager.
>
>
Paul,
   I found that here drag and drop works in a folder but doesn't work
on the desktop.

   xfce-4.6.1 also.

   lxde is masked here. I might give it a try.

   Not that the voting makes any difference but here's an interesting
site trying to answer some similar quetsions:

http://xwinman.org/vote.php

   Just wandering around and looking at screenshots I find I like a
lot of what I see in fvwm, but I'm hesitant to install it as it seems
to use older glib/gtk+ libraries which means more to maintain. It's
not huge so I'm emerging it to take a look.

   Question gets down to how does one make a decision? Not sure about
any performance metrics. Look and feel is obviously a part of it.
Depth of support - email (good) and forums (not so good for me).

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Bob Sanders]

Mark Knecht, mused, then expounded:
> 
>    Question gets down to how does one make a decision? Not sure about
> any performance metrics. Look and feel is obviously a part of it.
> Depth of support - email (good) and forums (not so good for me).
> 

Does it work for you?  Do you hit some limit that irritates you that
spoils the experience?

All the rest - Depth of support, forums, etc. don't mean anything
if you're constantly irriated whenever you use it.

Bob
-  

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Bob Sanders<rsanders@sgi.com> wrote:
> Mark Knecht, mused, then expounded:
>>
>>    Question gets down to how does one make a decision? Not sure about
>> any performance metrics. Look and feel is obviously a part of it.
>> Depth of support - email (good) and forums (not so good for me).
>>
>
> Does it work for you?  Do you hit some limit that irritates you that
> spoils the experience?
>
> All the rest - Depth of support, forums, etc. don't mean anything
> if you're constantly irriated whenever you use it.
>
> Bob

Very true.

- Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 3:43 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>   I found that here drag and drop works in a folder but doesn't work
> on the desktop.

When you say you are trying to move them, are you trying to "mv" them,
or just reposition them within the same desktop workspace? (moving the
icon over to the other side of the desktop for example)

If the latter, then yes, it only moves 1 at a time for me as well. I
thought (assumed) you were talking about moving from one directory to
another.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Paul
Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 3:43 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>   I found that here drag and drop works in a folder but doesn't work
>> on the desktop.
>
> When you say you are trying to move them, are you trying to "mv" them,
> or just reposition them within the same desktop workspace? (moving the
> icon over to the other side of the desktop for example)
>
> If the latter, then yes, it only moves 1 at a time for me as well. I
> thought (assumed) you were talking about moving from one directory to
> another.
>
>

No, I mean drag and drop on the desktop using the mouse, not something
like a 'mv' command. OK, so we're getting the same results.

fvwm crashes when I try to start that one!

So far xfce is the best.

I also tried something called 'E16-Gnome' (part of the EWM package) It
works but I cannot see or feel any difference yet. Maybe it's just
Gnome with a diffeent WM underneath or something?

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Paul
> Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 3:43 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>   I found that here drag and drop works in a folder but doesn't work
>>> on the desktop.
>>
>> When you say you are trying to move them, are you trying to "mv" them,
>> or just reposition them within the same desktop workspace? (moving the
>> icon over to the other side of the desktop for example)
>>
>> If the latter, then yes, it only moves 1 at a time for me as well. I
>> thought (assumed) you were talking about moving from one directory to
>> another.
>>
>>
>
> No, I mean drag and drop on the desktop using the mouse, not something
> like a 'mv' command. OK, so we're getting the same results.

Okay, you are moving icons around on the desktop but not actually
moving files to different directories. That's where I was getting
confused. :)

XFCE didn't even have the concept of "a desktop" with icons until the
latest release, IIRC... its lack of a desktop was always one of its
somewhat unique characteristics, but with the latest release it's
become more of a full-featured desktop environment. So that aspect of
it is probably not very mature yet. I would expect the finer touches
such as moving multiple icons to come along in future versions.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 2:32 PM, Paul
Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Paul
>> Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 3:43 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>   I found that here drag and drop works in a folder but doesn't work
>>>> on the desktop.
>>>
>>> When you say you are trying to move them, are you trying to "mv" them,
>>> or just reposition them within the same desktop workspace? (moving the
>>> icon over to the other side of the desktop for example)
>>>
>>> If the latter, then yes, it only moves 1 at a time for me as well. I
>>> thought (assumed) you were talking about moving from one directory to
>>> another.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> No, I mean drag and drop on the desktop using the mouse, not something
>> like a 'mv' command. OK, so we're getting the same results.
>
> Okay, you are moving icons around on the desktop but not actually
> moving files to different directories. That's where I was getting
> confused. :)

No, I'm moving files on the desktop. Desktop is a directory and the
files are visible in a terminal if I cd to Desktop. I can create a
folder and 'mv' the files to that folder and 'mv' them back to the
desktop. However, if I select multiple files on the desktop with my
mouse I see all of them selected but only the firs one moves to the
folder with a drag operation.

