Question: Speed comparisson Ion window manager...

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Serum · Post by **Serum** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:21 pm

How well does Ion2 perform against other WMs like fluxbox, pekwm, fvwm,...
Does it perform faster use less resources and leave a small footprint?
I was thinking of using it instead of fluxbox as it looks to be pretty functional.
In any case performance is pretty high on my list.

I would think it performs(speedwise) a lot better then the others, as it hasn't got the "bling bling" the other WMs have.
If anyone has any info please tell. Or if you know of another WM that would suit my needs better please tell...

nighty · Post by **nighty** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 8:46 pm

since ion doesnt use window decorations it should be generally faster.
however when you compare speed with *boxes the improvement should be minimal. i at least, care for some basic eye pleasing look with wms.
i think ur prime comparison should be features. ion is different so some like it and some dont, it sure is more ugly than fluxbox

what i suggest is try it..with gentoo its an emerge away so thats the best way to know even if it is faster if u dont feel good working with it youll just leave it.

if you like wms like ion i have heard of a new wm which is called wmi (window manager improved) it takes the best of all the minimal window managers (therefore it pretty much imitates everything ion has but lua scripting). it intends to be the vim of window managers and has input and interactive modes like vim. however it is ugly as well

unfortunately no ebuild exists last time i checked but it shouldnt be a problem writing one.
its address is
http://www.wm-i.org/

and if you want a window manager that is simple has good speed and is relatively simple to configure and offers decent look..look no further than good old icewm.

hope this helps

Qubax · Post by **Qubax** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 9:18 pm

ebuild is in portage, but masked: x11-wm/wmi

placeholder · Post by **placeholder** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 9:22 pm

To me ion looks a lot like TWM which really didn't seem any faster than Fluxbox, just ugly (I say ugly because Fluxbox looks awesome at least IMO

). I might try it out and see if it's any faster sometime, but I'm not too motivated to do that at the moment and might not be for a while. lol

nrl · Post by **nrl** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 9:32 pm

When choosing a window manager I think usability should be your top priority. I have no doubt ion will be faster than fluxbox considering it's a minimal window manager whereas fluxbox seems to have added many features to blackbox, having said that though I doubt there would be any noticable difference even on relatively old hardware.

My recommendation would be go with what you feel most comfortable with -- there are probably more speed gains to be had by using your WM well than there are to be had by using a WM that runs faster.

Serum · Post by **Serum** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 12:29 am

Hah, it seems like a lot of people find WMs like Ion and RatPoison ugly. I guess you probably hit the nail on the head, it is uglier then FluxBox for example. But i think it's like most things.. you just have to get used to it.

rhadar thanks for the link to wmi, i'll check it out. I haven't heard of it before.
nrl yeah i think that's good reasoning. But if you can combine the two, it would be even more efficient. In any case I'll keep that in mind.

I think i'll try out Ion and WMI and see if it's anything for me. Maybe Pwnz3r will like it too, hey you never know. At first no one liked Punk rock...

nrl · Post by **nrl** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 1:21 am

rhadar wrote: if you like wms like ion i have heard of a new wm which is called wmi (window manager improved) it takes the best of all the minimal window managers (therefore it pretty much imitates everything ion has but lua scripting). it intends to be the vim of window managers and has input and interactive modes like vim. however it is ugly as well
unfortunately no ebuild exists last time i checked but it shouldnt be a problem writing one.
its address is
http://www.wm-i.org/

I had heard of wmi before but you post has prompted me to give it a go. So I dutifully edit my ~/.xinitrc and head off into the world of wmi.

First impression is, how the fuck do I quit!?

This brings back fond memories of the first time I tried vim -- I LIKE IT!

nighty · Post by **nighty** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 3:28 pm

lol, well your reaction reminds me of the first time i ran ed..having forgot to compile vtts support to the kernel at that time it actually made me hard reset the machine

.

anyway if you want to understand the basics of wmi check the getting started tutorial on the left frame of its homepage.

nrl · Post by **nrl** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 3:50 pm

rhadar wrote:anyway if you want to understand the basics of wmi check the getting started tutorial on the left frame of its homepage.

Way ahead of you there, I already have a printout sitting next to me on my desk.

It seems pretty cool -- I think I'll make an effore to learn it because I'm so sick of every other window manager out there. I mean is it just me or do all window managers suck?

orochi · Post by **orochi** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 3:59 pm

ion looks ugly?

