Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

This is about the interactive feel of the desktop, like clicking, dragging, and rendering operations. JWM seems more instantaneous and direct. Am I missing the JWM Desk settings?

I'm thinking LXDE & XFCE.

I've been appreciating LXDE lately as those peebee distros switch to JWM well.

Trying to run XFCE from the PPM demands a lot of customization, and the puplets either exclude or butcher JWM (e.g., no pinboard).

Otherwise I've been trying to recognize how they use ram. There's something more going on beyond the memory usage at boot.

I would like to understand more about this too

I remember puppy used to come with Xfce and liking it so much I moved from regular Ubuntu to Xubuntu because Gnome felt 'spongy' by comparison

Xfce I still use on my desktops and to me it's noticeably less responsive than JWM. Puppy actively switched from Xfce to JWM at some point and the reasons for that decision might be relevant to this sponginess. iirc it was to do with bloat. I know WMs use less resources than DEs, but there can also be more tightness of how the code is written if a WM can dispense with all the interfaces and cross references a DE needs to make it feel slick and immersive for the user. The user might make a decision it's better to just have a WM doing what it does, with some 'gaps' between it and any running applications.

DEs have I guess more places to acquire wrong settings or corrupted files, but this is about sponginess noticeable on a new install not after years

The default window manager in Xfce seems inferior to JWM in terms of how easy it is to mount network drives, and the accuracy and amount of feedback for copying and moving files. Presumably JWM could run inside Xfce and replace xfwm4 (if that is still right) but I've never tried that: it should be easy but I fear encountering complicated problems if it turned out not to be

On the downside I find JWM fragile. Puppy on a USB key is always being shut down and having some file corruption - if JWM happens to be accessing important files when the power is switched off it seems to get badly wrecked, which I wonder if this is related to a DE being more tightly integrated with the power settings and shutdown. The recurring problems are the window theme permanently changing to a nice golden orange colour after rebooting, which (I think) is because the default one has been corrupted. Also eventually on JWM I always expect the default desktop icons for file...help... mount... install... to break at some point.

On the downside I find JWM fragile. Puppy on a USB key is always being shut down and having some file corruption - if JWM happens to be accessing important files when the power is switched off it seems to get badly wrecked, which I wonder if this is related to a DE being more tightly integrated with the power settings and shutdown. The recurring problems are the window theme permanently changing to a nice golden orange colour after rebooting, which (I think) is because the default one has been corrupted. Also eventually on JWM I always expect the default desktop icons for file...help... mount... install... to break at some point.

You need to start a topic about these problems,
Non of this is normal operation of Puppy and JWM window manager.
Something is wrong with your Puppy install.

Answer to your question.
JWM is simple, small, does all the basic requirements of a window manager, uses little of resources, etc......

It has been picked for Puppy for all the above reasons.

More complicated window managers, do nothing, but just add a bunch of eye candy, to trying to perform, basic window manager operations.

Ditto what bigpup wrote. And, PuppyandCo, you're mistaken about Puppys switching from xfce to jwm. I got involved with Puppys in 2007 about the time Barry K published Series 2: hence THE official Puppy; anything else being a remaster. AFAIK, Barry's choices were always jwm window-manager, rox file-manager.
AFAIK, the first Puppy to employ xfce was Gray's NOP in the 4 Series, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 559#354559 in 2009. An xfce Puppy has occasionally been published. But that's always been an exception.

AFAIK, before JWM, Puppy's wm was FVWM, configured to resemble and behave like Win95.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FVWM

My #1 distro is bg's 32 X-Tahr for

• out-the-box usability

• aesthetics

• Ubuntu compatibility

• this esoteric smoothness (including the spongy quality)

Yet normally at the moment it's Mainline Tahr 32 JWM for that small edge in system resources over X-Tahr, and I like my 32 notebook KEYBOARD better than the fast 64 desktop with battleshooter's Xenial. X-Tahr is also smoother than the 64 XFCE.

