Favorite Linux Desktop?

[Moderator BobC]

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736, My googling skills just aren’t up to par. You found about 10 times more than I did. I see you looked at the same source code I did, though. I was thinking about something much, much simpler. Simple things are a lot nicer to maintain long term. I installed the experimental package and found some more things that I didn’t know existed.

Dave’s add-key does make more sense to me, and is along the lines of what I would think reasonable, but I need a lot more learning on the language to understand it enough to be able to tweak it, I think a good chunk of the problem is that the keys for internal commands are defined in preferences, and the others in keys, and its the combination of the two that you want to know or be able to change. The add-key is only working with the keys ones, and the syntax for the ones in preferences is quite different.

Maybe what I’m looking for just isn’t worth the grief, in terms of providing a keyboard map list or screen or hints to make them easy to remember. I ended up turning off most of the ones in keys because I didn’t use them enough, mostly because I don’t remember what one does what when I go to use them.

[Anonymous]

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Here is a solution. I tested generating the output file, and the root-tail display
(root-tail draws on root window, uses a transparent background)
I did not test the “suggested” conky implementation.

#! /usr/bin/env python
### Suggested usage: display the legend on the (root window) desktop,
### by installing debian pkg “root-tail” and adding a line within session autostart file:
### root-tail ~/.icewm/icekeys-legend.txt
### (read the root-tail manpage! fontsize, color, x/y offset are configurable)
### -or-
### add a conky bit which monitors, and dynamically updates the legend
### ${execi watch -n 30 | cat ~/.icewm/icekeys-legend.txt | sort -r}
### (can run multiple conky instances, but each adds 20MB? session overhead)

import os

lefty = []; righty = []; maxwidleft = 0; mydescription = ”; outtext = ”

### terse statement, but it works (presuming the file exists and is readable)
dalist = [line for line in open(os.path.expanduser(‘~/.icewm/keys’), “r”).read().splitlines() if line]

for line in dalist:
line = line.strip()
pieces = line.split()
if line.startswith(‘### v— desc: ‘): ### chars0–17
”’ TO DISPLAY A FRIENDLY DESCRIPTION IN PLACE OF EXECSTRING,
THE keys FILE WOULD CONTAIN, FOR EXAMPLE:
### v— desc: decrease volume 5%
key “Alt+Ctrl+KP_Divide” amixer -c 0 set Master 5-# lower volume
”’
mydescription = ” ” + str(line)[18:]
continue

### a valid line must contain elements[0,1,2] and begin with “key”
elif line.startswith(‘key’) and line.split()[2]:
if pieces[1].startswith(‘”‘) and pieces[1].endswith(‘”‘):
lefty.append( str(pieces[1])[1:-1].replace(‘+’,’ + ‘) )
maxwidleft = max( len(str(pieces[1])) + 3, maxwidleft )
else:
continue ### malformed line, so skip

if mydescription != ”:
righty.append(mydescription)
else:
### How long is a piece of string?
skip = len(str(pieces[0])) + len(str(pieces[1])) + 1
### discard any end-of-line comments
righty.append( str(str(line[skip:]).partition(‘#’)[0]) )

mydescription = ” # reset to blank after using

for i in range(len(righty)):
myline = str(lefty).rjust(maxwidleft) + ” :” + str(righty)
outtext = outtext + myline + “\n”

f = open(os.path.expanduser(‘~/.icewm/icekeys-legend.txt’), “w”)
f.write(outtext) ### creates, or overwrites existing
f.close()

[Anonymous]

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Here is a solution. I tested generating the output file, and the root-tail display
(root-tail draws on root window, uses a transparent background)
I did not test the “suggested” conky implementation.

edit:
forum software didn’t preserve the python line indents, so posted the script to pastebin https://pastebin.com/iLUyG5Gf
paste it into a file, SaveAs (whatever, I chose “icekeyslegend.py”) and chmod +x the file.
When you run the script, it parses ~/.icewm/keys and extracts the keypress+command pairs and generates (or overwrites, if pre existing) ~/.icewm/icekeys-legend.txt

### Suggested usage: display the legend on the (root window) desktop,
### by installing debian pkg “xrootconsole” and adding a line within session autostart file:
### xrootconsole ~/.icewm/icekeys-legend.txt
### (read the xrootconsole manpage! fontsize, color, x/y offset are configurable)
### -or-
### add a conky bit which monitors, and dynamically updates the legend
### ${execi watch -n 30 | cat ~/.icewm/icekeys-legend.txt | sort -r}
### (can run multiple conky instances, but each adds 20MB? session overhead)
###
### another utility, “root-tail” is similar/equivalent to “xrootconsole”

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by anticapitalista.

