[linux-audio-user] suggested Window Manager good for audio?

[Kent, Gary]

Hi:
Hope this isn't off topic for this list. Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images? I have used the Gnome and KDE
environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated for
what I'm trying to do.
Does using a Window Manager instead of a full-blown desktop such
as Gnome mean that I can have more audio processing power since I am
giving up graphics overhead?
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?

Many thanks,

gk

[Mark Knecht]

Post by Kent, Gary
Hope this isn't off topic for this list. Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images? I have used the Gnome and KDE
environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated for
what I'm trying to do.
Does using a Window Manager instead of a full-blown desktop such
as Gnome mean that I can have more audio processing power since I am
giving up graphics overhead?
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?
Many thanks,
gk

Hi,
I won't say best, but I very much like fluxbox. Not bloated at all,
but does require a bit of tweaking in the menu and theme areas to make
it feel really good.

Have fun!

- Mark

[robin fell]

Post by Kent, Gary
Hope this isn't off topic for this list. Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images? I have used the Gnome and KDE
environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated for
what I'm trying to do.

FWIW I too am using fvwm, but I do have a fairly sparse taste.

I can make a gift of my config if you'd like it.

R

[Matthew Allen]

Ahh, funny you should ask this. I have been experimenting with
both Fluxbox (http://www.fluxbox.org) and FVWM (http://www.fvwm.org)
under CCRMA (fedora). I originally went with fluxbox but, at least for
me, it actually had to much extra stuff (slit, tabs, icon bar). I really
only needed a root menu, hotkeys and a pager, after a bunch of looking
around I ended up with FVWM. Its learning curve is a bit daunting (this
is linux isn't it?) but that is sort of mitigated by 2 things: The sheer
amount of stuff you could do with it if you wanted, and the FVWM-themes
project (http://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net)

Don't let the initial desktop scare you away from FVWM, it's so
customizable you can make it look and work like pretty much any other WM
out there. As far as resources go, neither of these are CPU hogs (FVWM
does have some modules that potentially can eat up CPU). Installed FVWM
takes up a bit more diskspace (even more so when using the themes
package), but once again not enough space to warrant immediate
dismissal. Fluxbox is much more easy to manage and it only took me about
an hour 2 to get a theme that I liked and a full set of hotkeys and a
CCRMA menu (the auto-menu scripts in both WM packages don't seem to find
the CCRMA stuff, so you will have to edit by hand, relatively painless
in fluxbox, a bit more time intensive in FVWM.)

m.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 2:05 PM
Subject: [linux-audio-user] suggested Window Manager good for audio?
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?

_________________________________________________
Scanned on 18 Feb 2004 22:30:28
Scanning by http://erado.com

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,

Post by Matthew Allen
Ahh, funny you should ask this. I have been experimenting with
both Fluxbox (http://www.fluxbox.org) and FVWM (http://www.fvwm.org)
under CCRMA (fedora). I originally went with fluxbox but, at least for
me, it actually had to much extra stuff (slit, tabs, icon bar). I really
only needed a root menu, hotkeys and a pager, after a bunch of looking
around I ended up with FVWM. Its learning curve is a bit daunting (this
is linux isn't it?) but that is sort of mitigated by 2 things: The sheer
amount of stuff you could do with it if you wanted, and the FVWM-themes
project (http://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net)

Judging by file size, fluxbox is rather bloated, but blackbox comes
out smallest - not counting the anorectic window managers like swm or
failsafewm (ouch!) from www.small-window-manager.de:

-rwxrwxr-x 1 freak freak 7404 Feb 18 23:58 failsafewm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 257472 Apr 14 2003 /usr/bin/blackbox
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 359160 Mar 23 2003 /usr/bin/fvwm2
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 406668 Mar 13 2003 /usr/bin/icewm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 625828 Jan 27 2003 /usr/bin/fluxbox

Personally I run blackbox. I tried fluxbox as well, but found, that I
don't use any of the features in fluxbox, that aren't in blackbox as
well, so I went back to black.

