KDE/Gnome free desktop?

TripKnot · Apprentice Joined: 29 May 2002 Posts: 213

Basically I'm trying to build a gentoo system that has no or a few as possible gnome/kde libs, just a simple lightweight system. I've got -kde -gnome in my USE. I'm using fluxbox for the WM but there are a few apps left that I havent been able to find good replacements for. This is for an older Athlon500 w/ 256MB ram.

Suggestions are welcome.

OFFICE APPS
I don't really need a full suite like OpenOffice provides and obviously Koffice is out. I like Abiword, gnumeric and gnucash. Unfortunately the later two use gnome heavily. I'm not totally opposed to OpenOffice for the editor and spreadsheet though, if thats all there is. How about a financial app?

BROWSER
Mozilla is a total pig, using 150+MB with like 8 processes for one window that takes 10s to open. Besides, I found mozilla/galeon very flaky when used with gcc-2.95/gentoo1.2. It was unusable. I don't want to have to clutter my HD with it again if its still flaky. What are peoples experiences (pros/cons) with amaya and opera? I would be willing to try a mozilla based browser again if someone can say that galeon, phoenix, or skipstone are lighter weight and less buggy. Until then, its links from the console,

CDR
I'll admit I don't have much experience with cdr soft. Xcdroast is the only thing I've used so far. I would like to have a gui. Any thoughts on simplecdrx, gcombust or others?

FILE MANAGER
I've already settled on Endeavour and Gentoo out of the sea of FMs out there. But another notable was rox. There are some very good threads here discussing these FMs.

MP3/OGG RIPPER
I only tried the KDE audio io slave for this, I'm a complete noob at ripping tracks in linux. Its always been easier to just use CDex in windows.

I would appreciate peoples thoughts on this. I've searched for threads similar to what I'm seeking. I'm sure they are out there, I just can't find them. Also any other apps people have found usefull would be welcome.

[smeagol] · Apprentice Joined: 24 Oct 2002 Posts: 152

Opera 6.03 was relatively fast for me on gentoo 1.2, not sure about ram usage as I had enough ram and swap to go around.

konqueror is pretty fast...IF you run it inside kde.
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In God We Trust, All Others We monitor.

dufnutz · Apprentice Joined: 01 May 2002 Posts: 209

TripKnot · Apprentice Joined: 29 May 2002 Posts: 213

Thanks for the suggestions. I had been looking into phoenix before but was running into libstdc++something errors. Same thing again this time but found the lib-compat fix. I am quite pleased with phoenix now. But it still has 5 threads and uses 43MB. It'll have to do.

Grip is nice, will suite my needs fine, and so will drip for dvd->divx. Also Spruce for email.

I'm still going to stick with xcdroast, and I'm also going to eat half of gnome with gnumeric and gnucash. OpenOffice is a pig as well and way to slow (at least to startup) for me, christ its unbearable! I don't understand how people can deal with that.

Since I have to take half of gnome I've given up on my little project. Oh well, at least I found some good alternatives to the KDE apps I was dependent on. Not a total loss.