Window Manager configurations unintendedly removed

[FullScale4Me]

Putting my Captain Obvious hat on:

The antiX folks seem to have their window managers coexisting quite well.

They even set up a hotkey to switch between them IIRC,,,,,it's done 'on-the-fly' with no logout or login required.

antiX-full and antiX-base include these stacking window managers:

• Lightweight: Rox-IceWM (default), IceWM and ZzzFM-IceWM

• Minimalist: Rox-Fluxbox, Fluxbox and ZzzFM-Fluxbox

• Very minimalist: Rox-JWM, JWM and ZzzFM-JWM

[Durhammer]

Okay, @siamhie -- I tried, tried, tried, but couldn't reproduce. (N.B. - I think the initial issue with not being able to even FIND the lxqt package was related both to initially not having WiFi access and then after MX updater staged a lot of updates. Once that happened, the Enabled tab indeed had both jwm and lxqt packages shown as available.)

I installed IceWM, JWM, and LXQt. I configured simple startup changes for each (basically having no panel -- that's a bit of a mistake for JWM, as its root menu doesn't allow you to get to all the apps on the system). I logged in and out of each. I then uninstalled lxqt from MXPI (had to also go back and check all the other pieces of lxqt that had been installed with the lxqt meta package but weren't uninstalled by uninstalling the lxqt meta package alone). Both IceWM and JWM environments and config files persisted. Installed lxqt from terminal, logged into LXQt and fiddled with it, logged out, logged in to (probably F-box at this point?) and removed lxqt. Again, both IceWM and JWM config files and environments were preserved.

So I don't know what's going on in my own MX F-box environment that caused the problem earlier. It's otherwise quite stable.

On a side note, I want to like LXQt, but my main issue with it is how it treats my two different monitors. I can get nitrogen to apply a nice stretched wallpaper, but LXQt hides the top part of it with its own wallpaper. That might seem like a minor quibble, but it expresses my frustration with its configuration capabilities. I did sorta get the panel customized, mostly so it shows vertically on the left side of the primary monitor, but then I have to drag widgets around 'cause it has no automatic reordering of them so the power off is at the top and the start menu is at the bottom. Oh well. Maybe I'll figure it out.....

And thanks, @FullScale4Me -- for whatever reason, I could not get an Anti-X system set up. I think I botched the install, 'cause when I try to boot to it, it just opens up a GRUB window that does nothing. Not even a command that I know of to exit, have to use hardware off button. SIGH....

So anyway, even though the issue has happened to me twice now, it's only been on my own MX F-box setup, not reproducible at will.

[Durhammer]

Late note on the Live ISO environment testing -- after setting up LXQt, even though I had removed the panel (Tray) in the .jwmrc file by commenting it out, when I now log in to JWM, a bastardized LXQt panel appears when I position the mouse to the left of the main monitor. Bleed-over effect from making JWM the WM for LXQt, I suppose.

[dreamer]

I didn't read the whole thread, but in general:

There is a session chooser at the login screen (display manager). LXQt will only have one session I believe; "LXQt Desktop". LXQt will use whatever window manager that has been set in LXQt Session settings. In the same window you can check which startup items are active in the "LXQt Desktop" session. You should probably start by deactivating nitrogen since wallpaper and slideshow are handled by LXQt. Then log out again.

In the display manager session chooser you should see not only "LXQt Desktop" but sessions for all window managers you have installed. So a JWM session completely separate from LXQt for example. If you choose one of those windows manager sessions no LXQt components should start by default.

[siamhie]

Okay, @siamhie -- I tried, tried, tried, but couldn't reproduce. (N.B. - I think the initial issue with not being able to even FIND the lxqt package was related both to initially not having WiFi access and then after MX updater staged a lot of updates. Once that happened, the Enabled tab indeed had both jwm and lxqt packages shown as available.)

I installed IceWM, JWM, and LXQt. I configured simple startup changes for each (basically having no panel -- that's a bit of a mistake for JWM, as its root menu doesn't allow you to get to all the apps on the system). I logged in and out of each. I then uninstalled lxqt from MXPI (had to also go back and check all the other pieces of lxqt that had been installed with the lxqt meta package but weren't uninstalled by uninstalling the lxqt meta package alone). Both IceWM and JWM environments and config files persisted. Installed lxqt from terminal, logged into LXQt and fiddled with it, logged out, logged in to (probably F-box at this point?) and removed lxqt. Again, both IceWM and JWM config files and environments were preserved.

I've had a WM issue where all the components never got removed, so I go to the Enabled tab in MXPI and select each one of them for removal. It's rare but can happen.

[Durhammer]

Thanks, @dreamer -- I'm slowly working through the many issues I had earlier with LXQt and am getting a wee bit more comfortable with it.

It's a good bit "heavier" than any of my WM-only setups (IceWM, JWM, and Openbox). I chose Openbox as the WM for this try.

