Homogenizing antiX19 User Interface (proof of concept)

[manyroads]

For those who are interested here's where I am currently.

Items now included on the antiX setup by default:

From within tint2:
-- meteo-qt: weather app (I'm not very excited about this app; other recommendations are welcomed)
-- orage calendar (click the date)
-- kupfer (semantic launcher search/ function. It is activated by the <Insert> key.

From within autostart script:
-- tint2 is started
-- feh (wallpaper) is started-- it is set to randomly change backgrounds
-- jgmenu (it is modified to closely resemble Whiskermenu available on xfce)
-- numerous icon application launchers
-- date & time (clicking on the text activates 'orage'
-- Volume master (sadly the icon is black)
-- tint2 is started & positions itself, currently, at the screen bottom
-- compton is started (default settings are established/ set from within compton-conf.)

Current Bugs:
-- fluxbox, the non-icon friendly wm (does not display icons for kupfer or meteo-qt) on the toolbar. I think it's probably a jpg/ png/ svg thing.
-- the meteo-qt iconset is itty bitty!

Desktop icons... I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them. I plan to hack around with the antique iDesk code to see what is able to do. I really am not happy with what spaceFM, PCmanFM do to (with?) wallpapers. Ideas here are welcome.

Performance---
-- Description of the VBox platform I'm using for this effort may be found at the end of this message.
The base desktop (as described above, according to htop, seems to idle on:
-- iceWM at about 360 MB . Conky reads out at under 600M (Somebody -me?- needs to fix conky, I guess).
-- fluxbox at about 330 MB (probably because they don't waste any memory on displaying icons correctly.)
-- jwm at about 322MB
-- openbox idles at just under 350MB

I am considering creating an optional taskbar that mimics MX's standard left-side layout. The tint files I develop will be equally usable on antiX and MX. My fees for either are identical.

If you have materials you'd like me to consider adding to this mix of 'tiny tools'. Please make them available via download (from somewhere easily accessed). Any information you can provide will be helpful. I promise I'll check them out. I won't promise to add them to what I'm buiding, but you will be able to add them to your setup soon!

Screenshot (with a lot going on...):
https://ibb.co/0mw6QbD

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System:
  Host: antix1 Kernel: 4.9.170-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64 
  Desktop: IceWM 1.4.3.0~pre-20181030 
  Distro: antiX-19.a2_x64-full Marielle Franco 6 May 2019 
Machine:
  Type: Virtualbox System: innotek product: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: <root required> 
  Mobo: Oracle model: VirtualBox v: 1.2 serial: <root required> BIOS: innotek 
  v: VirtualBox date: 12/01/2006 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 50.0 Wh condition: 50.0/50.0 Wh (100%) 
CPU:
  Topology: Single Core model: Intel Core i5-6300U bits: 64 type: MCP 
  L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  Speed: 2496 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 2496 
Graphics:
  Device-1: InnoTek Systemberatung VirtualBox Graphics Adapter driver: vboxvideo 
  v: 5.2.24 r128163 
  Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1920x958~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 256 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.4 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 82801AA AC97 Audio driver: snd_intel8x0 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.9.170-antix.1-amd64-smp 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet driver: e1000 
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 08:00:27:84:bf:22 
  Device-2: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge driver: piix4_smbus 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 10.00 GiB used: 620.73 GiB (6207.3%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: VirtualBox model: VBOX HARDDISK size: 10.00 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 8.76 GiB used: 5.34 GiB (61.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
  ID-2: swap-1 size: 1024.0 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:
  Message: No sensors data was found. Is sensors configured? 
Info:
  Processes: 134 Uptime: 1h 58m Memory: 7.80 GiB used: 653.3 MiB (8.2%) Shell: bash 
  inxi: 3.0.33 

[manyroads]

I created the following analysis in response to a user on the antiX forums. I think it might be of interest to others here... if not, sorry.

To analyze where memory is being used on this effort, I have taken a screenshot of the memory (htop) on my operating development platform. I will use this development platform for analysis to show how & where the system's memory use grows. If you look at https://ibb.co/9Nr5Zkq, you'll note memory is at 339MB (say 340MB). Using that as the end number for this analysis, keep in mind everything I will add is optional (because I have not removed any of the base antiX19 alpha system).

