HOWTO: IceWM (Smaller & faster than XFCE, w/ KDE menus)

Ask questions regarding Gentoox, Gentoo and Linux in general in these forums and we'll do our best to help you!
Sniper Fox
Adept
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:11 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

HOWTO: IceWM (Smaller & faster than XFCE, w/ KDE menus)

Post by Sniper Fox »

As root:
emerge icewm & icewm-tools

As gentoox:
cd ~/
mkdir .icewm
cd .icewm
echo Theme="xp-new/default.theme" > theme
mkdir themes
cd themes
wget http://themes.freshmeat.net/redir/xpnew ... 1.1.tar.gz
wget http://download.freshmeat.net/themes/wh ... 0.0.tar.gz
tar xvzf xp__-1.0.7.tar.gz
tar xvzf whistling-1.0.0.tar.gz
nano ~/.xinitrc


This should leave you with nano open and .xinitrc on the screen. Put a # in front of the line with 'startkde' (or the XFCE line). Then, on a seperate line put:
exec icewm-session

Restart X or reboot your machine. If everything goes well icewm should come up (it should look quite a bit like default windows XP). To configure IceWM start a xterm (there's a quicklaunch button for xterm) and run:
icecc

NOTE:
If you want desktop icons you need to emerge idesk
You may like the Whistling theme better, to switch use the "Themes" menu
Last edited by Sniper Fox on Wed Nov 12, 2003 9:19 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Sniper Fox
Adept
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:11 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

Post by Sniper Fox »

To import your KDE menus

as root:
cp -R /home/gentoox/.kde/share/applnk /usr/kde/3.1/share/applnk
chmod -R 755 /usr/kde/3.1/share/applnk


then, as gentoox:
cd ~/.icewm
wget http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/~sirtob ... kde2ice.pl
chmod 700 kde2ice.pl
./kde2ice.pl > menu


Your KDE menus should be imported! You can go in and tweak them by hand with nano or use 'icecc' to have a simple GUI for it. (I usually delete the first line using nano so everything shows up at the root level instead of in a menu called 'default')
Last edited by Sniper Fox on Thu Nov 13, 2003 1:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sniper Fox
Adept
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:11 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

Post by Sniper Fox »

Image

Left to Right:
- Fully functional start button with fold out menus
- Windows list / task switcher
- Minimize all / restore all (to view desktop)
- Xterm quick launch
- Virtual Desktop manager (set to 4 virtual desktops)
- Taskbar
- System tray divider
- Network usage graph (Double click to display netstat)
- CPU usage graph (Double click to display top)
- Mail checker
- Clock (Double click to display analog clock)
nobspangle
Gentoox Guru!
Posts: 1681
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2003 11:59 am
Location: Manchester, UK

Post by nobspangle »

how long does it take to emerge and what is the memory utilisation like?
If you keep an open mind, will your brain fall out?
Sniper Fox
Adept
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:11 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

Post by Sniper Fox »

Couldn't tell you about the emerging since I just set it to emerge everything then went back to doing something else. Less than an hour, if I recall.

Memory usage is lower than XFCE marginally in my testing (VNC logged in, console logged out sitting and text-mode login prompt). I usually go straight for the KDE apps anyhow, so I'm always sitting a full physical memory used :wink:
Sniper Fox
Adept
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:11 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

Post by Sniper Fox »

IceWM (exec'd via 'icewm-session' in .xinitrd)

Code: Select all

 PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  
1290 gentoox   12   0  6724 6724 1240 S  0.0 11.6   0:00.46 Xvnc
1294 gentoox    9   0  1080 1080  952 S  0.0  1.9   0:00.02 xstartup
1297 gentoox    9   0  1320 1320 1108 S  0.0  2.3   0:00.03 icewm-session
1298 gentoox   13   5  1364 1364 1128 R  0.0  2.3   0:00.03 icewmbg
1299 gentoox    9   0  1448 1448 1220 S  0.0  2.5   0:00.04 icewmtray
1300 gentoox   11   0  3780 3780 2492 S  0.0  6.5   0:00.47 icewm
IceWM (exec'd via 'icewmtray & ; icewm' in .xinitrd)

Code: Select all

 PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  
1643 gentoox   12   0  7736 7736 1400 S  0.0 13.3   0:00.55 Xvnc
1647 gentoox    9   0  1080 1080  952 S  0.0  1.9   0:00.02 xstartup
1650 gentoox    9   0  1024 1024  904 S  0.0  1.8   0:00.00 sh
1652 gentoox    9   0  1448 1448 1220 S  0.0  2.5   0:00.01 icewmtray
1653 gentoox   12   0  3784 3784 2496 S  0.0  6.5   0:00.70 icewm
XFCE4

