Which Ubuntu?

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 2022-11-16 at 11:59 -0500, SDA wrote:
> AntiX: https://antixlinux.com/

Hi,

it's a X based distro and they mention the same WM as I already did.

"What window managers are available in antiX?

These window manager options come installed and ready to use in antiX-
full and antiX-base:

    the lightweight Rox-IceWM (default)

    the lightweight IceWM

    the lightweight SpaceFM-IceWM

    the minimalist manager Rox-Fluxbox

    the minimalist manager Fluxbox

    the minimalist manager SpaceFM-Fluxbox

    the very minimalist manager Rox-JWM

    the very minimalist manager JWM.

    the very minimalist manager SpaceFM-JWM." -
http://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/docs-antiX-19/FAQ/index.html

On Tue, 2022-11-15 at 22:27 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> One very lightweight window manager is jwm.

What I actually did in the past was, as recommended by Robert...

On Tue, 2022-11-15 at 16:26 -0500, Robert Heller wrote:
> Install from a *server* image

I unchecked everything server related and anything else I don't need.
IOW instead of a default server install, I minimized the server install,
but after that I added X, jwm and more. However, I prefer openbox over
jwm. If I use a file manager, then it's usually SpaceFM, but most of the
times I'm in favour of bash (not for scripts, but as the login shell
used as a file manager replacement etc.). For the OP's purposes I
recommend to stay away from Rox, Rodent and similar. I could recommend 
panels, editors etc., but all this doesn't make much sense.

On Wed, 2022-11-16 at 12:01 -0500, SDA wrote:
> I forgot to mention that this distro includes LibreOffice. It runs 
> well, probably because the OS has a small footprint overhead.

It runs well, because you are using just around a decade old hardware
with 4 GiB of RAM, but the OP mentions

On Tue, 2022-11-15 at 19:45 +0000, Ian Bruntlett wrote:
> 1GiB upwards

I'm using "weak" hardware myself. A dual-core Model 6.60.3 Intel(R)
Celeron(R) CPU G1840 @ 2.80GHz and used even way weaker hardware before.
There's no big difference between 4 GiB, 8 Gib or 16 GiB RAM on my
machine. 4 GiB is the lower limit, hence 8 GiB is better, but 16 GiB
don't gain much noticeable differences. However, below 4 GiB it's
getting tight.

To start LibreOffice Writer you already need 3.5 GiB of RAM to hold the
splash screen. I'm exaggerating, but it describes the problem well.

I can run realtime audio, due to professional audio hardware and a tuned
operating system. I can run bloatware and even bloated desktop
environments without issues on my machine. I just don't like those
desktop environments. It's at least a dual-core Celeron with more than 4
GiB of RAM. I need an hour to compile virtualbox and two hours to
compile a common (not minimized) kernel. Running LibreOffice Writer is
no issue at all. It doesn't make a big difference if I'm running a jwm,
openbox, Xfce, or even a GNOME session.

This is possible with around 10 year old hardware and >= 4 GiB of RAM
and still having fun. If the machine is weaker, then it's no fun
anymore, even if it should still be possible to run LibreOffice and
similar bloated software. Btw. there is no guarantee that Abiword will
run better than LibreOffice on a weak machine. In my experience,
graphics card problems were not that rare when using Abiword.
Lightweight software is not necessarily better programmed than bloated
software.

Note, most of the new bloated software is written with 64 bit
architecture, much RAM and reasonably current CPU features and CPU cores
in mind.

Regards,
Ralf