I rather like how it looks. having all my programs neatly, and automatically tiled with no waste of space just feels clean to me

heres a screen shot
http://www.deviantart.com/view/2772169/

nrl · Post by **nrl** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 4:03 pm

orochi wrote:ion looks ugly?

I rather like how it looks. having all my programs neatly, and automatically tiled with no waste of space just feels clean to me

heres a screen shot
http://www.deviantart.com/view/2772169/

Is that "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono" you're using as the terminal font?

Yea and I agree it looks pretty sweet but I personally think fluxbox and these ultra-customized fvwm screenshots are ugly.
Transparency sucks!

pandaxiongmao · Post by **pandaxiongmao** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 4:26 pm

orochi wrote:ion looks ugly?

I rather like how it looks. having all my programs neatly, and automatically tiled with no waste of space just feels clean to me

heres a screen shot
http://www.deviantart.com/view/2772169/

What X11 terminal did you use on that screenshot?

nighty · Post by **nighty** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:03 pm

well i have to say that screenshot is indeed pretty clean neat or whatever you wanna call it however i cant say it looks good or awsome. to me it looks clean and functional which some may find adquate.
although its not really pretty and i think that when you are handling a wm that is minimalistic although being evilly minimalistic you should have some options to include some basic decorations in compile time. after all *boxes and lets say kahakai or ice are far from being kde and gnome in terms of 'slow'

plbe · Post by **plbe** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 8:44 pm

Why even bother with X ?

neenee · Post by **neenee** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 9:11 pm

orochi wrote:ion looks ugly?

I rather like how it looks. having all my programs neatly, and automatically tiled with no waste of space just feels clean to me

heres a screen shot
http://www.deviantart.com/view/2772169/

i agree - especially the lack of wasted space is a pro.

oh, and that you don't have to move windows around anymore.

hmm.. would you mind sharing your xterm setup (Xdefaults i reckon)?

and would you mind sharing your irssi theme as well?

Serum · Post by **Serum** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 9:26 pm

drownd wrote:Why even bother with X ?

What are you using? The plain console or with framebuffer?
I don't think you can go more minimalistic then that, but you can't go more fugly either.

My opinion of course and you've got the right to remain old school.

orochi wrote:heres a screen shot
http://www.deviantart.com/view/2772169/

You're right that does look smooth!

Well, I've tried WMI and I have to say it's fun working with it. I've mastered the basic keys and I think if you really get the hang of it, you'll get more work done. One of the charms is of course that it's different and not the old window manager routine. I like it so far, but I'll have to wait and see if I'll stick with it.

At the moment I've been trying to get a bitmap to load as my wallpaper, but xsetroot just plain doesn't want to do it.
nrl if you have some free time and if you want, can you check if you can get it to work? Thanks.

plbe · Post by **plbe** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 9:34 pm

Serum wrote:
drownd wrote:Why even bother with X ?
What are you using? The plain console or with framebuffer?
I don't think you can go more minimalistic then that, but you can't go more fugly either.
My opinion of course and you've got the right to remain old school.
.

I didn't say I was using it

I'm actually compiling gnome 2.6.1 at the moment, I was just saying if your looking for minimal just ditch X all together if your worried about a speed difference compared to the *boxes

nrl · Post by **nrl** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 9:35 pm

Serum wrote:At the moment I've been trying to get a bitmap to load as my wallpaper, but xsetroot just plain doesn't want to do it.
nrl if you have some free time and if you want, can you check if you can get it to work? Thanks.

I've never tried a bitmap, why not just convert it to a jpeg or PNG file with the gimp or whatever. Oh and isn't the correct program xsetbg rather than xsetroot; I though xsetroot was just if you wanted a simple colour as your background. Anyway I usually use Esetroot to set the background, it comes with Eterm.

Oh BTW have you discovered "wmiremote -t" yet, it lets you set that text down the bottome right to whatever you want. I use a script that runs every 5 seconds and sets it to a clock and the status of my mailbox.