My KDE/Gnome is the minibar: http://www.phed.org/miniProject/ Source
apparently gone, mirrored at http://footils.org/pkg/minifbar-0.06.tgz

ciao

[Chris Cannam]

Post by Matthew Allen
I have been experimenting with
both Fluxbox (http://www.fluxbox.org) and FVWM

[pointless plug, of sorts]

One of the first[*] self-consciously minimal window managers was wm2,
which I wrote way back in 1996, foilowed by its big brother wmx.

I don't actually use either of them myself any more -- I finally
switched my last remaining wmx display to KDE about six months ago,
although I try to pretend it's only temporary -- but points of
interest for audio use include the fact that they're lighter on
memory than something like fvwm (while still being prettier than most
of the really minimal managers) and that they place the titlebar on
the side of the window instead of at the top thus allowing more
vertical space on a laptop screen (something I always found vaguely
useful as well as cute). wmx also has the most pleasingly minimal
multiple desktop implementation I've seen. On the down side, while
memory usage is low, video and/or CPU usage can be a bit high when
moving windows because of the use of shaped frames.

http://www.all-day-breakfast.com/wm2/
http://www.sf.net/projects/wm2/ for CVS (recommended)


Chris

[*] actually wm2 and wmx, as well as practically every other "modern"
minimal window manager, owe something to 9wm, the first wm to be both
small on the outside and readable on the inside. The author of 9wm
died last year: an very sad bit of news.

[Jan Depner]

I use KDE for non-realtime apps or minor things with Ardour, JAMin,
Audacity. I use fluxbox when I'm doing multitrack recording. I just
put exec fluxbox into .Xclients-default in root's home directory, do an
init 3, and then startx. When I get done with a session I log off and
then do an init 5 to get back to the KDE login. This gives me the best
of both worlds depending on what I'm running. Note: I run audio as
root.

Jan

Post by Kent, Gary
Hope this isn't off topic for this list. Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images? I have used the Gnome and KDE
environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated for
what I'm trying to do.
Does using a Window Manager instead of a full-blown desktop such
as Gnome mean that I can have more audio processing power since I am
giving up graphics overhead?
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?
Many thanks,
gk

[Kent, Gary]

Many thanks for all of these suggestions, and yes, Robin, if you would
be willing to share any config contributions I would be appreciative for
it. It's been awhile since I used WM's but maybe now's the time. App's
seem to work ok on it ok, and if I could configure a menu to get at them
quickly, then I would think I had found a solution.
Not to be a bandwidth hog here, but any comments on whether how
much cpu savings a person is going to see that can be given to audio?
No email at night so might have to comment back on any offerings
tomorrow. But thanks to all for sharing this info with me.


Thanks again,
gk

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,

Post by Kent, Gary
Many thanks for all of these suggestions, and yes, Robin, if you would
be willing to share any config contributions I would be appreciative for
it. It's been awhile since I used WM's but maybe now's the time. App's
seem to work ok on it ok, and if I could configure a menu to get at them
quickly, then I would think I had found a solution.
Not to be a bandwidth hog here, but any comments on whether how
much cpu savings a person is going to see that can be given to audio?

I don't think you will get much CPU savings. You could check the
difference with "top" running KDE or blackbox, fvwm, ...

You probably will save a lot of memory though by not running
KDE/Gnome/OpenOffice.

ciao

[Mark Knecht]

Post by Kent, Gary
Not to be a bandwidth hog here, but any comments on whether how
much cpu savings a person is going to see that can be given to audio?

I doubt actually that you'll notice the difference in 'top' between KDE
on the high end and fluxbox or other more spartan environments on the
bottom end. You would likely see a decrease in memory usage under fvwnm
and certainly fluxbox vs. KDE, but static CPU usage will be pretty good
in both cases.

I think it's far more likely that the spartan environments like fluxbox,
which are running far fewer processes, will create fewer glitches in
your system timing. It's hard to cut and paste a ps aux and have it be
readable in an email, but with X up and running I only have roughly 20
processes running under fluxbox. I don't run KDE anymore, but when I did
it was more like 40, and my experience was that those processes would
come alive at strange times and upset my system's throughput just a bit.

I was looking at fvwm a bit this afternoon and think it looks qute
interesting also. I may try it out, although I'm not all that interested
in learning a new environment right now.