Right now, my biggest problem is in not being able to configure the panel. I can remove widgets and such, but cannot add them or configure them I moved the application menu down to the bottom of my vertical panel attached to the left side of my bottom/main/primary monitor (which oddly enough according to LXQt is number "2") but could not move the "Leave" button's launcher until I removed the button, and could not add the button back. I've now removed the launcher, since the menu has the "Leave" choice readily available. I'd still like to have it show. Likewise, I'd like to have the systray icons show horizontally and not stacked on top of each other, but can't do it.

I finally think I found in the Preferences menu the "Desktop Preferences" and think that might be where the panel configuration is (?) but when I click it, I get a dialog box saying "Desktop manager is not active." and I don't know how to get that going. SIGH....

EDIT: I also wish LXQt's panel could have a transparent background. If it does, I haven't found it.

[dreamer]

You seem to have a broken LXQt installation. Maybe you are missing packages. Configuration of panels is pretty straight-forward - you do it the same way as in XFCE. Likewise, RAM usage is similar to XFCE so yes it's heavier than a plain Openbox session.

I made a LXQt respin. It's a year old by now, but it has LXQt fully working. If you want to get a feel for the desktop you can try it:
viewtopic.php?p=820197

(I did change a little too much in this respin I think. I think the most successful respins might be those that stick to MX defaults as much as possible and just integrate another DE). By the way, user Senpai also made an LXQt respin which I think he keeps up to date. You can find it here:
viewtopic.php?t=79481

I would actually recommend Senpai's respin instead of my own because it is up to date and doesn't include the XFCE environment.

[Durhammer]

You seem to have a broken LXQt installation. Maybe you are missing packages.

I wondered about that. I might try installing some related lxqt- packages via apt before giving up the ghost. Thanks, but not really sure I'm interested in installing another version or respin of MX at this point. I'm just curious about what's the holdup here and would like to figure it out. It's kind of a hobby borne of 40+ years in software tech support.

I'm appreciative of the work put in to the LXQt ecosystem, but not thrilled with the menu setup/navigation (maybe that's configurable, too, like in Xfce?). I'm quite happy with my smaller, lighter setups in IceWM, JWM, and Openbox, all of which I've configured similarly with a custom tint2 panel and a custom jgmenu with a "favorites" section.

I sort of wonder about the integration of pcmanfm in the desktop and panel. I had seen pcmanfm in my ps_mem.py output taking up a lot of RAM (I use the Xfe/Xfw/etc. app system that is insanely lightweight compared to any other file manager) so I killed it and noticed that my wallpaper changed! Could it be that that disrupted the panel mod environment? I'd probably have to unload and reload LXQt (and delete its user config files) to find out.

[dreamer]

Let's say you only have 2 GB of RAM and want to use a browser and LibreOffice etc. Then it is better to use a window manager than a complete DE. Pcmanfm-Qt handles the deskop in LXQt so it isn't a good idea to get rid of it. If you remove Thunar from XFCE you will likewise run into problems. A window-manager-only setup is better if RAM is limited.

If you want transparency you need a compositor. Either Openbox (insert favorite wm) with Compton/Picom or as I prefer Xfwm. This will also add to your RAM usage.

[Durhammer]

Let's say you only have 2 GB of RAM and want to use a browser and LibreOffice etc. Then it is better to use a window manager than a complete DE. Pcmanfm-Qt handles the deskop in LXQt so it isn't a good idea to get rid of it. If you remove Thunar from XFCE you will likewise run into problems. A window-manager-only setup is better if RAM is limited.

If you want transparency you need a compositor. Either Openbox (insert favorite wm) with Compton/Picom or as I prefer Xfwm. This will also add to your RAM usage.

Thanks! I became really fond of WM-only setups, and for a while did use picom, until I found out how to make both tint2 and conky transparent without a compositor. Pretty cool.

I've still got MX 23.6 with Xfce, MX 21.3 (?) with Xfce and perhaps IceWM and JWM, and MX 23.6 F-box edition with IceWM, JWM, Openbox, LXDE, and LXQt. I like how things work in both JWM and Openbox (once I got beyond its weirdness of its autostart stuff).

And I actually have one of those low-RAM computers -- an HP Stream 13, 2GB soldered in, "32"GB "SSD" (NOT!) also soldered in, but plugged in a 128 GB SD card that is mounted for /home. It's set up with IceWM atop the MX F-box edition. I tested out lots of different apps to find good ones with decent features that were very light, so I use dunst, parcellite, xfe, lxterminal, audacious, Brave browser (I did an extensive forum writeup on that selection as well as some others for the HP), devmon (vs udiskie), and avoid putting anything in the tint2 system tray that involves a python launcher. These setups are lean and mean.

I could run with either LXDE or LXQt, but at this point, I don't think I'll bother any further. I DO want to try UKUI at some point. I did try i3 but couldn't (yet?) get the hang of it.

Okay, I guess this thread is done. Thanks, all!