Need lightweight multi-monitor keyboard oriented environment

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

Hi,

I have a minimal Gentoo hardened setup with a first-gen i7 on it, this is primarily a KVM host but I'm going to try to add workstation functionality to it. I need a window manager (not necessarily a desktop environment) which has support for multiple monitors and keyboard shortcuts for just about everything. It's been awhile for me, so I'd like recommendations for what you know works well on a current non-systemd setup for my scenario, or parts of it you know about.

What I DO NOT want:

Gnome.
KDE.
Lots of widgets and dashboards.
Lots of (any?) screen effects.
Anything that sucks up a lot of CPU or memory that I want for something else, unless I explicitly start it myself.

I was going to install xfce but I noticed it wants to pull in gtk+, I don't really like that. I don't want to have that whole mess shoved onto my system without my consent.

If I had a few days to play with a config file and if I knew it handled multiple monitors nicely I'd install FVWM or maybe fvwm-crystal with some of the changes that have been posted about that some time back. This is a serious option if anyone knows about multi-monitor support or where I can get example configs, I know for certain that the FVWM I used more than a decade ago would work fine other than the unknowns about modern software and multiple monitors. At one point I had it tuned to exactly what I wanted at the time.

I'd like to hear about some more modern options first just because they'll probably have more support.

I installed i3 once on a lark, it seemed OK but had to do real work before I got used to it so I uninstalled. This could still be an option, I don't know if it supports multiple monitors though.

Here's what features matter to me:

Amd64
Good keyboard shortcuts for most functionality, including setting my own shortcuts for launching apps and that sort of thing.
Good ability to zoom to full screen and back (1 monitor or both, or possibly even more than two monitors, would be nice if there were separate hotkeys for different types of zoom)
Ability to move a window from monitor to monitor, again would be great if that could be a keyboard shortcut.
Ability to start an app using -geometry option even if the app doesn't support it directly.
Multiple 'desktops' so you can switch between groups of apps.
Ability to have an app default to a certain desktop and/or monitor.
Good ability to tile apps on a workspace, and zoom whatever one I want when I want.
Ability to make it pretty minimal, getting rid of features I don't want and keeping the ones I want.

Apps/features I would like to have without getting into gnome/kde projects:

An extremely good terminal. I live there.
Firefox. Sorry, it's literally a requirement by name for my work. I'll use other html5 capable browsers too, with and without javascript support.
A really good file browser, again hopefully with good keyboard support.
A good video player, possibly a firefox plugin or plugins.
Skype and join.me and Webex, all with audio/video/desktop sharing would be great, but I think I'm SOL there.
Support for sublime text 2, but I think that's not a big problem.
A good sound control panel and mixer without the need for pulseaudio.
Good task manager/cpu load/network load/etc style app or apps.

Thanks.

tclover · Guru Joined: 10 Apr 2011 Posts: 516

Heh... you seem to know what you want and what you don't! This is a good thing to begin with.

So, if you don't mind having dbus... you may try Enlightenment, udev is optional here (--although you may need it for device hotplug.) systemD is strictly not needed here... well just stick to <=EFL/ELM-1.11+E18 because EFL-1.12+/E19+ is being developed for Wayland; and this require logind, hence systemD. But this should not be a worry because... it's not that stable anyway.

WTF EFL/E? Well, it's a modern & eyecandy & lightweight (D)E. Multi virtual desktop if fully supported... like 4x4 (16 virtual desktop is easy to work) with full of options & keybinding. Tiling is even an option here. E, will let you do what you want while offering a modern & eyecandy feel.

There is a gtk port of E default dark theme... so you might pull in a few gtk+ apps... it will also work with qt-4.x.

Your taste is rather classic? Maybe it's not for you then.

NOTE: Don't rely on E FM, just pull in PCMandFM or SpaceFM instead or whatever you like. There is a lightweight image viewer, although I would recommend a lightweight gtk+ variant. There is a MPD module... (and an app in alpha developpement) in order to control MPD easily...