HTH,
Mark

[Florian Schmidt]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:05:20 -0500

Post by Kent, Gary
Hope this isn't off topic for this list. Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images? I have used the Gnome and
KDE environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated
for what I'm trying to do.
Does using a Window Manager instead of a full-blown desktop such
as Gnome mean that I can have more audio processing power since I am
giving up graphics overhead?
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?
Many thanks,

try xfce4. It's nice, not too resourec hungry, and doesn't seem to
interfere by having sound daemons, etc.. Actually it brings its own
panel, taskbar, etc, with it..

The file manager isn't as great, but i am a shell monkey anyway :)

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,

Post by Florian Schmidt
try xfce4. It's nice, not too resourec hungry, and doesn't seem to
interfere by having sound daemons, etc.. Actually it brings its own
panel, taskbar, etc, with it..
The file manager isn't as great, but i am a shell monkey anyway :)

Me too, but recently I discovered the Xfe filemanager. Nice, fast, not
bloated, worth a try even for guys who use other filemanagers like:
mv, cp, mkdir, ls (optional: geeks use TAB), rm (optional, too: geeks
use /dev/null)

ciao

[Mark Knecht]

Post by Frank Barknecht
Me too, but recently I discovered the Xfe filemanager. Nice, fast, not
mv, cp, mkdir, ls (optional: geeks use TAB), rm (optional, too: geeks
use /dev/null)
ciao

I like XFE a lot also. I guess it's not being developed anymore? Pity as
it fills a nice void I think.

Maybe I need to find out about this 'shell monkey' file manager? Good
Windows like GUI on that one? ;-)

- Mark

[Paul Winkler]

Post by Frank Barknecht
Hallo,

Post by Florian Schmidt
try xfce4. It's nice, not too resourec hungry, and doesn't seem to
interfere by having sound daemons, etc.. Actually it brings its own
panel, taskbar, etc, with it..
The file manager isn't as great, but i am a shell monkey anyway :)

Me too, but recently I discovered the Xfe filemanager. Nice, fast, not
mv, cp, mkdir, ls (optional: geeks use TAB), rm (optional, too: geeks
use /dev/null)

While we're on the subject... do any of the graphical file managers
do tab completion or something like it? I like the look of file
managers but i don't like point-click-point-click-scroll-click-point-etc.

[RTaylor]

Post by Paul Winkler
While we're on the subject... do any of the graphical file managers
do tab completion or something like it? I like the look of file
managers but i don't like point-click-point-click-scroll-click-point-etc.

Dired?

[Erik Steffl]

Post by Paul Winkler

Post by Frank Barknecht
Hallo,

Post by Florian Schmidt
try xfce4. It's nice, not too resourec hungry, and doesn't seem to
interfere by having sound daemons, etc.. Actually it brings its own
panel, taskbar, etc, with it..
The file manager isn't as great, but i am a shell monkey anyway :)

Me too, but recently I discovered the Xfe filemanager. Nice, fast, not
mv, cp, mkdir, ls (optional: geeks use TAB), rm (optional, too: geeks
use /dev/null)

While we're on the subject... do any of the graphical file managers
do tab completion or something like it? I like the look of file
managers but i don't like point-click-point-click-scroll-click-point-etc.

mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)

erik

[Mark Knecht]

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)
erik

<hehe!!> Good old mc. I forgot about that. No stinking GUI. Just good
old names.

How do I do a drag & drop in mc?

[Erik Steffl]

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)
erik

<hehe!!> Good old mc. I forgot about that. No stinking GUI. Just good
old names.
How do I do a drag & drop in mc?

don't think it works (in text version), you can use mouse to control
it though - like clicking on file, or double clicking, or using menu etc.

erik

[rossen apostolov]

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)
erik

<hehe!!> Good old mc. I forgot about that. No stinking GUI. Just good
old names.
How do I do a drag & drop in mc?

I also once had a day devoted to digging out file managers with the
intention to find _the_ one. I asked a friend about his favourite file
browser
and he said it was " ls -l" . Eventually I agreed. Once you're used to
the terminal it feels unnatural to click-point-click, at least for
me.... and I found myslef
losing sense of what's where in the directories. But probably the
opposite is also true.