Code: Select all

 PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  
1392 gentoox   11   0 10020 9.8m 1944 S  0.0 17.2   0:00.83 Xvnc
1396 gentoox    9   0  1080 1080  952 S  0.0  1.9   0:00.01 xstartup
1399 gentoox    9   0  1024 1024  904 S  0.0  1.8   0:00.01 sh
1400 gentoox    9   0  1060 1060  932 S  0.0  1.8   0:00.02 sh
1409 gentoox    9   0  4344 4344 3624 S  0.0  7.5   0:00.04 xfce-mcs-manage
1411 gentoox    9   0  4988 4988 3976 S  0.0  8.6   0:00.02 xfwm4
1412 gentoox    9   0  3900 3900 3300 S  0.0  6.7   0:00.10 xftaskbar4
1413 gentoox   10   0  4388 4388 3724 S  0.0  7.5   0:00.14 xfdesktop
1415 gentoox   13   0  7112 7112 5352 S  0.0 12.2   0:00.58 xfce4-panel
KDE

Code: Select all

1726 gentoox   13   0  7528 7312 1384 S  0.3 12.6   0:00.64 Xvnc
1730 gentoox    9   0   660  532  532 S  0.0  0.9   0:00.01 xstartup
1733 gentoox    9   0   652  532  532 S  0.0  0.9   0:00.00 sh
1734 gentoox    9   0   676  536  536 S  0.0  0.9   0:00.03 startkde
1754 gentoox    8   0  6052 5412 5340 S  0.0  9.3   0:00.09 kdeinit
1757 gentoox    9   0  6460 5952 5756 S  0.0 10.2   0:00.05 kdeinit
1760 gentoox    9   0  7952 7460 7116 S  0.0 12.8   0:00.10 kdeinit
1762 gentoox    9   0  9348 8904 8172 S  0.0 15.3   0:00.32 kdeinit
1779 gentoox   10   0  4860 4356 3492 S  0.0  7.5   0:01.56 artsd
1781 gentoox    9   0  9240 7972 7484 S  0.0 13.7   0:00.20 kdeinit
1782 gentoox    9   0   320  300  268 S  0.0  0.5   0:00.01 kwrapper
1784 gentoox    9   0  8064 7416 7072 S  0.0 12.8   0:00.14 kdeinit
1785 gentoox    9   0  9484 9048 8028 S  0.0 15.6   0:00.24 kdeinit
1787 gentoox    9   0 11096  10m 9428 S  0.0 18.5   0:00.29 kdeinit
1788 gentoox    9   0  6772 6260 6012 S  0.0 10.8   0:00.03 kdeinit
1791 gentoox   11   0 11420  10m 9588 S  0.0 19.0   0:00.42 kdeinit

Memory Usage Totals:
icewm-session: 15,716
icewm & icewmtray alone: 15,072
KDE: 100,584
xfce4: 37,916 :!:

(su, bash, and top were omitted from the lists as they aren't relevant)

Looks like just the panel from XFCE4 takes just about as much resources than all of IceWM put together. If you just run IceWM seperately (without icewmbg which enables you to have desktop wallpaper), IceWM clearly beats the sh*t out of the bloated XFCE4.

XFCE4 is 1/3rd the footprint of KDE, but IceWM is 1/2 the footprint of XFCE4. The choice is yours, I choose minimal.
Demothesis
Newbie
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2003 2:13 am

Problems with ./kde2ice > menu

Post by Demothesis »

When I enter the command ./kde2ice.pl > menu I get the message : "Permission Denied" . I tried the command as ROOT as well and got the same message. I'm really eager to get these KDE menus, so what do I do?
-Demothesis
-----------------------------------------------------
Demonstrating a proposition maintained by argument.
nobspangle
Gentoox Guru!
Posts: 1681
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2003 11:59 am
Location: Manchester, UK

Post by nobspangle »

For those of you who don't already have KDE installed emerging icewm-tools takes a lot longer than 1 hour. Due to the qt libraries. I have had one running for 18 hours so far and it still has an age to go.
If you keep an open mind, will your brain fall out?
fuz
Power user
Posts: 228
Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2003 6:03 am
Location: sunshine coast, Australia
Contact:

Post by fuz »

thanks for the warning nobspangle :)

btw happy 100 posts :)
127.0.0.1, wherever you go.. there you are!
Sniper Fox
Adept
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:11 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

