Some great light-weight apps for the desktop!

Submitted by Chandrashekar Babu on April 14, 2005 - 9:43am.
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  • adesklets
    Who ever needs Gnome panel/Kicker/whatever when there's an icon-launcher as leet and light-weight as this one ?
  • rxvt-unicode
    The most impressive X terminal emulator that I've found so far. Whats impressive about this terminal are its features - unicode, xft, transparent background with tinting/shading support (like in Eterm), automation-capable pty interface (configurable scroll bars) and so on. Its built ontop of rxvt and adopts all the best features of its predecessor while also giving us great new features with very lean memory/resource usage. The terminal is also extremely fast and does not load the CPU too much while running commands like 'ls -lR /'. Of course, this terminal deserves a well-written article by itself ;-)
  • X File Explorer
    A fast and efficient file manager for X Window system with very lean resource usage. It somewhat resembles (and rather advances) over the good old Windows Explorer found on Windows NT 4.0 platform. Feels polished and light-weight and uses the FOX toolkit for rendering widgets. Of course, Windows bashers might not like this one for its close resemblance to the Windows look'n'feel.
  • ROX Filer
    The most feature-rich file manager with extensive features that could make it work well as a complete desktop environment on its own as well (using ROX-Session). It provides library support for building desktop/tray applets and applications. It follows its own way of organising files and applications, and is very powerful. The project seems have been inspired by the not-so-familiar RiscOS environment.
  • The Enlightenment Window Manager
    The most impressive window manager that I've used till date. I've been using this window manager as my default desktop environment itself since '98 and I'm continued to be impressed by its features, stability, speed and its lean resource usage. Yes, by today's standards, this window manager is far leaner than other so-called lean window managers (metacity, sawfish, afterstep). But still, its sports various features that make it completely self-contained on its own. Also worth noting is its flexibility, customizability and themability is second to none. Of course, some might argue that fvwm is far more customizable, but still, it doesn't sport the great features offered by enlightenment 0.16 series. The next generation of Enlightenment (0.17) is getting stabler and I'm just waiting for the best to come out from Rasterman (Enlightenment's key author).