Mark, have you seen xnc: http://xnc.dubna.su/ ?
It's a guified mc with drag&drop.
also, xplore, http://www.musikwissenschaft.uni-mainz.de/~ag/xplore/
isn't bad at all although it looks a bit ugly until you play around with
it for a while

but definitely this fsv is a monster!!! I''ll probably never use it but
it's
awesome!!! I just showed it to a girl in the lab, a die-hard windows user,
and she striaght away wanted a version for her OS :)):))

-- rossen

[Mark Knecht]

Post by rossen apostolov
Mark, have you seen xnc: http://xnc.dubna.su/ ?
It's a guified mc with drag&drop.

It actually looks pretty nice. I'll build it in the next few days I
think...

Post by rossen apostolov
also, xplore, http://www.musikwissenschaft.uni-mainz.de/~ag/xplore/
isn't bad at all although it looks a bit ugly until you play around with
it for a while
but definitely this fsv is a monster!!! I''ll probably never use it but
it's
awesome!!! I just showed it to a girl in the lab, a die-hard windows user,
and she striaght away wanted a version for her OS :)):))

Actually, when you quickly need some disk space it's great for telling
you where to spend your time looking for things to delete or move. I
keep it handy. Just another tool in the toolbox.

- Mark

[Eric Dantan Rzewnicki]

Post by Mark Knecht
Actually, when you quickly need some disk space it's great for telling
you where to spend your time looking for things to delete or move. I
keep it handy. Just another tool in the toolbox.
- Mark

I usually use du for that.

du -shc *

or

du -skc * | sort -n

or something like that. But, I'm somewhat anti GUI in general so take
that with a grain of salt.

-Eric Rz.

[Florian Schmidt]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:52:25 +0900

Post by rossen apostolov
but definitely this fsv is a monster!!! I''ll probably never use it
but it's
awesome!!! I just showed it to a girl in the lab, a die-hard windows
user, and she striaght away wanted a version for her OS :)):))

i think there's something for windows called seqouia view or something
[don't remeber the exact speling]..

Flo

[RTaylor]

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)

<hehe!!> Good old mc. I forgot about that. No stinking GUI. Just good
old names.
How do I do a drag & drop in mc?

It's {drag and drop} unnecessary... just slow and awkward and a bit less than
precise.}. Mc comes in Cygwin as well.

For audio... this shows major potential:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~pi9s-nnb/monk/index.html

[RTaylor]

Post by RTaylor
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~pi9s-nnb/monk/index.html

:} While we're at it:
http://cvsweb.ki.nu/mef/elisp/fvwm.el?rev=1.1&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup

[Mark Knecht]

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)
erik

Come on though. If you want a real tool, try fsv. Very cool and useful
in a different sort of way.

Try it...you'll like it...

- Mark

[Erik Steffl]

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)
erik

Come on though. If you want a real tool, try fsv. Very cool and useful
in a different sort of way.

this one? or something else?

fsviewer - A NeXT FileViewer lookalike

erik

[Mark Knecht]

Post by Erik Steffl

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)
erik

Come on though. If you want a real tool, try fsv. Very cool and useful
in a different sort of way.

this one? or something else?
fsviewer - A NeXT FileViewer lookalike
erik

This one:

http://fsv.sourceforge.net/

It's not a file manager, but it will give you a great graphic
representation of how your files are using up your disk.

[Erik Steffl]

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Erik Steffl

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)
erik

Come on though. If you want a real tool, try fsv. Very cool and useful
in a different sort of way.

this one? or something else?
fsviewer - A NeXT FileViewer lookalike
erik

http://fsv.sourceforge.net/
It's not a file manager, but it will give you a great graphic
representation of how your files are using up your disk.

looks good :-) not throwing mc out yet though

erik

[LinuxMedia]

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)

mc (MidnightCommander) will play an audio file by just pressing ENTER on
the file. You can have *any* type of file can do *anything* you want it
to do just by pressing ENTER on the file in mc. I even have played
multiple audio tracks by pressing ENTER on a ".ecs" file (ecasound text
file that will play all the tracks, effects, volumes and panning listed
in the file).

