Re: [seul-edu] KDE or GNOME?

[Ben Armstrong <synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca>]

On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 10:09:05AM -0500, Chris Hedemark wrote:
> Does Enlightenment still require fairly extravagent hardware?  I haven't
> touched it for a year.  Main reason I don't recommend this in academic
> circles is because it doesn't (or didn't) run well on older hardware or
> systems with low memory count.

In general, any window manager with "bells and whistles" turned on is
going to suffer on an underpowered box (e.g. a 486dx/66) but it is
possible to find "streamlined" themes that make better use of resources.

If you are interested in giving Enlightenment a try, go for it.  Just try
to find a good minimal theme at e.themes.org to go with it and turn off
anything you find is superfluous. 

For example, Eterm, a terminal program that is designed to work with E
supports background images and transparency.  On a 486dx/66 with a 4M ATI
Mach32, update time for an Eterm with either pixmap or transparency turned
on really suffers.  For best results, disable both, or use a more
lightweight term such as rxvt or wterm.  (I know, terms are not window
managers, but the same principle applies for configuration of window
manager features.)

Personally, I stick with wmaker on the 486 boxes and the more powerful
K6-2's as well.  It uses resources conservatively.  The children find it
easy to use.  The clean interface appeals to me.  And it is easy to
administer. 

Ben
-- 
    nSLUG       http://www.nslug.ns.ca      synrg@sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca
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