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I'm currently installing Arch Linux on my old netbook. What desktop environment should I use? GNOME and KDE both seem way too big and unnecessarily fancy for what I want to do with my basic netbook. I just want internet, read pdfs, run emacs. no fancy stuff. That's about it. What should I use? xfce? lxde? and why?

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IceWM kind of mimics the familiar environments while being lightweight.

Have you ever tried Fluxbox?

Or for something completely different, tiling window managers such as ion3 are excellent.

And depending on how minimal you're willing to go, ratpoison is nice. Some like awesome wm.

Sorry for not posting links, I'm typing this on my mobile ... :)

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  • I'm a glutton for punishment. Ratpoison looks like it will be fun to learn.
    – Seamus
    Aug 3, 2010 at 10:02
  • OK! If ratpoison is something you consider fun, here are some other similar desktops: AmiWM (mimics AmigaOS), Waimea, fvwm, fvwm-crystal, WindowMaker (ok, it is BLOAT compared to others I just mentioned) Especially fwvm-crystal is impressive; it adds visually pleasant environment but is still quite minimalistic. Aug 3, 2010 at 10:09
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Xfce is has a good balance between features and speed. It is not as lightweighted as Lxde, but it is much more configurable. If you are used with Gnome, Xfce will look like a lighter, less fancy Gnome to you. I am pleased with it's speed.

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This is a question almost all Linux netbook users have asked themselves. I have tried all of them, from LXDE (through Knoppix) to KDE Netbook Remix to XFCE and GNOME (through the respective Ubuntu remixes). I must say, though my primary concern has always been desktop bloat, the Ubuntu Netbook Remix with the Unity interface really is the best solution. My netbook is a 1.6 GHz atom with 1.5 gigs of RAM and a 160GB 5400rpm HD and it's my primary computer. I use UNR every day.

The reasons I like it boil down to a nice list:

  • GNOME has some of the better customization options for keyboard hotkeys, and I much prefer using the keyboard, however small it is, than trying to use the touchpad on my netbook.
  • Gnome Do really is one of the best quick launch applications and even the standard GNOME Run Application dialog is very handy and intuitive
  • The GNOME 2.3x environment really is a refined experience, and though some of those refinements come with an overhead cost not found in XFCE or LXDE, they are certainly worth it

Also, if you are curious about the type of work I am doing on this netbook, I use it for everything from web browsing to creating presentations for my classes to web development and programming. I always end up back at GNOME and particularly the UNR interface hacked together by Canonical.

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  • I use Ubuntu on my main computer, so I would like to use something similar on my netbook, for the sake of familiarity. But UNR is simply too big for my 8GB SSD netbook. So GNOME is out as being just too bulky. I don't mind the loss of prettiness or little bits of functionality. This netbook project is to make something really basic, really simple. I'll try and work without starting X whenever possible, so you can see that visual appeal isn't what I want
    – Seamus
    Aug 2, 2010 at 13:47
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    UNR is designed to run on a 4gig drive...? It may be too big depending on how much data you want to put on, but if you are using a netbook, they are not designed for large data files.
    – J Mac
    Aug 2, 2010 at 13:57
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    If you are looking to build your own, might I suggest using OpenBox as your base platform? It is an extremely reduced WM designed for building highly customized interfaces.
    – J Mac
    Aug 2, 2010 at 13:58
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Try wmii or i3 (ion3 is no longer developed), both very minimalistic and fast tiling window managers. You will never need to use your mouse to move around windows again, because your computer can do this for you!

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