suggest some lightweight alternatives to well known programs

[chris4585]

well, i'd like to know what other people use for example, instaed of pidgin for instance can be replaced by SIM (small instant messanger?) anything is appreciated.

[fuscia]

centerim is an instant message thing for the terminal.

[Lord Illidan]

Firefox -> Epiphany or Dillo
Amarok -> mpd


Basically, fire up Damn Small Linux or Zenwalk and see what kind of applications they use.

[Mateo]

Epiphany isn't any more lightweight than Firefox. That's a myth based on the fact that Epiphany is more simplistic (and I'm a Epiphany user). They both use Gecko and thus use about the same amount of memory. Sure, Firefox is heavier when you add a ton of extensions, but it's not heavier by itself.

[jrusso2]

Have a look at the default applications on the damn small linux distro.

There are many light weight replacements on there for regular programs.

http://damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html

[Lostincyberspace]

Have a look at the default applications on the damn small linux distro.

There are many light weight replacements on there for regular programs.

http://damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html
another amarok one - pytone a really good cli based player.

[Mazza558]

Nautilus can be replaced with Thunar, one of my favourite Filemanagers.

[chris4585]

thunar is good for a lightweight file manager, but i like pcmanfm a bit

[LaRoza]

Abiword for word processing instead of OO.org

Lynx instead of Firefox/Opera

[urukrama]

Feh as an image viewer, Thunar as a file manager, mpd as a music player, GMPC as a light graphical frontend for mpd, Openbox as a window manager.

[chris4585]

Abiword for word processing instead of OO.org

Lynx instead of Firefox/Opera


i found lynx quite interesting

[chris4585]

centerim is an instant message thing for the terminal.

for some reason i couldnt stay connected with this program :/

[Lord Illidan]

Lynx is a bit hardcore, heh.

rtorrent can be used to download torrents from cli.

[chris4585]

Feh as an image viewer, Thunar as a file manager, mpd as a music player, GMPC as a light graphical frontend for mpd, Openbox as a window manager.

i tried feh not really what i'm looking for, so far the only thing that does what i want is gwenview and the only problem with that is that it takes a bit for it to load up, and i'm using fvwm-crystal for my wm

[chris4585]

i've tried moc before and it froze while trying to load my playlist, which was huge, and for a music player i now use quod libet, not very lightweight but i like it, it does what i want it to do

[K.Mandla]

gimp -- mtpaint
gqview -- mirage
firefox -- kazehakase
nautilus -- pcmanfm, emelfm2 or xfe
evolution -- sylpheed
evince -- epdfview

And so forth. Basically anything that avoids Gnome or can run in a terminal is a great choice. Use the packages search page (http://packages.ubuntu.com) to check dependencies and try them out as you find them.

[urukrama]

i tried feh not really what i'm looking for, so far the only thing that does what i want is gwenview and the only problem with that is that it takes a bit for it to load up, and i'm using fvwm-crystal for my wm

Feh is great if you want to view a single image file. It is the fastest image viewer I've used so far, and it has quite a lot of options you can use -- see the man page of feh (man feh).

If you want a slightly more sophisticated image viewer, try gpicview. It is quite light.

EDIT: and I second epdfview.

[chris4585]

i liked K.Mandle's list, and feh seems very good for a single image viewer, i'm searching for something that does pretty much gwenview but faster, the scroll bar button switches pictures, i like this feature, and the fit to window, fit to hight, fit to width are the other things i like from gwenview

[K.Mandla]

Some more, torn out of a guide some clown wrote and posted on a blog. :D


X-based

The default X environment in Ubuntu has a string of included "software" that might be of use to you. They're generally very, very ugly, but can work in a pinch, or might offer some short amusement.

terminal emulators
xterm

desktop utilities
xbiff
xclipboard
xcutsel
xmag
xmessage
xmore
xsetroot

font utilities
xfd
xfontsel

gimmicks
xeyes
xgc
xlogo

image tools
xwd
xwud

system utilities
xconsole
xload
xset
xsm

accessories
xcalc
xclock

There are more available in the repositories, if you're a big X-based application fan. Check the man pages for details; some can be a bit cryptic, but others are very useful.

