From: Daniel L. <dl...@gm...> - 2009-04-02 07:47:39
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Since I'm using LXDE at the moment, I've been doing a bit of thinking about its future... Here are my thoughts regarding its various parts and aspects. Hopefully they're worth something. 1. LXPanel. First... The battery monitor. It's great, but it needs less ugly. I would personally recommend something along the lines of the XFCE4 battery monitor (NOT the new 4.6 power manager applet) - basically a nice-looking little vertical progress bar, perhaps with an optional icon. When the battery is half empty, the bar is shown as half full; etc. Second, speaking of the battery monitor... Notification, of a sort other than xmessage, could be useful. Not sure how this should be handled though. Is libnotify/notification-daemon light enough, or would it potentially be a pig on old hardware? Also, the battery monitor and LXNM are the only things I can think of right now that need notification.. Maybe it would be better to just let something separate, like Noteo (or xmessage for that matter), handle this. After all, we want to keep things light, modular, and simple. Which brings me to... LXNM. Now, I hope I don't offend anyone - but I just don't get LXNM. It doesn't seem capable of doing anything really useful; it can connect or disconnect from a wired or open wifi network... And that's it. As far as I can tell, no handling of encrypted networks at all, or ability to connect to one of several open networks. Personally, I would recommend just ditching it; wicd can do the job on faster hardware, and wpa_supplicant can handle things on slow machines. Finally... The volume applet. May I be the first to say, please please please do not integrate it with PulseAudio? I'm not really sure how to handle the issue of different sound systems - maybe gstreamer would work, the XFCE folks seem to think so (it seems light enough, and it's not like HDD space is an issue even on Pentium-era machines)... 2. Window managers. In the interest of keeping LXDE modular, I think it would be a good idea to separate it from Openbox a bit. Maybe give lxpanel its own keybinding facilities, or something? I'm not sure, but I think it would be good to be able to use LXDE with fluxbox, pekwm, or even a tiling window manager. 3. Security. Currently, the "suspend" and "hibernate" logout options do not attempt to lock the screen. They really should. Debian gets this issue out of the way by having the screen lock and logout buttons right next to each other on the default LXDE desktop, and it's possible to use keybindings (and xscreensaver's rather long delay before locking) to have a locked screen before suspend/hibernate; but (at least IMHO) those are kind of ugly hacks. It would be better to have a script that checked for various screen lockers and tried to activate one before suspend, or something. (I think I've brought that up before... Sorry if I'm being a nag.) Finally... 4. Slitaz. I cannot stress this enough: CHECK THIS DISTRIBUTION OUT! http://slitaz.org/en/ Yes, it's tiny, only 30 MB. That's cool. But what I'm talking about in this case is the *box applications that come bundled with it. Subox works as an alternative to the somewhat bloaty gksu; burnbox IIRC handles CD burning; Netbox handles networking, and I think a new one for wifi was recently added. So I repeat... TAKE A LOOK AT SLITAZ, especially the *box applications bundled with it. IMHO, it might be a good idea to contact the maintainers of Slitaz and ask them to contribute to LXDE - I think this one distro has done more than any to turn LXDE into a usable desktop environment. |
From: Alessandro P. <al...@am...> - 2009-04-02 16:13:47
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Il giorno gio, 02/04/2009 alle 03.47 -0400, Daniel Levine ha scritto: Sorry, I still don't use LXDE fully, only parts of it, so I cannot comment on lxpanel. > Which brings me to... LXNM. Now, I hope I don't offend anyone - but I > just don't get LXNM. It doesn't seem capable of doing anything really > useful; it can connect or disconnect from a wired or open wifi > network... I had a look to the source, and it seems that all it does is calling ifconfig/iwconfig to bring interfaces up or down. I also think it would be better to ditch it in favor of gnome-network-manager, or a light network-manager client written in pure gtk for LXDE. > Finally... The volume applet. May I be the first to say, please please > please do not integrate it with PulseAudio? I'm not really sure how to > handle the issue of different sound systems - maybe gstreamer would > work, the XFCE folks seem to think so (it seems light enough, and it's > not like HDD space is an issue even on Pentium-era machines)... I also think that pulseaudio and gstreamer should be avoided, as they are unstable (PA) or heavy (GST). Besides that, I think it should be OK to just control the main volume through the panel applet. If the user wants to fine-tune pulseaudio channel volume levels, he should use pulseaudio tools. > In the interest of keeping LXDE modular, I think it would be a good > idea to separate it from Openbox a bit. Maybe give lxpanel its own > keybinding facilities, or something? I'm not sure, but I think it > would be good to be able to use LXDE with fluxbox, pekwm, or even a > tiling window manager. I think there should be a "container" for various preferences components. Similar to Gnome's Control Panel. Then there should be components for window-manager, panel, etc. This way it should be "easy" (for a skilled developer :) ) to invoke the particular window manager configurator when you click on "window manager preferences" (or similar). > I cannot stress this enough: CHECK THIS DISTRIBUTION OUT! > > http://slitaz.org/en/ I didn't know it, but it sounds interesting. Bye. -- Alessandro Pellizzari AmiRan Servizi Informatici |