If Ubuntu didn't matter it'd be X-Slacko where I started puplet XFCE before compatibility frustration.

When my prime motive is big browsing JWM begs. Browsing is such a hog.

My main frustration on Tahr JWM everyday is aesthetics. The pinboard is good but the menu/tray fonts and graphics aren't up to par. Xenial has more options, but I drag my heels on anything new when it's not a must. I reboot more these days in Puppy for these slight differences.

It would have been nice if bg documented his creation process to keep the X-series alive. Three(?) versions is good but the project warrants continuation.

Puppy XFCE would probably be a Top 10 distro if maintainers cared.

Is Applicatons>Desktop>Desktop Settings>Fonts>Global Font Size a JWM feature?

If so, JWM is my favorite desktop ever. I just discovered it, and it will probably save me thousands of (In Mozilla) Menu>Zoom -170+ clicks over the next few weeks/months/years. There aren't words for how happy I am about this.

hundido wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 5:05 am

Is Applicatons>Desktop>Desktop Settings>Fonts>Global Font Size a JWM feature?

I booted 32-Xenial JWM just to answer your question.

It runs this notebook well which has an X-series character.

Global font size is in Desktop->JWMDesk->Screen Font.

I've never changed it.

All the WM/DE have pros and cons, so I stay torn, booting both JWM & XFCE regularly and LDXE on occassion.

XFCE tops LXDE & is really a given if you want the DE feel, but as I wrote before, with LXDE you have JWM on tap & I haven't seen the same with XFCE yet.

X-Tahr has little glitches JWM doesn't, but I can always work around them and overall it impresses given there isn't a support system around it. All the help is oriented towards JWM, and XFCEworld doesn't understand Puppyworld to cover all the bases.

Puppy is deceptive.

The classic icon layout & Puppy Mystique make it seem like a user-friendly os, but reality is it's a middleweight between technical and friendly.

XFCE makes Puppy more user-friendly, but as you can see on the forum & elsewhere, die-hard users tend to be more technical & are less daunted by complexity or religiously aesthetic.

My JWM looks pretty awesome, but the achievement was untold hours & I'm not done with the functioning part (aesthetics covered). I still need to manually simplify menus.

In X-Tahr you basically have to adjust your background and throw up another panel. Everything else is minor. User-friendly.

hundido wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 5:05 am

and it will probably save me thousands of (In Mozilla) Menu>Zoom -170+ clicks over the next few weeks/months/years.

You will save even more clicks in Mozilla if you use not Menu, but the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + mouse wheel up and down.

bigpup wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 3:05 pm

On the downside I find JWM fragile. Puppy on a USB key is always being shut down and having some file corruption - if JWM happens to be accessing important files when the power is switched off it seems to get badly wrecked, which I wonder if this is related to a DE being more tightly integrated with the power settings and shutdown. The recurring problems are the window theme permanently changing to a nice golden orange colour after rebooting, which (I think) is because the default one has been corrupted. Also eventually on JWM I always expect the default desktop icons for file...help... mount... install... to break at some point.

You need to start a topic about these problems,
Non of this is normal operation of Puppy and JWM window manager.
Something is wrong with your Puppy install.

That would be ROX accessing files, properly speaking, not JWM.

Also, aside from the inadvertent shutdowns mentioned, which is not normal, a shutdown which disturbs the desktop on re-booting can have several causes and solutions. Here is some good information from the old forum: https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=118161

Also backing up the Puppy pin file occasionally can ease the pain of re-tuning to your preference after an unusual shutdown occurs, like a power outtage, etc.

@JASpup Thank you for booting just to answer a question.

@Grey Thank you for the tip.

The thing that makes me so happy about the Global font size in JWM, is I don't need the zoom button or the scroll anymore. It's almost like having normal vision again when I'm using puppy.

hundido wrote: ↑Sat Jul 24, 2021 8:29 am

@JASpup Thank you for booting just to answer a question.

grateful to other users who got me up and running, and developers who made booting Puppy over and over again relatively painless