To use this feature... First... at the command line, type... "mc -f" (no
quotes of course) to find where mc keeps it's files (to edit the file
extension manager *globally* that is...). For a local user, mc's files
are in ~/.mc.

My global file is called "mc.ext". Here is a simple example that will
load a file into xmms and play it (by pressing ENTER on a .WAV file in
mc) (by the way... make sure you quit mc and restart it every time you
edit "mc.ext")...

shell/.wav
Open=xmms %f

Just in case the extension is uppercase...

shell/.WAV
Open=xmms %f

Here's the example of playing multiple tracks with effects, panning,
volumes set... with ecasound reading the ".ecs" file that you pressed
ENTER on...

shell/.ecs
Open=ecasound -c -s %f

The beauty of the last command is that ecasound is a "command line"
program. You don't have to leave your shell. And the (perticular)
command that I demonstrate here has ecasound in "interactive mode" (-c).
So you can press ENTER on the .ecs file, then type "t" in the (ecasound)
command line to start playing the tracks... type "fw 3" to fastforward 3
seconds... type "setpos 54" to start playing at 54 seconds into your
tracks... and things like that. With mc and ecasound, I've ran a
command line only multitrack set-up for over 2 years not. And I havn't
even mentioned mc's built in text editor (or it's text viewer for that
matter).

Rocco

[Paul Winkler]

Post by LinuxMedia

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)

mc (MidnightCommander) will play an audio file by just pressing ENTER on
the file. You can have *any* type of file can do *anything* you want it
to do just by pressing ENTER on the file in mc. I even have played
multiple audio tracks by pressing ENTER on a ".ecs" file (ecasound text
file that will play all the tracks, effects, volumes and panning listed
in the file).

That's pretty cool. I should give mc another look, haven't tried it
in years.

[Anthony]

Post by Paul Winkler

Post by LinuxMedia

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)

mc (MidnightCommander) will play an audio file by just pressing ENTER on
the file. You can have *any* type of file can do *anything* you want it
to do just by pressing ENTER on the file in mc. I even have played
multiple audio tracks by pressing ENTER on a ".ecs" file (ecasound text
file that will play all the tracks, effects, volumes and panning listed
in the file).

That's pretty cool. I should give mc another look, haven't tried it
in years.

There is also the gtk filebrowser ''gentoo'' not to be confused with
the distribution. You can make similar hooks...complete control...but
i've noticed it is a little buggy with some batch processing i've done.
Most likely it was my script's fault. It is gtk1, so it is *fast*.

Typing

# emerge gentoo

on gentoo does seem a little odd, however :o

--ant

[delire]

i use openbox when performing because it is so light. when working with
pd switching window focus in most other wm's other than fvwm (IME)
causes dropout. in openbox XFree86 doesn't even appear in top and so that's more physical mem for audio..
openbox has no dependencies and it incredibly polite to my RAM.

of course where DE's themselves are concerned KDE and GNOME have the
best support for audio mimetypes, as they are generally picked up by the
suite of 'arts' and 'multimedia' applications provided by a full
install. from what little experience i have with either, KDE seems to be
a lighter DE, eating less than Gnome in the phys mem and CPU stakes.

julian aka delire

Post by Paul Winkler

Post by LinuxMedia

Post by Erik Steffl
mc (in xterm) kicks ass (by default tab changes panels/widgets, esc
tab does autocompletion in all dialogs where the files/directories are used)

mc (MidnightCommander) will play an audio file by just pressing ENTER on
the file. You can have *any* type of file can do *anything* you want it
to do just by pressing ENTER on the file in mc. I even have played
multiple audio tracks by pressing ENTER on a ".ecs" file (ecasound text
file that will play all the tracks, effects, volumes and panning listed
in the file).

That's pretty cool. I should give mc another look, haven't tried it
in years.
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
Look! Up in the sky! It's THE NIGERIAN NAYSEER!
(random hero from isometric.spaceninja.com)

[LinuxMedia]

Post by Paul Winkler

...You can have *any* type of file can do *anything* you want it
to do just by pressing ENTER on the file in mc. I even have played
multiple audio tracks by pressing ENTER on a ".ecs" file (ecasound text
file that will play all the tracks, effects, volumes and panning listed
in the file).

