[SOLVED] windows looking wm

[stefansjs]

Hello,
I am looking for a window manager and/or theme that will satisfy two criteria
1. lightweight for use on a PII 300-ish HZ 192MB RAM desktop.
2. Looks close to Windows, either classic (preferable) or XP, but not vista.

I am trying to cheaply rejuvenate my parents' 10-yr-old desktop. I figured that I'd be able to squeeze a bit more performance out of it with linux, but I don't want it to be so alien, that my parents can't use it. They can catch on to something a little different, but I can't use something like IceWM, 'cause it's sloppy and confusing.

*Tangent*: I was using Damn Small Linux for a little, and it runs just how I want it to, but even when I run xubuntu it is slower than I want it to be. Also, any performance optimizations that I might use would be helpful.

Thanks

[mcduck]

IceWM is pretty close to the classic Windows look, an also fairly lightweight..

edit: Here's one Win Classic-theme for IceWM: http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/winclassic/

[urukrama]

Like mcduck, I'd suggest Icewm. It is light and can easily be made to look like Windows. What do you mean by "it is sloppy and confusing"? It is very easy to configure through a few text files (that are all very clearly explained), and is quite flexible (lots of options). The documentation (http://icewm.org/manual/) is pretty detailed as well.

If Icewm is not an option, you could use Openbox (or LXDE), though you will have to configure it a little. The Openbox defaults look nothing like Windows, but you can easily create a Windows-style Openbox session. There is 'Redmond (http://box-look.org/content/show.php/Open-Redmond?content=66164)' Openbox theme, and you could use one of many panels to get a Windows-like taskbar and menu. You could use a file manager like PCManFM to manage the desktop. Openbox is very light and flexible. See the link in my signature if you need help setting it up.

If Openbox is not an option, you could do a command-line install of Ubuntu and add the xfce4 package to it. This will be heavier than Openbox or Icewm, but will give you a much faster Xfce than you will get with Xubuntu. I have done this on a computer of about he same specs as the one you mentioned, and the speed and responsiveness was quite fine.

EDIT: K.Mandla has written a guide (http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/howto-set-up-hardy-for-speed/) to speed up Ubuntu.

[stefansjs]

Thanks for the help. I ended up putting xfce on top of a server install. That's good enough for my purposes. I just customized the bar to look like a start menu.
thanks

[Inxsible]

There's also JWM (Joe's Window Manager) which has a Windows 95sy kinda look