From: Hotnuma <ho...@gm...> - 2009-04-02 18:15:57
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Alessandro Pellizzari wrote: > I had a look to the source, and it seems that all it does is calling > ifconfig/iwconfig to bring interfaces up or down. > > I also think it would be better to ditch it in favor of > gnome-network-manager, or a light network-manager client written in pure > gtk for LXDE. > gnome-network-manager is not very lightweight... A good way IMHO is to configure /etc/network/interfaces manually, with static IP addresses when possible. The boot time is much more faster than with nm-applet/gnome-network-manager indeed. (33 seconds total boot time including BIOS and GRUB menu with Ubuntu Jaunty Beta on a one year old Laptop. Minimal install+Xorg+Compiz+LXDE+ext4 That would be even faster with OpenBox. :)) Then LXNM can display the networking status. A WIFI connection is ready when the Desktop shows up for example. ;) Here is a sample config I use for WIFI (eth1)... if that can help someone... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # The primary network interface #auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.14 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.1.1 auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 192.168.1.15 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.1.1 wireles_nick Laptop wireless_keymode open wireless_mode managed wireless-essid _ACCESS_POINT_NAME_ wireless-key _WEP_KEY_GOES_HERE_ wireless-channel _ACCESS_POINT_CHANNEL_ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
From: Alessandro P. <al...@am...> - 2009-04-03 08:20:54
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Il giorno gio, 02/04/2009 alle 20.15 +0200, Hotnuma ha scritto: > Alessandro Pellizzari wrote: > > I had a look to the source, and it seems that all it does is calling > > ifconfig/iwconfig to bring interfaces up or down. > > > > I also think it would be better to ditch it in favor of > > gnome-network-manager, or a light network-manager client written in pure > > gtk for LXDE. > > > gnome-network-manager is not very lightweight... I know, but it is lighter that wicd (it doesn't need python), and I suggested to implement a lighter client. > A good way IMHO is to configure /etc/network/interfaces manually, > with static IP addresses when possible. The boot time is much more > faster than with nm-applet/gnome-network-manager indeed. OK, but this is valid for a "fixed" PC. The point of NM (and of LXNM) should be to allow a user to connect to different networks without resorting to manually configure them. I want to be able to see what networks are available, and click on the one I am interested, maybe entering WEP/WPA key and being online. If LXNM can't do this, I think it is useless and should be removed. Then the user will be able to choose between manually configuring it or using NM + g-n-m. I think there is a need for a "middle line": a lighter NM client, without VPN or similar capabilities, but with at least eth, wifi (wep +wpa) and maybe ppp, but that could be a dedicated software. Bye. -- Alessandro Pellizzari |
From: Robert F. <fr...@ba...> - 2009-04-03 08:49:15
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Hotnuma wrote: > Alessandro Pellizzari wrote: >> I had a look to the source, and it seems that all it does is calling >> ifconfig/iwconfig to bring interfaces up or down. >> >> I also think it would be better to ditch it in favor of >> gnome-network-manager, or a light network-manager client written in pure >> gtk for LXDE. >> > gnome-network-manager is not very lightweight... > A good way IMHO is to configure /etc/network/interfaces manually, > with static IP addresses when possible. The boot time is much more > faster than with nm-applet/gnome-network-manager indeed. No offense meant, but many people are not convenient about manually modifying config files. Besides, static IP is not always usable, especially if you use your computer in more than one place. Therefore a good graphical tool (or even a script that pops up an ncurses menu) would be useful to include, IMHO. > > (33 seconds total boot time including BIOS and GRUB menu > with Ubuntu Jaunty Beta on a one year old Laptop. > Minimal install+Xorg+Compiz+LXDE+ext4 > That would be even faster with OpenBox. :)) > > Then LXNM can display the networking status. > A WIFI connection is ready when the Desktop shows up for > example. ;) > > Here is a sample config I use for WIFI (eth1)... if that can help > someone... WEP is insecure. Use WPA or a wired connection. Regards, Robert > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system > # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). > > # The loopback network interface > auto lo > iface lo inet loopback > > # The primary network interface > #auto eth0 > iface eth0 inet static > address 192.168.1.14 > netmask 255.255.255.0 > gateway 192.168.1.1 > > auto eth1 > iface eth1 inet static > address 192.168.1.15 > netmask 255.255.255.0 > gateway 192.168.1.1 > wireles_nick Laptop > wireless_keymode open > wireless_mode managed > wireless-essid _ACCESS_POINT_NAME_ > wireless-key _WEP_KEY_GOES_HERE_ > wireless-channel _ACCESS_POINT_CHANNEL_ > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Lxde-list mailing list > Lxd...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lxde-list > |