That's pretty cool. I should give mc another look, haven't tried it
in years.

I forget how I configured it, but I suggest you use the configuration
that allows for mc to "suspend" (reveals the shell console) until the
command is finished (exspecially useful for using ecasound in
"interactive mode" so you can use all the command line controls (fast
forward, rewind, setposition...). After you quit ecasound (or whatever
program) mc will return again (or you will see a message in your
console... "press any key to continue")... And you have mc back.

Also, if you press "F2" in mc, you have a (user configurable) menu of
commands. The menu items can point to binaries or scripts or you can
even write a script into the ~/.mc/menu file. I even have a menu item
that allows for "flite" to "speak" the contents of a text file.
Flite...
http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/download.html
(I have version 1.2 installed)...

Of course, with mc, you can create your own "flite" file extension and
tell mc to "speak" the text file whenever you press enter on it. I had
this configuration for a while, but decided that I better get back to
some more useful projects (got to have fun once in a while) (hehe)...

Rocco

[Erik Steffl]

Post by LinuxMedia

...You can have *any* type of file can do *anything* you want it
to do just by pressing ENTER on the file in mc. I even have played
multiple audio tracks by pressing ENTER on a ".ecs" file (ecasound
text file that will play all the tracks, effects, volumes and panning
listed in the file).

That's pretty cool. I should give mc another look, haven't tried it in
years.

I forget how I configured it, but I suggest you use the configuration
that allows for mc to "suspend" (reveals the shell console) until the
command is finished (exspecially useful for using ecasound in
"interactive mode" so you can use all the command line controls (fast
forward, rewind, setposition...). After you quit ecasound (or whatever
program) mc will return again (or you will see a message in your
console... "press any key to continue")... And you have mc back.

that's what it always does (you can configure whether you see the
message after the program ends)

you can also get the mc panels out of the way by using ctrl-o

erik

[Florian Schmidt]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 19:11:32 -0500

Post by Paul Winkler
While we're on the subject... do any of the graphical file managers
do tab completion or something like it? I like the look of file
managers but i don't like
point-click-point-click-scroll-click-point-etc.

Did you try the ROX filer? It supports tab completion, etc.. You can
pretty much navigate it all by keyboard and also just type commands..

http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/

I still use the shell though :)

Flo

[Matthew Allen]

What features are you looking for?

Basically if you tell us what you want your WM to do I think we could
probably set you on the right path :)

m.

-----Original Message-----
Subject: [linux-audio-user] suggested Window Manager good for audio?
Many thanks for all of these suggestions, and yes, Robin, if you would
be willing to share any config contributions I would be appreciative

for

it. It's been awhile since I used WM's but maybe now's the time.

App's

seem to work ok on it ok, and if I could configure a menu to get at

them

quickly, then I would think I had found a solution.

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[tim hall]

 Hope this isn't off topic for this list.  Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images?  I have used the Gnome and KDE
environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated for
what I'm trying to do.

I have used and enjoyed - Fluxbox, iceWM and now openbox3 - for audio work.
 

        Does using a Window Manager instead of a full-blown desktop such
as Gnome mean that I can have more audio processing power since I am
giving up graphics overhead?

It will make a noticeable difference in some situations.

HTH

tim hall

[Eric Dantan Rzewnicki]

I'm also using openbox3. No complaints.

-ERic Rz.

Post by tim hall
I have used and enjoyed - Fluxbox, iceWM and now openbox3 - for audio work.

[Matthew Allen]

That's just the main binary for fvwm. If you include all of the
modules I think it would put it up past icewm and maybe even past
fluxbox. My linux box is at home, but I'll check tonight.

m.

-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] suggested Window Manager good for

audio?

