If you’re using a minimal window manager (Fluxbox, IceWM) you may have noticed that OpenOffice looks like crap. You’re getting plain, unthemed widgets that look archaic compared to todays slick QT/GTK themes. Luckily, the solution is quite simple. For a local solution (just your user account) open up your ~/.bash_profile file and enter the following:
export [...]

Filed under: Minimal WMs, OpenOffice.Org | 1 Comment »

My current favorite: IceWM. Click for full-sized image.

Why do some us continue to use minimal window managers like OpenBox, IceWM, and Fluxbox as our primary desktop environment in this modern age of 3D accelerated desktop cubes and wobbly windows? The way I see it, there are four main reasons:
1) We don’t like bloat. We [...]

Filed under: Minimal WMs | 4 Comments »

Introduction
It’s true that the easiest to way to get the full desktop feel on your EEE is to install the full KDE desktop, but if you’re not afraid to get a little down and dirty with some simple config files, give this a try. You’ll end up with a sleek, elegant desktop without the overhead [...]

Filed under: Minimal WMs, Tutorials | 14 Comments »

I was looking for a nice Quake-style drop down console app to use with IceWM, and Tilda just wasn’t working (it probably wanted GNOME to work right), so I went searching through the Debian repos and found a little gem: Yeahconsole. This functions just like Tilda or Kuake, ‘cept it’s more lightweight and works well [...]

Filed under: CLI Fun, Minimal WMs | 3 Comments »

The Ubuntu Tips blog suggests using the XFCE window manager as a replacement for Compiz and Metacity in GNOME. From the original post:

If you can’t get compiz to work on your machine, or you just to run a compositing window manager with shadows and true transparency without having to deal with hangs and memory [...]

Filed under: Aesthetics, GNOME, Minimal WMs, Tutorials | No Comments »