Hello, I'm running FreeBSD 5.4 on old P3 866 mhz systems with 256 megs of RAM. I use them as little servers for a game I'm working on. I want to use a windowing system on them, but Gnome, for instance, leaves me with 60 megs of RAM when it's running. What do you guys suggest I use? I need something that is easy to use and still lightweight. I've looked at Fluxbox and Windowmaker for instance, but I have tried neither. Thanks

Eye candy: Fluxbox>Blackbox>Hackedbox

Lightweight: Hackedbox>Blackbox>Fluxbox

IMHO Blackbox and Hackedbox aren't really worth it, they just look too simple and the extra eye candy from Fluxbox is perfectly reasonable and even if you don't find it so, you can downgrade it, also Fluxbox seems to have better support and a bigger community.

Quote: Original post by xor
Eye candy: Fluxbox>Blackbox>Hackedbox

Lightweight: Hackedbox>Blackbox>Fluxbox

IMHO Blackbox and Hackedbox aren't really worth it, they just look too simple and the extra eye candy from Fluxbox is perfectly reasonable and even if you don't find it so, you can downgrade it, also Fluxbox seems to have better support and a bigger community.

Is Fluxbox hard to code for?

You could just use fvwm or xfce4... I run xfce4 on my laptop with 128MB of RAM and have plenty of RAM left over.

Quote: Original post by jperalta
You could just use fvwm or xfce4... I run xfce4 on my laptop with 128MB of RAM and have plenty of RAM left over.

Went with this and I come out with 168 megs free with everything currently running on xfce4

Maega,

"Is Fluxbox hard to code for?"

If you wanted to program for a window manager like Fluxbox, you would start by writing X11 calls for your gui (or using a package like gtk or qt).

If you were talking about modding the source: There isn't alot, so I wouldn't think it would be too bad to modify, but not actually seeing it I can't tell you with a straight answer.

And if it makes you feel better, I'm running (err was, I think the harddrive died) fluxbox on a p2 300, with 96 megs of ram and had no problems whatsoever. In fact, I used my default setup (20 desktops, with ~5 windows per desktop) and it was chugging along surprisingly well. Compiling scilab wasn't a smart move though, I think it took a week and a half.

-brad

I have fbsd using windowmaker on a Pentium ONE! yes just a Pentium and only 96RAM and it is kinda slow but it's useable.

I was using FVWM but it's not as good looking or easy to use but on the plus side it ran pretty fast. I'd prefer to use KDE like my linux but Pentium 1 96ram can't handle it ^_^'

So, a PIII/256MB RAM could probably run any of them really well.

But if it's just a server though why do you need a GUI at all? or couldn't you just use bare X or something?

Quote: Original post by cppgirl
I have fbsd using windowmaker on a Pentium ONE! yes just a Pentium and only 96RAM and it is kinda slow but it's useable.

I was using FVWM but it's not as good looking or easy to use but on the plus side it ran pretty fast. I'd prefer to use KDE like my linux but Pentium 1 96ram can't handle it ^_^'

So, a PIII/256MB RAM could probably run any of them really well.

But if it's just a server though why do you need a GUI at all? or couldn't you just use bare X or something?

Because bare X is extremely ugly :D

One step up from Bare X would be WM2 if you want a usable window manager and arent afraid of xterm windows this is the fella to use, I am running it on a Jornada 690 (32meg of ram) handheld with NetBSD, leaves a good 16meg of ram free too :D

FVWM is extremely customizable, so I'd say it *can* look as good as, say, Fluxbox. Take a look at some of the examples on their site.

It also runs on literally everything. No problems on my laptop with 64mb memory and 200mhz cpu, for example.

It is generally considered *the* windowing system for slow/low-memory systems.

But of course, with all the customizability, it's not the easiest to configuure...

[edit:] Fixed a few typos

[Edited by - Spoonbender on September 14, 2005 3:52:07 PM]