Judging by file size, fluxbox is rather bloated, but blackbox comes
out smallest - not counting the anorectic window managers like swm or
-rwxrwxr-x 1 freak freak 7404 Feb 18 23:58 failsafewm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 257472 Apr 14 2003

/usr/bin/blackbox

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 359160 Mar 23 2003 /usr/bin/fvwm2
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 406668 Mar 13 2003 /usr/bin/icewm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 625828 Jan 27 2003

/usr/bin/fluxbox



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[Erik Steffl]

Post by Matthew Allen
That's just the main binary for fvwm. If you include all of the
modules I think it would put it up past icewm and maybe even past
fluxbox. My linux box is at home, but I'll check tonight.

but you don't have to use _all_ the modules, that's why they are in
modules, because they not neccessary (IIRC I only use FvwmAuto,
FvwmPager, sometime FvwmButtons)

fvwm is very configurable, you can bring your machine to it's knees
by dynamic menus, FvwmEvents (programmable actions based on WM events
like new window or resize etc.), changing backgrounds when changing
virtual screens etc. you don't have to though:-) and lot of
functionality that you don't use is not even loaded (because it's in
modules).

erik

Post by Matthew Allen
m.

-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] suggested Window Manager good for

audio?

Judging by file size, fluxbox is rather bloated, but blackbox comes
out smallest - not counting the anorectic window managers like swm or
-rwxrwxr-x 1 freak freak 7404 Feb 18 23:58 failsafewm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 257472 Apr 14 2003

/usr/bin/blackbox

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 359160 Mar 23 2003 /usr/bin/fvwm2
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 406668 Mar 13 2003 /usr/bin/icewm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 625828 Jan 27 2003

/usr/bin/fluxbox
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[Matthew Allen]

Make sure and not do what I was doing for a while, and confuse XFce
(which is a desktop like KDE and Gnome) and Xfe, which is a very very
nice X file manager.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 3:25 PM

Post by Florian Schmidt
try xfce4. It's nice, not too resourec hungry, and doesn't seem to
interfere by having sound daemons, etc.. Actually it brings its own
panel, taskbar, etc, with it..
The file manager isn't as great, but i am a shell monkey anyway :)

Me too, but recently I discovered the Xfe filemanager. Nice, fast, not

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[Erik Steffl]

Post by Kent, Gary
Hope this isn't off topic for this list. Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images? I have used the Gnome and KDE
environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated for
what I'm trying to do.
Does using a Window Manager instead of a full-blown desktop such
as Gnome mean that I can have more audio processing power since I am
giving up graphics overhead?
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?

make sure you don't use enlightenment with root window animations
enabled. other then that you will not see much difference in CPU usage.
as far as the memory goes - you need enough memory (for audio processing
and other programs) that pretty much all WMs have memory footprints too
small to care...

I like fvwm (very configurable, can be made fairly slim).
responsiveness tip for fvwm - don't use outline move/resize, use opaque
(full window moves, resizes), the outline move/resize grabs X server and
can cause other X programs to freeze (for the time you move/resize
windows), this might be an issue for some audio programs (that would
wait for X before doing whatever audio processing they are doing).

erik

[RTaylor]

Post by Erik Steffl

Post by Kent, Gary
Hope this isn't off topic for this list. Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images? I have used the Gnome and KDE
environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated for
what I'm trying to do.
Does using a Window Manager instead of a full-blown desktop such
as Gnome mean that I can have more audio processing power since I am
giving up graphics overhead?
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?

make sure you don't use enlightenment with root window animations
enabled. other then that you will not see much difference in CPU usage.
as far as the memory goes - you need enough memory (for audio processing
and other programs) that pretty much all WMs have memory footprints too
small to care...
I like fvwm (very configurable, can be made fairly slim).
responsiveness tip for fvwm - don't use outline move/resize, use opaque
(full window moves, resizes), the outline move/resize grabs X server and
can cause other X programs to freeze (for the time you move/resize
windows), this might be an issue for some audio programs (that would
wait for X before doing whatever audio processing they are doing).

Windowmaker {gnustep, musickit, etc is pretty nice as well.}

http://www.windowmaker.org/
http://www.gnustep.org/
http://www.musickit.org/

[Matthew Allen]

Actually a new version was released on Sunday. Where did you hear about
the discontinuation?

m.

-----Original Message-----
I like XFE a lot also. I guess it's not being developed anymore? Pity

as

it fills a nice void I think.

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[Mark Knecht]

Post by Matthew Allen
Actually a new version was released on Sunday. Where did you hear about
the discontinuation?
m.