First let's look at a naked base iceWM from which my blended system is built (iceWM with SpaceFM).
--- spacefm-icewm with only a iceWM panel running (no add-ons beyond SpaceFM) idles at 230MB on my VB machine (no htop provided... you have to trust me on this, sorry)

Next:
--- when I add conky to that base, memory consumption increases to: 240MB

Then if I add either compositor (below) to the mix on the revised base space-icewm platform I get:
--- 313MB of memory consumed when compton is added (screenshot https://ibb.co/9Nr5Zkq)
--- 300MB of memory consumed if xcompmgr is used instead of compton

Thus the remaining/ residual ~27MB of memory (getting us to 340MB) is spent on my "current" base platform to provide the following services:
--- a semantic launcher/ search tool (kupfer)
--- tint2 to run and manage the task bar,
--- jgmenu (an xfce whisker-like menu with internal searching)
--- a weather app
--- a calendar popup

First let me make clear that my objective is NOT to build the leanest machine in the world. It is rather to build a Desktop that is functional for a typical laptop user, nice to look at (following reasonably common user interface techniques/ approaches), consumes computer resources frugally, is easily tailored, and provides a good balance of features to cost. My targeted hardware platform is a typical 5-10 year old laptop. To that end, I assume about 2GB of memory, 100GB of disk, and 1366x768 screen. Thus to my mind the use of let's say 400/2048 (~20%) of memory seems reasonable and appropriate (Note, my actual current use is closer to 340MB of memory).

https://ibb.co/9Nr5Zkq
https://ibb.co/2ZSnHJg

[manyroads]

For anyone who wants to try this stuff out... :lipsrsealed:

Here are my files and work. First let me say some of the files inside the tar file have hidden prefixes so use CTL-h to view all included files.

http://treemagic.org/MX Desktops/antiX- ... pha.tar.gz

Expanding/ extracting the tar files in your home antiX alpha directory should drop everything into the correct location and over-write what was there before extraction. A couple of the files are standalone and available for you to examine. (They are also in the tar folders, you do not need to handle them twice.)

The Conky tar folder should be extracted in your home/user directory. It will over-write the standard Conky and provide you with the original as a backup.

The following applications need to be added to the base antiX19 (alpha) install. I think they are accessible from the terminal cli in any of the windows managers on antiX19 (alpha).

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sudo apt install tint2 kupfer meteo-qt numix-gtk-theme fonts-roboto-hinted

jgmenu needs to be installed, instructions and files are here:
https://github.com/johanmalm/jgmenu/blo ... INSTALL.md

You will need to install the following themes:
from the antiX Control Center-- "Customize Look and Feel Option":
--- gtk2-- Numix theme
--- papirus-antix Icon Theme

I, also, use the roboto font. You'll need to adjust fonts to play well with your hardware. If you want to use it.

Openbox is the wierd duck... If you want it, you should install the following:

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 sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config libpango1.0-dev libglib2.0-dev libxml2-dev libxcursor-dev libimlib2-dev libstartup-notification0-dev libsx-dev libxext-dev x11proto-randr-dev menu menu-xdg obconf obmenu gtk-theme-switch gtk2-engines openbox
openbox-menu

You also will need/want to install obmenu-generator:

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sudo apt-get install build-essential cpanminus git
git clone git://github.com/trizen/obmenu-generator
sudo cp obmenu-generator/obmenu-generator /usr/bin
mkdir .config/obmenu-generator
sudo cp -r obmenu-generator/schema.pl ~/.config/obmenu-generator/
sudo cpanm Linux::DesktopFiles
sudo cpanm Data::Dump
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/obmenu-generator
 

As for Desktop icons and wallpapers, you may choose as you wish. I am happy to provide you with my wallpapers. They are cleverly hidden in the tar file named "wallpapers". I recommend putting them in and using them from /usr/share/wallpapers.

This effort is "at best a prototype". I'm sure bugs abound. I make no guarantees. Let me know if you need help or want to share a great 'a-ha'. Enjoy.