Shortlist for 4.2

Very tentative, but it is good to have some longer-range goals:

UPDATE JULY 1: number 4 added
1. Upgrade GTK libs.
2. Upgrade Xorg from 7.3 to 7.4 (7.4 is due to be released very soon).
3. Openbox/Lxpanel instead of JWM?

---

Comments

Openbox


shortlist
Username: nfisher
"I like the idea of changing to openbox+lxpanel (obviously, since I did the same myseeelf last year). It requires a bit of work with tray apps though, since there is no "swallow" feature and it has been used extensively by Puppy. Gtk+ tray apps can be compiled using the "eggtray" patch. I'd be careful about doing the gtk+ upgrade, because it creates a situation where apps compiled for 4.2 may not run in 4.1. Not saying don't do it, just to think it over.

Any Votes for XFCE?
Username: nic2109
"The details are beyond me, but many in the Forum are singing the praises of XFCE as a WM. Is it a contender?

WM choises
Username: butz0r
"XFCE takes too long to start up and uses its own libraries. Openbox and LXPanel might be not as fast as JWM, but this might be better, because LXPanel uses GTK libraries. PCManFM might be a good candidate for default file manager too, it is simpler for casual user, but not as fast as ROX on older systems. And what about FVWM? Haven't used it myself, but from screenshots it looks like very customizable. Also, it is worth to mention Equinox Desktop Environment (EDE). The latest version is not freedesktop.org standards friendly and it uses FLTK toolkit, but it is fast to start, and it includes WM, desktop icons, panel and even some graphical configuration tools in one package. Authors are already working on version 2.0.

JWM
Username: Dougal
"While I like Openbox and LxPanel, I find having the different app-menus from both looking a little awkward (not to mention Openbox not supporting icons in the menu), which can only be solved by using only the panel app-menu, leaving the Openbox menu for WM-related things (like in Windows). Using the LxPanel menu will also probably require making sure the xdg system in Puppy conforms with the freedesktop.org standards, or it will look a mess. I say stick with JWM and rxvt (like Donald Knuth!).

window manager
Username: prehistoric1
"My vote is for Openbox+lxpanel. I'm not convinced the difference in speed apparent with some distributions is fundamental. Too many just replace the WM and rely on the same combination of applications and libraries as others, dragging the bloat along. Looking around at the variety of systems using this makes it abundantly clear this combination is flexible. Equinox is a whole different line of development, for those willing to use eFLTK for everything. If you have to include GTK anyway, for essential applications, FLTK becomes overhead. Openbox is the best compromise at this time.

Xfce
Username: prehistoric1
"I have a great liking for Xfce, but most distros simply use it to call applications using nearly all the Gnome or KDE libraries. The result is slow and bloated. Another problem comes from the opendesktop.org standard, which tends to follow Windoze. Renaming the Start menu scarcely counts as innovation. While I like the idea of having a standard place to find applications when they are first installed, I've found a lot of user interface problems, at both ends of the age range, stem from the difficulty in finding and selecting what you want from a single huge pile. Reading application/submenu names is a problem for some and having the screen location of a selection change when unrelated things are installed creates difficulties most of us don't even remember surmounting. We are used to dealing with abstractions and arbitrary labels. A lot of other people have an extremely concrete view of things. People naturally associate locations with motor skills, categories and activities. (Think of an old-fashioned desk or secretary with wooden pigeonholes.) Xfce supports this when you place most commonly used applications on the panel and keep applications in the same class on a pop-up menu using that application as if it were a label for the submenu. The ease of creating custom layouts in Xfce, without programming or editing configuration files, makes this straightforward. The catch comes when the desktop standard prevents you from customizing your menu. If you're going to do everything with cascading menus and edited configuration files, you might as well use fluxbox.

GTK2
Username: Dougal
"Am I missing something? Openbox uses Openbox themes, just like JWM uses JWM themes. As far as I know, LxPanel is xlib-based, just like JWM.

disciple
Username: ngapawa
"True?! Openbox isn't GTK?! I wonder what makes it seem so slow then....

"Linux 2.6.26-rc9"
Username: GreatnessGuru
""Linux 2.6.26-rc9" http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0807.0/2147.html From: Linus Torvalds Date: Sat Jul 05 2008 - 19:16:15 EST "... Enough changes that we needed another -rc, and the regression list isn't emptying fast enough ... Linus" The Linux Kernel Archives http://www.kernel.org/ "The latest prepatch for the stable Linux kernel tree is: 2.6.26-rc9 2008-07-06 00:25 UTC" "tags 3 hours ago v2.6.26-rc9 11 days ago v2.6.26-rc8 2 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc7 3 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc6 4 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc5 5 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc4 6 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc3 7 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc2 2 months ago v2.6.26-rc1 2 months ago v2.6.25" ###, Eddie Maddox

Menu Improvements
Username: dogone
"While I very much appreciate Puppy's two-tier menu system, there's room for improvement. The current menu is a bit much for new Puppy users. It assumes familiarity with applet names and things tend to get lost in all the "P..."'s. Finding things by function is difficult, for example. I suggest that whatever the user types after opening the menu return matching apps and tasks. Type "burn" or "pb" and "Pburn" appears. Something similar could be added to the Run Command applet (like tab completion and lookup in rxvt but to include tasks). Either or both would be a help new and seasoned Puppy users and for those of us raised on the command line.

Re: PPLOG
Username: BarryK
"disciple, The author of PPLOG sent me an email that he has started work on the next version of PPLOG, so if you want to suggest anything, go to his website (there's a link on the left of this page). He has an email address there I think.

wm
Username: magerlab
"i think that jwm is a very good window manager and it's underestimated in it's abilities! the only problem is gxine and mplayer's full screen playing. but in other things it works fine i really enjoy tha way it can be customized( i have two panels like in xfce and that gray theme from dingo looks good look at this page: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=23260&start=75

Linux kernel 2.6.26
Username: GreatnessGuru
"The Linux Kernel Archives http://www.kernel.org/ "The latest stable version of the Linux kernel is: 2.6.26 2008-07-13 22:44 UTC" "tags 2 hours ago v2.6.26 8 days ago v2.6.26-rc9 2 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc8 3 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc7 4 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc6 5 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc5 6 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc4 8 weeks ago v2.6.26-rc3 2 months ago v2.6.26-rc2 2 months ago v2.6.26-rc1 2 months ago v2.6.25" Eddie Maddox

Tags: puppy