[Anonymous]

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a script to generate a particular window manager specific keyboard shortcut help file based on the keys assigned in the configuration files. I guess it probably wouldn’t be as pretty as one that was hand edited and supplied with the distro, but what would be cool would be that if you decided to rearrange some keys for whatever reason, the next time the menus were updated your changes would be included in the regenerated keyboard shortcuts help file for that desktop window manager…

Attached is a solution. Tried posting CODE and BLOCKQUOTE but forum software rejected it.

I tested generating the output file, and the root-tail display
(root-tail draws on root window, uses a transparent background)
I did not test the “suggested” dynamically-updated conky implementation.

#! /usr/bin/env python
### Suggested usage: display the legend on the (root window) desktop,
### by installing debian pkg “xrootconsole” and adding a line within session autostart file:
### xrootconsole ~/.icewm/icekeys-legend.txt &
### (read the xrootconsole manpage! fontsize, color, x/y offset are configurable)
### -or-
### add a conky bit which monitors, and dynamically updates the legend
### ${execi watch -n 30 | blahblah | cat ~/.icewm/icekeys-legend.txt}
### (can run multiple conky instances, but each adds 20MB? session overhead)

TO DISPLAY A FRIENDLY DESCRIPTION IN PLACE OF EXECSTRING,
THE keys FILE WOULD BE EDITED TO CONTAIN, FOR EXAMPLE:

### v— desc: decrease volume 5%
key “Alt+Ctrl+KP_Divide” amixer -c 0 set Master 5-# lower volume

AND THE RESULT DISPLAYED FOR THAT KEYBIND WILL BE
Alt+Ctrl+KP_Divide : decrease volume 5%

edit:
xrootconsole (debian pkg “xrootconsole”) can be used instead debian pkg “root-tail”
(root-tail is mentioned in the header of the attached script)

[Anonymous]

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screenshot

[Member Jesse]

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IceWM + Rox
XFCE
i3

I prefer function over form when it comes to computing, generally. IceWM, XFCE, and i3 seem to fit the bill. Efficiency/utility.
JWM and fluxbox also fit the bill, I just prefer IceWM.

Herbsluftwm intrigues me, but I just can’t seem to wrap my head around using it. I’ve read the documentation, it just doesn’t “click” for some reason.

rainydayshirts.bandcamp.com | Audio
rainydayshirts.deviantart.com | Visual

[Moderator BobC]

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736,

That’s very cool. And nice of you to post it. I will go play with it. I haven’t seen xrootconsole before. I have a “Star Wars Trailer” Xscreensaver that plays text from a source, perhaps I can turn the hot keys list into text for the screen saver to play like the Star Wars prologue and credits.

PS: when I looked before I only saw the last post with the picture of the box, and not the posts before it. Thanks Again 🙂

I found a man page for it and looks easy…

starwars(6x)                  XScreenSaver manual                 starwars(6x)

NAME
       starwars - draws a perspective text crawl, like at the beginning of the
       movie

SYNOPSIS
       starwars [-display host:display.screen] [-window] [-root] [-visual vis‐
       ual]  [-delay  microseconds] [-program command] [-size integer ] [-col‐
       umns integer] [-wrap | -no-wrap] [-left |  -center  |  -right]  [-lines
       integer]  [-spin  float]  [-steps  integer] [-delay usecs] [-font xlfd]
       [-no-textures] [-no-smooth] [-no-thick] [-fps]

DESCRIPTION
       The starwars program runs another program to generate a stream of text,
       then  animates  that text receeding into the background at an angle, in
       front of a star field.