>
> XFCE didn't even have the concept of "a desktop" with icons until the
> latest release, IIRC... its lack of a desktop was always one of its
> somewhat unique characteristics, but with the latest release it's
> become more of a full-featured desktop environment. So that aspect of
> it is probably not very mature yet. I would expect the finer touches
> such as moving multiple icons to come along in future versions.

OK, that makes sense. They'll get to it if it's important.

This issue seems to come up occasionally. I'll download some zip file
to my desktop and use an archive manager to drag a bunch of stuff out.
Having done that I might delete some audio files but want to keep
others, or I might want to separate them into different folders based
on what I'm going to do with them.

Anyway, we've wasted too much effort on this. It's just a minor annoyance.

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 8:39 PM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Okay, you are moving icons around on the desktop but not actually
>> moving files to different directories. That's where I was getting
>> confused. :)
>
> No, I'm moving files on the desktop. Desktop is a directory and the
> files are visible in a terminal if I cd to Desktop. I can create a
> folder and 'mv' the files to that folder and 'mv' them back to the
> desktop. However, if I select multiple files on the desktop with my
> mouse I see all of them selected but only the firs one moves to the
> folder with a drag operation.

In that case, it does work for me then. I can select multiple files
and drag them into another folder and it works as expected.

My only confusion was thinking I was confused in the first place :)

[gentoo-amd64] Re: How do I choose a second window manager?

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> posted
5bdc1c8b0906181839r18d3a8c0yfa9d5da993d66b6f@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
below, on  Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:39:51 -0700:

> This issue seems to come up occasionally. I'll download some zip file to
> my desktop and use an archive manager to drag a bunch of stuff out.
> Having done that I might delete some audio files but want to keep
> others, or I might want to separate them into different folders based on
> what I'm going to do with them.

I do something a bit different that should work in your case, but I do it 
for a different reason. (I don't like many things on the desktop at all, 
if there's more than can be counted on the fingers of one hand, I'm 
getting uncomfortable.  Thus, while I do use the desktop for individual 
files occasionally, that's /all/ I keep there, individual files.  BTW, no 
"trash" or other such "system" stuff there either.  Well, except for...)

What I hit upon is this:

1.  In my home dir, I have a "dir" subdir.  But it could be called 
"links" or "working" or "inbox", or something else of similar nature.

2.  On my desktop I then keep a single symlink, to ~/dir.  (It's a 
symlink because one time when I used to keep "dir" on the desktop itself, 
one time, I accidentally deleted it... and everything in it!  Since the 
dir is now elsewhere and all that's on the desktop is a symlink, no big 
deal if I do that again, since all it will have deleted is the symlink, 
and I can easily recreate /that/.

3.  Thus, while the desktop itself stays uncluttered, my "dir" aka 
"links" or whatever one wishes to call it, dir, is a single-click away.  
If I want to work with it, I can open it with a single click, but at the 
same time, I don't have to stare at all those ugly icons on the desktop 
all the time.

(BTW, as has been being discussed in another thread, I run a dual-monitor 
setup, stacked 1920x1200, for 1920x2400 total.  The bottom monitor is my 
"working" monitor.  This is where most of my windows go.  When I'm doing 
mail or news, pan or kmail is maximized across this screen only.  When 
I'm browsing either the web or local files, or when I open a terminal 
window, their default size is a quarter the bottom monitor, so I can tile 
four such konsole or browser windows in a 2x2 matrix, and still have 960 
px wide terminal and browser windows, which is normally very reasonable.  
The only thing is those windows, at ~580 px tall, don't give me much 
vertical reading space, so I have kwin's title-bar double-click action 
set to maximize (to one monitor) vertically, so I can get a longer view 
if I want it.  Anyway, that leaves the top monitor free for the 300 px 
tall panel with system monitors, a big clock, etc, across the top, always 
shown, plus 1920x900 px of auxiliary workspace, on which I can put 
another auxiliary window or two, perhaps have an mpd client media player 
going, etc, PLUS still have enough of the desktop still free so I can 
still access the handful of items I typically have on the desktop, 
including the "dir" symlink.  Thus, that "dir" symlink on the desktop is 
almost always available for single-click access, no matter /what/ I have 
spread across the working monitor below, even if I have a couple "extra" 
windows open up top as well!  However, that ALSO means the top monitor 
desktop remains visible nearly all the time, and I really do NOT like 
having whatever wallpaper I happen to have loaded at the time spoiled by 
too many icons, blossoming like big ugly zits on my wallpaper!  FWIW, 
here's a (1/3 scale and reduced to 256-color for the web) now several 
years old screenshot, dated, but gives you a visual idea of what I'm 
talking about.  Watch the link-wrap!

http://members.cox.net/pu61ic.1inux.dunc4n/pix/screenshots/screen.33.256.png

I really need to update that...  It's from early 2006...)