GTK1.2-based

GTK1.2 has lighter requirements and is probably better on sub-400Mhz hardware. These programs are generally uglier (or public opinion says they're uglier), but much faster than GTK2. It's a compromise between the better appearance offered by GTK2, and the stark efficiency of X-based or console applications.

Don't discount them though: The list includes some venerable, masterful Linux software -- like the classic XMMS music player and the wicked-fast Dillo browser. Development may have paused on some of these, but many, many people still put them to use.

e-mail clients
sylpheed-gtk1

terminal emulators
aterm

music players
xmms

image viewers
feh (not really GTK1.2-based I guess, but around there)
xzgv

pdf viewers
xpdf

file managers
emelfm
xfe (actually FOX-based, but of a similar caliber and likewise rather ugly)

Don't forget to install gtk-theme-switch and a few GTK engines, which will allow you to use a much better looking theme than the Raleigh default. Yuck.

GTK2-based

GTK2 is a little more demanding on your video system, but offers a much more attractive appearance. And since most modern machines can handle the workload, it tends to be a little more popular among developers. Remember that just because a program uses GTK2 doesn't mean it can't run on older machines. Some of these, such as mtpaint or xpad, are sufficiently light to work well on very old hardware too.

e-mail clients
sylpheed

terminal emulators
rxvt-unicode
mrxvt
Sakura*

music players
audacious

file managers
emelfm2*
pcmanfm
rox-filer

chat clients
xchat

image viewers
mirage
gpicview*
gqview

editors
leafpad
geany

system utilities
synaptic

music tag editors
easytag

torrent clients
deluge
transmission

graphics
gimp
mtpaint

office applications
abiword
gnumeric-gtk
epdfview
inkscape
zim

accessories
galculator
xpad

*These programs are not in the Gutsy repositories, but are installable as deb files from outside sources -- sometimes alternative renditions of Ubuntu, sometimes collections of software compiled for Ubuntu but hosted elsewhere.

Don't forget to install gtk-theme-switch and a few GTK engines, which will allow you to use a much better looking theme than the Raleigh default. Double yuck. If you prefer, you can add gtk-chtheme, which is a vast improvment over switch2, and is in the repositories for Gutsy.

[Incense]

That's an INCREDIBLE list! I'm going to have to try out some of those! Thanks for sharing!

[chris4585]

indeed thanks K.Mandla

[igknighted]

No one has mentioned Finch for a text-based IM client? It's built on top of libpurple, so its essentially a text based version of pidgin... very nice.

[chris4585]

No one has mentioned Finch for a text-based IM client? It's built on top of libpurple, so its essentially a text based version of pidgin... very nice.

i just tried finch, and its awesome! i dont even like pigin that much but this is amazing

[chris4585]

anyone know of a torrent package thats lightweight? i've downloaded transmission but not sure if thats what i want, i'm trying to come up with a lightweight system

[p_quarles]

anyone know of a torrent package thats lightweight? i've downloaded transmission but not sure if thats what i want, i'm trying to come up with a lightweight system
rtorrent

[urukrama]

rtorrent

+1. See here (http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/05/02/howto-use-rtorrent-like-a-pro/) how to use it.

For more applications, see also this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=447007) thread and this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2862243&postcount=5) post.

