From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 26 16:49:03 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AD28716A4DE for ; Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:49:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from ns1.jnielsen.net (ns1.jnielsen.net [69.55.238.237]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A36843D6A for ; Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:49:02 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from localhost (jn@ns1 [69.55.238.237]) (authenticated bits=0) by ns1.jnielsen.net (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id k6QGn0HF003487; Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:49:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) From: John Nielsen To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 12:48:21 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.3 References: <20060726082333.e72c8bd2fa3c8298c4bf39a8c4c61b77.dba6f17e66.wbe@email.secureserver.net> In-Reply-To: <20060726082333.e72c8bd2fa3c8298c4bf39a8c4c61b77.dba6f17e66.wbe@email.secureserver.net> X-Face: #X5#Y*q>F:]zT!DegL3z5Xo'^MN[$8k\[4^3rN~wm=s=Uw(sW}R?3b^*f1Wu*.<=?utf-8?q?of=5F4NrS=0A=09P*M/9CpxDo!D6?=)IY1w<9B1jB; tBQf[RU-R<,I)e"$q7N7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200607261248.22212.lists@jnielsen.net> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.88.3, clamav-milter version 0.88.3 on ns1.jnielsen.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: Joshua Lewis Subject: Re: Replacing windows XP at home. X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:49:03 -0000 On Wednesday 26 July 2006 11:23, Joshua Lewis wrote: > I am replacing my XP system with a FreeBSD 6.1 system. I finished > installing it last night and cvsuped. Now I need to choose a window > manager. > > There are what seems like hundreds of different WM in the ports > collection and there is no way I will be able to find the time to read > them all and get any kind of good idea on what each one does. > > I am hoping a few people form the list could e-mail me what they like > and for what reason. I use xfce. It's lightweight and very configurable. It has a few fancy tools (file manager, etc) but it doesn't force them on you. It's reasonably intelligent about saving sessions. Some of my favorite features are in "plugins", many of which are available as additional ports. (Personal favorites include xfce4-taskbar-plugin (instead of the freestanding taskbar), xfce4-cpugraph-plugin, xfce4-minicmd-plugin). > I want something lean and fast but I want to have my cake and eat it > to because I do want something that is not strait up ugly and is > functional. If you're willing to invest in some customization and add-ons, fluxbox is extremely lean and fast (but not very attractive or full-featured by default). > KDE seems like it is bloated so I was considering Gnome. I have also > been reading about enlightenment and it sounds interesting. I have > looked into Fluxbox and it also seems like it would do the trick. Gnome is also rather bloated. > Would I be better off just going with Gnome or KDE? I realize once I > start installing apps that I will probably wind up installing > something that uses Gnome or KDE libraries so I am going to wind up > bloating my system any ways right? The two apps I use all the time are kmail (kde) and firefox (which uses gtk). Libraries sitting around on disk don't hurt your system, it's just the ones that are running. You can install KDE, Gnome, fluxbox, xfce4, and a couple others and switch between them to see what you like best. Once you've decided on something, uninstall what you don't use (the pkg_cutleaves port is very useful here). JN