Post by Sniper Fox »

nobspangle wrote:For those of you who don't already have KDE installed emerging icewm-tools takes a lot longer than 1 hour. Due to the qt libraries. I have had one running for 18 hours so far and it still has an age to go.
Sorry about that, I was assuming you were starting from Home v 3. :oops:

If you do emerge -p foo instead of just emerge foo, it will calculate and display all of the things it will download, but not actually download them.

icewm-tools is mostly just a GUI control panel. If you're willing to 1970s style it and modify flat text configuration files by hand, you can leave it unmerged.
Last edited by Sniper Fox on Thu Nov 13, 2003 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sniper Fox
Adept
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:11 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

Re: Problems with ./kde2ice > menu

Post by Sniper Fox »

Demothesis wrote:When I enter the command ./kde2ice.pl > menu I get the message : "Permission Denied" . I tried the command as ROOT as well and got the same message. I'm really eager to get these KDE menus, so what do I do?
As gentoox do 'chmod 700 kde2ice.pl', then it will run. Sorry about that I forgot to add it to the instruction list. :oops:
ShALLaX
Site Admin
Posts: 1973
Joined: Sun Aug 10, 2003 9:25 pm
Location: England
Contact:

Post by ShALLaX »

Now if only icewm was any good ;)
The original Xbox adaptation of Gentoo
vSaAmTp
Newbie
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Nov 09, 2003 5:50 pm

Post by vSaAmTp »

how to change the language to german?
DracFlamloc
Linux User
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Nov 14, 2003 1:01 am

Post by DracFlamloc »

Hey, for some reason when I try and emerge icewm-tools it quits with an error:

make: [/usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.a] Error 1 (ignored)
ar cqs /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.a qextscintilla.o qextscintillaapis.o qextscintillabase.o qextscintillacommand.o qextscintillacommandset.o qextscintillalexer.o qextscintillalexercpp.o qextscintillalexercsharp.o qextscintillalexerhtml.o qextscintillalexeridl.o qextscintillalexerjava.o qextscintillalexerjavascript.o qextscintillalexerpython.o qextscintillalexersql.o qextscintillamacro.o qextscintillaprinter.o SciListBox.o PlatQt.o ScintillaQt.o AutoComplete.o CallTip.o CellBuffer.o ContractionState.o Document.o DocumentAccessor.o Editor.o ExternalLexer.o Indicator.o KeyMap.o KeyWords.o LexAda.o LexAsm.o LexAVE.o LexBaan.o LexBullant.o LexConf.o LexCPP.o LexCrontab.o LexCSS.o LexEiffel.o LexEScript.o LexFortran.o LexHTML.o LexLisp.o LexLout.o LexLua.o LexMatlab.o LexMMIXAL.o LexNsis.o LexOthers.o LexPascal.o LexPerl.o LexPOV.o LexPS.o LexPython.o LexRuby.o LexScriptol.o LexSQL.o LexVB.o LineMarker.o PropSet.o RESearch.o ScintillaBase.o Style.o StyleContext.o ViewStyle.o WindowAccessor.o XPM.o moc_qextscintilla.o moc_qextscintillabase.o moc_qextscintillalexer.o moc_qextscintillalexercpp.o moc_qextscintillalexercsharp.o moc_qextscintillalexerhtml.o moc_qextscintillalexeridl.o moc_qextscintillalexerjava.o moc_qextscintillalexerjavascript.o moc_qextscintillalexerpython.o moc_qextscintillalexersql.o moc_qextscintillamacro.o moc_SciListBox.o
ACCESS DENIED open_wr: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.a
ar: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.a: Permission denied
make: *** [/usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.a] Error 1
--------------------------- ACCESS VIOLATION SUMMARY ---------------------------
LOG FILE = "/tmp/sandbox-qscintilla-1.54-1783.log"

unlink: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.so.3.0.0
unlink: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.so
unlink: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.so.3
unlink: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.so.3.0
rename: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.so.3.0.0
rename: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.so
rename: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.so.3
rename: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.so.3.0
unlink: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.a
open_wr: /usr/qt/3/lib/libqscintilla.a
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone have a clue why it does this? I'm running ICEWM right now, should I have it start into xfce first, then run this, then boot back into icewm maybe?
Sniper Fox
Adept
Posts: 73
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2003 9:11 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

Post by Sniper Fox »

ShALLaX wrote:Now if only icewm was any good ;)
If by good you mean "more conservative on memory with better menu system than XFCE", then yes, it's good :P
Post Reply