Re: linux distro for ratpoison/minimalist config on laptop?

Hi,

On Wed, May 04, 2011 at 08:54:20PM -0700, Ross Patterson wrote:
> Do you want auto-mount of USB drives?

I use pmount for that. It's not automatically, but automatised: The
user just says "pmount /dev/whatever" and /dev/whatever gets mounted
to /media/whatever.

> How about NetworkManager?

You don't need bloaty NM. There's wicd which has a GTK, Curses and CLI
interface.

> If you want to use it, are you content with nmcli?

Huh? There's now a CLI interface for NM other than cnetworkmanager?

> What about various apps that depend on a system/notification tray?

There are lightweight panels, too: lxpanel, fspanel, trayer, tint2,
etc., and the text-mode panels without tray: dzen2 and xmobar.

> Skype? Dropbox?

At least I don't need either of these non-free programs highly
depending on the vitality of the compnay behind them. scp and an
appropriate server with Apache being installed is my favourite dropbox
alternative. ;-)

> All this is to say, you might not want as minimal a system as at
> first you think you do.

Sure, but there are tons of alternatives in the OSS world, especially
if there are well-known bloaty open-source projects for some use-case.
:-)

My more or less lightweight ratpoison/awesome setup is available at
https://github.com/xtaran/ratpoison-desktop with a list of software it
incorporates towards the end of the start page (i.e. the README file).

		Kind regards, Axel
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