Making FreeBSD More Lean/Efficient On Older Laptop...

[Jacques S.]

DANIEL MAGNUSZEWSKI wrote:
> All,
> 
> Thanks for the pointers. I do want a desktop manager. Is there a
> central site for most/all desktop managers?
> 

All window managers that have been ported to FreeBSD are listed 
separately in the ports tree, at /etc/ports/x11-wm
I don't know whether all of the wm's that have been recommended by 
others responding to your question are among them, but it presents a 
long list of possibilities.

Let me add to the others who have recommended it, WindowMaker as my 
personal choice. Even WindowMaker has been 'gaining weight' in the last 
few years, but if you study it a little, you can trim in down in your 
own installation.

As for Gnome and the 'fat' thereof...note that a *lot* of FreeBSD ported 
apps. rely on Gnome components that are installed as environmental 
dependencies, even if you do not run the desktop itself. It's all the 
product of the FreeBSD Gnome Project. These Gnome environment components 
have to be sorted out on a port-by-port basis. I found pkg_tree
(/usr/ports/sysutils/pkg_tree) to be helpful.

-- 
Jacques