Check two screen shots here http://opendesktop.org/content/show.php?content=156023 (for E+gtk+ apps.)
_________________
home/:mkinitramfs-ll/:supervision/:e-gtk-theme/:overlay/

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

The idea is to avoid a lot of clutter.

I used Enlightenment on...can't really remember what distro a few years back. It was the heaviest thing out there at the time. I don't think this is on my short list.

Thanks.

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

With your requirements, why do you need an 'environment' ? You need a window manager and appropriate applications. Which may, in turn, require some graphics libraries.

khayyam

Roman_Gruber · Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 5:01 pm Post subject:

I went from Kde 3 ==> gnome 2 => ... )> i3wm

I3wm is the smallest thing i found so far. You need to change your behaviour but it benefits at the end as there is no fuzzy thing around.

kde has qt
gnome / lxde has gtk
others use one or the other usually.

Although i use i3wm i have both gtk+ / qt installed here because of k3b, nemo file manager ...

You may decide which apps you need first and than figure out what desktop you need.

You can also set up something from scratch but I doubt you will get much funcitonality without qt / gtk+ these days. As said it depends on your work case.

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

It's been a really long time since I messed with a gui on Gentoo. 'What I use now' is tmux.

I suspect I'll get along with i3. It was one of the few options before I started this thread, I just wanted to hear what else might be out there that people are enthusiastic about.

Still interested in hearing other options.

Thanks everyone.

initman · n00b Joined: 22 Jan 2015 Posts: 4

What you have described is Xmonad, right down to the last line.

xmonad.org

schorsch_76 · Guru Joined: 19 Jun 2012 Posts: 450

i3 supports multiple monitors without any trouble. Your requirements seems to be exactly fullfilled with i3.

I use it since over a year and i would not give it away anymore.

schorsch_76 · Guru Joined: 19 Jun 2012 Posts: 450

Just for your information: I added a few shortcuts which simpified my life.

Roman_Gruber · Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 9:54 pm Post subject:

you may find this useful

I added some basic features which i missed from my old gnome 2.0 days.

I stick to google-chrome, nemo as file manger, k3b is rarely used to burn discs.

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

I might find that useful.

It seems I need to recompile my kernel (it's been a long time anyway) and get support for my video card. I try to start i3 and it can't find any displays.

I had/have a pretty minimal kernel, gotta add stuff in anyway for the new setup. For example I just got a new c2758 board and it uses IPMI, and can boot off the network but only from a Windows share. Who knew? So I gotta enable that, and a video card, and all that stuff.

Been putting it off for way too long anyway.

I've installed i3 and will try out Xmonad too, I've never heard of it before.

Thanks, still watching and listening.

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

I've been using E17 for a few years, it does most of what you want.

Not sure about multiple desktops (KDE and Compiz seem to have that kind of setup, but this only has a flat 2D grid of workspaces). I use tiling all the time even though it has its bugs (maybe they fixed it in E18/19). The ability to have workspace switching independently per-monitor is something I can't live without.

As for minimal, this is the WM that took over 10 years to release because they were constantly rewriting to reduce its resource usage...

Can't really recommend things for apps, but I use urxvt, mpv, and command line tools for most of the rest.

tclover · Guru Joined: 10 Apr 2011 Posts: 516

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

Terminology is laughable. I tried it for a day, uninstalled it because my laptop's fans wouldn't spin down.

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

I'm not against new technology, but I'm definitely against feature creep where no feature was missing.

The point of this whole box (and thus my window manager install) is to get work done without a lot of drama.

My impression of E is years old, but when I used it it was so crammed full of bells and whistles that I'm really not all that interested.

I'm mostly trying to get rid of a mouse here. I obviously need one for apps like firefox but in terms of moving and resizing windows I definitely like the i3 demos out there.

My project is going much slower than I'd like it to, I still haven't gotten around to compiling video card drivers into my kernel. I have i3 installed but without the driver it won't start for lack of screens detected.

Thanks again.

khayyam · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:28 pm Post subject:

mreff555

Dr.Willy · Guru Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 547 Location: NRW, Germany