How to Turn an Older Tablet Notebook Into a Functional Machine: Part 3 Choosing a Window Manager or Desktop

This is part 3 in a series about making some solid use of an older tablet laptop. In part 1 we talked about performing an install over the network and in part 2 we went over configuring wireless and installing some basic packages with a few command line tips for good measure. Now we're going to discuss choosing a window manager or desktop for the system.

Many people will never need a desktop environment. Actually the laptop used for this test went without one for some time after it was setup because I simply had no need to use one. However, as luck would have it some of the programs I wanted to use had to run in x. They were all either IDEs or document viewers for viewing pdf and ps files and there were very few of them. Since only a few programs needed x to run and the laptop isn't exactly top spec I saw no need to go for one of the larger desktop environments like Gnome or KDE. Even Xfce, I decided, was too much when all I wanted to do was run some nicely featured coding environments and view pdf files. The choice was made to use a window manager instead.

A window manager is kind of like a desktop but far more rudimentary. Many of them are still quite capable of looking nice and performing all the tasks you could possibly need them too. They are as a rule harder to configure then the major desktops but more extensible. They are also generally faster and consume less resources, in terms of both memory and storage space.

Choosing a window manager is a very personal choice. Go with whatever works for you and suits your needs. I tried quite a few before I settled on one to use and you probably will too. Check out xwinman.org for a nice site with information and links to various window manager and desktop sites.

The first window manager I tried (from here on noted as simply wm) was Enlightenment. I chose it because I had heard of it. That was my own motivation for using that as a starting point. Suffice to say I did not enjoy it. At all. It did what I needed it to do, I just didn't like the feel.

The next one I tried was Fluxbox. I should mention here that I started with the version from the repository first. Only if I liked it did I then get the most recent version and configure anything. The version of Fluxbox I got from the repository was useless. Literally. Without configuration I was left with a blank blue screen and a task bar with a clock. No key binding, no way to access programs or a terminal, no nothing. I only wanted a wm so I could run the five programs I had that required one. I wasn't looking to spend a ton of time setting up my wm when I was barely going to use it. Fluxbox was off the list.

The third one I tried was Fvwm-Crystal. Here we had a nice little system going on. I decided I liked it enough to download the newest version and patch it and was left with a nice looking functional desktop. It was already set up with a decent configuration and was easy to edit further. This one got to stay on the list but I wasn't done trying things.

The last one I tried was IceWM. The version from the repository was decent enough so I installed the latest over it. Bingo. I was hooked. Configuration was not as simple as for Fvwm-Crystal but it was still quite easy. Notably the key bindings. A simple configuration file allowed me to set a key binding for everything I wanted to use. No need to navigate or even setup the menus. A Ctrl-alt-e and I launch Eclipse. A Ctrl-t and I get a terminal. Ctrl-alt-h launches dhelp to provide me documentation. This was the one. I even took the few minutes to give it a nice looking theme (blue heart) and a decent background image (using habak). I also set up a pair of terminals that stick to the desktop and are completely transparent to let me monitor the system with 'top' or launch any other program I may need without having yet another window on the screen. All said and done IceWM only occupies 3.4% of my memory and .8% of my cpu at the most. Which leaves things running plenty fast.

Fvwm-Crystal would have been a viable option for me as well. I simply found IceWM to be more to my liking. In terms of technical merits I found them to be roughly even. It was mere preference that led to the final decision.

Making sure that your wm launches when you startx is easy enough. Create a file called .xinitd in your home directory and using your favorite editor add the following.

exec icewm

Or whatever the command is for your wm of choice. It is commonly the wm's name but it may be something else so be sure to reference the documentation that came with it. For instance for Fluxbox the command is 'startfluxbox'. Either way be sure that the first word is exec. That's all you need to do.

Now when you boot your computer you will still be dealing with the command line but you can pop open the wm at any time to use those gtk and qt programs you love so much. Many of these wms are highly customizable and will allow you to build more extensive menus in the event that you want to use a desktop more often then not.

And there you have it. We started with a four year old tablet pc that had no operating system, no bootable media, and not much in the way of performance available and gave it a new life as a mobile development platform. Of course it could be used for many other purposes as well. Including just a regular old laptop, but turning it into this was more fun and taught me a lot along the way. Notably in the way of dealing with problems unique to laptops like battery power and unusual hardware.

We've covered network installation, configuring wireless, some basic packages to install, a few command line tips, and choosing a window manager that runs well on the resources available. I hope you took at least as much from this experiment as I did. Soon to come will be a wireless installation attempt and some tips and tricks on configuring IceWM. Until then.