Great to hear there is work going on with xfe. I found the tool about 6
months ago when I started setting up a Linux box for my 75 year old dad
who got tired of Windows. (He now has about 60 days of uptime!) I think
it was on one of the Gentoo forums or possibly gentoo-user where someone
said that the original xfe developer wasn't doing anything with it
anymore. If that's not the case I'm quite happy.

Thanks!

- Mark

[Matthew Allen]

Rox-filier's (http://rox.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/ROX-Filer
)Auto complete from the command line is pretty cool (I use it as an
image thumbnail viewer, its not so good as a full blow file manager as
it doesn't support multiple views). I don't usually use the command
input on xfe so I'm not going to be much help with that one.

m.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 4:12 PM
While we're on the subject... do any of the graphical file managers
do tab completion or something like it? I like the look of file
managers but i don't like

point-click-point-click-scroll-click-point-etc.
_________________________________________________
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[Kai Vehmanen]

Post by RTaylor
Windowmaker {gnustep, musickit, etc is pretty nice as well.}
http://www.windowmaker.org/
http://www.gnustep.org/
http://www.musickit.org/

++votes. I nowadays use Windowmaker on all my Linux machines. Lots of
pros:

- very simple and usable user-interface; easy to learn
- mature and stable; I haven't needed to upgrade in years
because of bugs and/or missing features in wmaker
- does not get in your way; one process (wmaker) - with relatively
small footprint - that only runs when it is needed (very good
from audio use POV)
- is intuitive enough so that other people, not used to wmaker, are
able to do basic tasks on my machines

--
http://www.eca.cx
Audio software for Linux!

[RTaylor]

Post by Kai Vehmanen

Post by RTaylor
Windowmaker {gnustep, musickit, etc is pretty nice as well.}
http://www.windowmaker.org/
http://www.gnustep.org/
http://www.musickit.org/

++votes. I nowadays use Windowmaker on all my Linux machines. Lots of
- very simple and usable user-interface; easy to learn
- mature and stable; I haven't needed to upgrade in years
because of bugs and/or missing features in wmaker
- does not get in your way; one process (wmaker) - with relatively
small footprint - that only runs when it is needed (very good
from audio use POV)
- is intuitive enough so that other people, not used to wmaker, are
able to do basic tasks on my machines

- Runs very nicely in Cygwin. :}

[Florin Andrei]

Post by Kent, Gary
Hope this isn't off topic for this list. Would someone be
willing to suggest a Window Manager that would work well with a Linux
audio box using the Planet CCRMA images? I have used the Gnome and KDE
environments and just have come to feel that they are too bloated for
what I'm trying to do.
Does using a Window Manager instead of a full-blown desktop such
as Gnome mean that I can have more audio processing power since I am
giving up graphics overhead?

If your system is not too old and slow, and if you use a kernel tweaked
for audio, any WM should do.

I'm using Gnome and it works fine. There are a few things tho' that you
can tweak:
- turn off font antialiasing, it is quite CPU-hungry, or do not run
gnome-terms maximized with text scrolling in them (this will make your
system skip if you use font antialiasing)
- don't load up too many Gnome applets
- avoid launching or closing big apps such as Mozilla, Evolution,
OpenOffice, etc. (but you can keep them open with no issues)

Post by Kent, Gary
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?

FVWM is kinda too sparse for my taste :-)

FluxBox is pretty good. Very small, not as rigid as FVWM, very fast, not
taxing the CPU. I'm using it all the time in VNC - most of my desktops
also run a FluxBox instance in a VNC server all the time in the
background, so that i can vnc into them if i want to.
Using Gnome in VNC would be ridiculous, due to memory consumption and
all, but FluxBox is so small, your system won't feel it.

Also, WindowMaker and derivatives should be fine as well.

[Erik Steffl]

...

Post by Florin Andrei

Post by Kent, Gary
I am trying out fvwm and it is pretty sparse, but was wondering
what others might suggest as best for audio?

FVWM is kinda too sparse for my taste :-)
FluxBox is pretty good. Very small, not as rigid as FVWM, very fast, not

sparse? rigid? these words do not describe fvwm at all. it's has
pretty much all the features a WM can have and it's also one of the most
configurable ones.

erik