Serum · Post by **Serum** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 10:13 pm

drownd wrote:I didn't say I was using it I'm actually compiling gnome 2.6.1 at the moment, I was just saying if your looking for minimal just ditch X all together if your worried about a speed difference compared to the *boxes

Well, I wanted to increase my productivity not just the speed and resource usage of the WM. I allready did some reading on Ion as it seemed to be what i was looking for, but I didn't get one thing answered and that was the speed of it.
It's probably a macho kind of thing. Like haveing the fastest car or having the best hard and software...

nrl wrote:I've never tried a bitmap, why not just convert it to a jpeg or PNG file with the gimp or whatever. Oh and isn't the correct program xsetbg rather than xsetroot; I though xsetroot was just if you wanted a simple colour as your background. Anyway I usually use Esetroot to set the background, it comes with Eterm.

Oh BTW have you discovered "wmiremote -t" yet, it lets you set that text down the bottome right to whatever you want. I use a script that runs every 5 seconds and sets it to a clock and the status of my mailbox.

Ohw yeah, I must have confused the two. I did a man on xsetroot and you can use bitmaps with it and it was being used by WMI anyway.
OOoohh!! No i haven't i'll go check it out right now!

plbe · Post by **plbe** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 10:16 pm

Serum wrote:
drownd wrote:I didn't say I was using it I'm actually compiling gnome 2.6.1 at the moment, I was just saying if your looking for minimal just ditch X all together if your worried about a speed difference compared to the *boxes
Well, I wanted to increase my productivity not just the speed and resource usage of the WM. I allready did some reading on Ion as it seemed to be what i was looking for, but I didn't get one thing answered and that was the speed of it.
It's probably a macho kind of thing. Like haveing the fastest car or having the best hard and software...

nrl wrote:I've never tried a bitmap, why not just convert it to a jpeg or PNG file with the gimp or whatever. Oh and isn't the correct program xsetbg rather than xsetroot; I though xsetroot was just if you wanted a simple colour as your background. Anyway I usually use Esetroot to set the background, it comes with Eterm.

Oh BTW have you discovered "wmiremote -t" yet, it lets you set that text down the bottome right to whatever you want. I use a script that runs every 5 seconds and sets it to a clock and the status of my mailbox.
Ohw yeah, I must have confused the two. I did a man on xsetroot and you can use bitmaps with it and it was being used by WMI anyway.
OOoohh!! No i haven't i'll go check it out right now!

Well I don't think you will notice a speed difference between ion and the *boxes they are both about as minimal as you can get

Serum · Post by **Serum** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 10:31 pm

drownd wrote: Well I don't think you will notice a speed difference between ion and the *boxes they are both about as minimal as you can get

I've figured as much, that's probably why there isn't a lot of info to be found on the subject. I wonder how long it will take before you turn coat and go for the boxes. A lot of people do, wel they do in gentoo.

plbe · Post by **plbe** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 10:43 pm

Serum wrote:
drownd wrote: Well I don't think you will notice a speed difference between ion and the *boxes they are both about as minimal as you can get
I've figured as much, that's probably why there isn't a lot of info to be found on the subject. I wonder how long it will take before you turn coat and go for the boxes. A lot of people do, wel they do in gentoo.

I've used all the boxes I've been using *nix's for about 6 years now...redhat > suse > slackware > openbsd > freebsd > gentoo

I've used bb, fb, ob, kde, gnome, wmaker, fvwm and some others. I'm in the mood for a full de again...I don't really like kde though, can't quite put my finger on it but theres just something about it I don't like..also the only qt app I use is k3b everything else is gtk

slarti` · Post by **slarti`** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 11:34 pm

http://edgeoftheinterweb.org.uk/images/ion.png is what my desktop looks like.

Any configs are in http://edgeoftheinterweb.org.uk/files/

Ion looks pretty in its own way. I see too many desktops designed to look flashy rather than actually being useful.

the Ion binary is roughly 200-250K depending on the build environment, and the configs usually come to around 100K. That's about a fifth of fluxbox, and a twentieth of the default KDE startup sound. There are smaller window managers though. Evilwm does not tile, but is very efficient, and I like it lots.

nrl · Post by **nrl** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 11:57 pm

slarti] wrote:There are smaller window managers though. Evilwm does not tile, but is very efficient, and I like it lots.

What I don't like about evilwm is that (last time I used it anyway) you had to launch an xterm that you would launch other apps from and there didn't seem to be any configurability of keybindings etc.

nighty · Post by **nighty** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 7:47 am

using wmi you can launch stuff using the input mode either normally or in a terminal. i heard it also imitates evilwm. i hope it will become better with future releases.

i was also wonderring, whats the difference between ion2 and ion3. both have the same description in portage and ion3 isnt mentioned anywhere in the project site or in google.