OPTIONS
       starwars accepts the following options:

       -window Draw on a newly-created window.  This is the default.

       -root   Draw on the root window.

       -install
               Install a private colormap for the window.

       -visual visual
               Specify which visual to use.  Legal values are the  name  of  a
               visual  class,  or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific
               visual.

       -program sh-command
               The command to run to  generate  the  text  to  display.   This
               option  may  be  any string acceptable to /bin/sh.  The program
               will be run at the end of a pipe, and any  characters  that  it
               prints  to  stdout  will be printed on the starwars window.  If
               the program exits, it will be launched again after we have pro‐
               cessed all the text it produced.

               Note  that  starwars  is not a terminal emulator: programs that
               try to directly address the screen will not do what  you  might
               expect.  This program merely draws the characters on the screen
               left to right, top to bottom, in perspective.  Lines (may) wrap
               when they reach the right edge.

               In  other  words,  programs like fortune(1) will work, but pro‐
               grams like top(1) won't.

               Some examples:
               starwars -program 'cat /usr/src/linux*/README'
               starwars -columns 30 -program 'ping www.starwars.com'
               starwars -left -no-wrap -program 'ps -auxwwf'
               starwars -left -no-wrap -columns 45 -program 'top -bn1'
               starwars -left -columns 40 -program 'od -txC /dev/urandom'
               starwars -font fixed -program 'od -txC /dev/urandom'

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by BobC.

[Member pbxxx]

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I usually use XFCE, having used it on Linux Mint and MX Linux (and while distro hopping) in the last year or so. Now I am new to antiX and really like it a lot. But I don’t quite like the WMs it has, though fluxbox (without panel) seems the nicest to me. I am experimenting with Openbox atm, because I find it quite a pleasing WM.

[Member azrielle]

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Definitely going against the grain here, but having tried the non-tiling WMs in AntiX, I prefer SpaceFM-JWM, followed by SpaceFM-Fluxbox. Normally I gravitate towards Xfce or Openbox, depending on the distro. Though Ubuntu Mate’s new brisk menu system is also quite nice, and fairly resource-lean.

Lenovo T430 i5/3220M 8GB 14.1" MX17.1/AntiX 17.1 Fluxbox/Win7SP1 180GB SSD+128GB mSATA
Lenovo X230 i7/3520M 12GB 12.5" MX17.1/Win7SP1 500GB SSD
Lenovo X131e i3/3227u 8GB 11.6" MX17.1/AntiX 17.1 Fluxbox/Win7SP1 500GB SSD

[Member TonyVanDam]

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With antix, I like JWM. With other Debian-based distros, I like xfce, lxde, & lxqt.

[Member Garyfr]

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Can anyone tell me how I can add MATE to my DE instead of all the Fluxbox related DEs I Installed MATE via the terminal but cant access it can anyone help

[Moderator BobC]

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There are videos how to do that in 4 parts I think. Here is the link to part I. Maybe that will have the clues.

[Moderator caprea]

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If you install it with the Package-installer (not synaptic) from menu-systemtools , it should show up immediately in the menu under Desktop-Alternative desktops.

[Moderator BobC]

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Caprea,

What a neat find! How did you know about that? I see 2 different XFCE versions there, as well as LXDE, 3 KDE 5 versions, and 2 Cinnamon versions. People ask about those all the time. For example, wouldn’t LXDE be an Openbox based setup?

Now, a question for the Devs… I saw the Lumina desktop was added to the Repos. What would it take to get it added to the Package Installer, also?

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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BobC wrote:

Caprea,

What a neat find! How did you know about that? I see 2 different XFCE versions there, as well as LXDE, 3 KDE 5 versions, and 2 Cinnamon versions. People ask about those all the time. For example, wouldn’t LXDE be an Openbox based setup?

Now, a question for the Devs… I saw the Lumina desktop was added to the Repos. What would it take to get it added to the Package Installer, also?

As far as I am aware, no-one has tried out our lumina package. I can add it to package installer once I know it works as it should

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

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