[RomeReactor]

anyone know of a torrent package thats lightweight? i've downloaded transmission but not sure if thats what i want, i'm trying to come up with a lightweight system

You could also use the default BitTorrent client from the terminal; to download a single file:

btdownloadcurses /PATH/TO/FILE
Where FILE is the .torrent file to start the download. To start multiple downloads from .torrent files located in a folder called "TORRENTS":

btlaunchmanycurses /PATH/TO/TORRENTS
Note that by default, the terminal opens in your home folder and that's where your downloads are going to be saved; if you want to save the files elsewhere, navigate to the desired location before starting. Both methods allow for resuming partial downloads; just remember that if you chose another destination for the downloads, you must navigate there before resuming. To resume the download, just issue the command again.

[jeffus_il]

Quod Libet is probably the lightest full featured music player.

[urukrama]

Quod Libet is probably the lightest full featured music player.

Quod Libet is nice, but if you want things light try MPD + GMPC for a graphical player, or MPD + NCMPC for a command-line player.

[Lord Illidan]

I took the liberty of fixing a typo in the title.

[Havoc]

Konqueror/Embedded as a browser. Either one of the old snapshots which use QT2 (Latest snapshot with QT2 is HERE (http://developer.kde.org/~hausmann/snapshots/Attic/konqueror-embedded-snapshot-20030705.tar.gz)) or newer snapshots which require QT3. Compiling these from source is a pain in the ***, but it's the fastest CSS/Javascript compliant web-browser out there (at least the QT2 version, which I've tested).

Sylpheed 1.0.6 is probably the best e-mail client using gtk-1.2.

Xwc (Xwincommander), on which xfe is based upon is a great filemanager.

Finch is great these days. IM for the console, it comes with pidgin.

The "latest" release of Abiword with GTK-1.2 is 1.0.7. You'll have to build it with gcc-3.x though.

[chris4585]

Quod Libet is probably the lightest full featured music player.

+1 i use quod libet, it handles my library of about 19,000 files pretty smoothly

thanks all for all the info, and links, sorry i didnt take the time to search, i havent had time to try all of these applications but i will eventually

[ynnhoj]

bitlbee (http://www.bitlbee.org/) for instant messaging; if you tend to have an irc application open, it makes perfect sense. i use bitlbee with weechat -- recently switched back from irssi, which i was using for a while -- and it's great. finch, as others have mentioned, is nice too.. but finch is a bit clunky to me.

[chris4585]

what about a screen capture program? i dont like the one that comes with the usual gnome install, and ksnapshot might be a bit slow at times, anything for this?

[p_quarles]

what about a screen capture program? i dont like the one that comes with the usual gnome install, and ksnapshot might be a bit slow at times, anything for this?
scrot

A CLI based screen-capture app.

[chris4585]

ty works nicely

[chris4585]

balsa or sylpheed for an e-mail client? which offers the most options and being the lightest, i'm heard balsa is lighter than sylpheed, but i'm not an e-mail person i do need to know this though

[redrider]

Others will probably be falling into this thread while researching openbox and ubuntu, just as I did. I was looking for instructions about setting background with feh. I got just what I needed here.

About light and fast apps, I would suggest 2 browsers:

opera -- for the full browser experience when you need it. It may not be that light, but it's a lot faster than firefox (especially when you consider that it already has built-in many of the basic usefulness that needs to be added on to firefox. I install the .deb file downloaded directly from Opera's website.

links2 -- not just links, but links2 from the repositories. Links 2 should automatically run in graphics mode when called from the standard menus, or if you call it from a terminal, links2 -g. I've tried pretty much all the light text-based browsers, and I like links2 the most primarily because it shows graphics and renders pages very close to normal when in graphics mode.

I love openbox, by the way. I find that it has the best combination of minimalness and functionality. It also works great with any gnome programs you might need (for example, I have to run gnome network manager and nm-applet in order to get wifi on my laptop.

One more suggestion... if you want a fairly light setup that gets you up and running almost immediately with a minimum of manual setup, install xubuntu first (not ubuntu), and then install openbox. Both xfce4 itself, and openbox run lightning fast on my 1.8 Ghz AMD Turion with 1 gig of ram (shared with the ATI graphics card).