A lighter Desktop with startx (GNOME Flashback with Metacity actually)

General Discussion
1

I ve accidently discovered that if you remove the desktop-autostart bundle then you can start a lighter Desktop Environment by running startx … this takes 390M of RAM instead of 587M (regular gnome with autostart) on my laptop. … looks good to me, more “classical” than regular gnome desktop with a classical “task bar” with all your tasks/windows at the bottom …

I also installed xfce4 … it takes even less RAM (about 340M) but startxfce4 takes longer than startx (there must be sthg wrong in the configuration) … also the nm-applet icon doesn’t start but you can start it by running nm-applet under root … but when you install xfce4 you get an app finder in the start menu of the startx desktop, which I find kind of useful :slight_smile: …

(I ve also posted on reddit : https://www.reddit.com/r/ClearLinux/comments/plhan6/a_lighter_desktop_with_startx/ )

4 Likes
2

this is GNOME Flashback (Metacity). You don’t have to remove the desktop-autostart bundle to use it. On the login screen, select your user, and a gear icon will appear on the lower right corner of the the screen. select the gear icon, and select GNOME Flashback (Metacity) from the popup menu, then login to use it.

5 Likes
3

thank you, very interesting and useful information (wikipedia link : Metacity - Wikipedia - I ve modified the title of the post btw)