4.  In my "dir" dir, I have other directories (one of which is called 
"working" but could be just as easily called inbox, the reason I didn't 
use that name for the one directly on the desktop), symlinks to other 
frequently visited directories (like my mm partition), and often, 
whatever I happen to be working on that I've just downloaded or whatever.

5.  Thus, as I've said, "dir" is a single-click away on the desktop, so I 
have instant access to whatever I need therein, and that's where I put 
stuff most folks would put directly on their desktop, temporarily.  The 
the desktop itself contains little else.

.....

That's where this whole thing gets back around to your problem.  If you 
create a similar one or two working dirs (or perhaps better, symlinks to 
working dirs) on your desktop and don't put anything else on the desktop, 
you'll still have pretty direct access to them, but they'll open as 
folders, and you should be able to drag and drop multiple items from them 
without issue.  Meanwhile, your desktop itself will stay much less 
cluttered, and because there's only a couple items directly on the 
desktop anyway, you'll never need to worry about whether multi-select and 
drag works on the desktop or not, regardless of /what/ DE/WM you are 
running. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:15 PM, Duncan<1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> posted
> 5bdc1c8b0906181839r18d3a8c0yfa9d5da993d66b6f@mail.gmail.com, excerpted
> below, on  Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:39:51 -0700:
>
>> This issue seems to come up occasionally. I'll download some zip file to
>> my desktop and use an archive manager to drag a bunch of stuff out.
>> Having done that I might delete some audio files but want to keep
>> others, or I might want to separate them into different folders based on
>> what I'm going to do with them.
>
> I do something a bit different that should work in your case, but I do it
> for a different reason. (I don't like many things on the desktop at all,
> if there's more than can be counted on the fingers of one hand, I'm
> getting uncomfortable.  Thus, while I do use the desktop for individual
> files occasionally, that's /all/ I keep there, individual files.  BTW, no
> "trash" or other such "system" stuff there either.  Well, except for...)
>
> What I hit upon is this:
>
> 1.  In my home dir, I have a "dir" subdir.  But it could be called
> "links" or "working" or "inbox", or something else of similar nature.
>
> 2.  On my desktop I then keep a single symlink, to ~/dir.  (It's a
> symlink because one time when I used to keep "dir" on the desktop itself,
> one time, I accidentally deleted it... and everything in it!  Since the
> dir is now elsewhere and all that's on the desktop is a symlink, no big
> deal if I do that again, since all it will have deleted is the symlink,
> and I can easily recreate /that/.
>
> 3.  Thus, while the desktop itself stays uncluttered, my "dir" aka
> "links" or whatever one wishes to call it, dir, is a single-click away.
> If I want to work with it, I can open it with a single click, but at the
> same time, I don't have to stare at all those ugly icons on the desktop
> all the time.
>

If I'm understanding you correctly this is essentially do now. I have
a couple of external 1394 and USB drives that I use to save web-found
media as well as customer audio. The model I've used in the past is to
decompress a zip file with 200-300 audio files onto my desktop, and
once the files are there I would just drag them to different folder
links. On Gnome I could grab 20 *.wav files, open a specific USB link,
get a folder, create some sub-folder and then simply drag the 20 wave
files to the location I want them in. With XFCE I cannot do that - IF
- I'm simply looking at the desktop. The files are selected but only
the first one selected is deposited at the new location. However if I
open a file system browser in XFCE, cd within that browser to my
desktop, I then can select and drag multiple files successfully.

Like you I don't like a lot of stuff on my desktop. I do keep a few
application launcher icons there in Gnome. However I personally like
downloads from customers/partners as well as things I download using
Firefox to go to my desktop because:

1) If they are on my desktop they will be dealt with immediately, and

2) On all my different systems, both Linux & Windows, the only thing
in common by default is the desktop.

So, I use the desktop as temporary storage and then clean it up
quickly. That's better for me than having downloads go to some obscure
place and then be forgotten about.

<SNIP>
I'll comment on the rest of your post later. I'm busy trying to get a
trade on soonish.

Cheers,
Mark