Lightest combination of WM & DE's

Question

I originally was going to do different sessions of arch, so that I could have one for basic use, and another session specifically for minimal resource use for graphic design in gimp, emulating flash in sun Vbox, and coding in scite. But I have no idea how to do that, so I'm just gonna do a full re install on a different partition.
Lightest WM, and DE that still maintain usability?
(Really all I care about is the simple stuff when I say usability, without being a tiling wm, ability to skin/change color scheme would be nice though.)
So far I've found:
PekWM, which seems the best option ATM
tint2, (but where am I going to have an apps menu?)
pcmanfm, for wallpaper changing, desktop managing, file exploring and whatnot
and conky, just because.

Answer 1

markp1989 wrote:
Wintervenom wrote:
Maybe this script could take care of you for an applications menu.  All that's needed is Dmenu, and to bind the script to a keyboard shortcut.
#!/bin/dash
### Dmenu Launcher #############
# Version 0.2 by Scott Garrett #
# Wintervenom [(at)] gmail.com #
xdg_paths="/usr/share/applications
/usr/local/share/applications
$XDG_DATA_HOME/applications"
dm='dmenu -i'
get_app_names () {
until [ -z "$1" ]; do
if [ -d "$1" ]; then
grep -h '^Name=' "$1/"*.desktop | sed -e 's:Name=: :'
fi
shift
done
dmenu_path
get_xdg_app_cmd () {
name=`echo "$*" | sed 's:^.*-n ::'`
until [ -z "$1" ]; do
if [ -d "$1" ]; then
grep -l "^Name=$name$" "$1/"*.desktop
fi
shift
done | while read file; do
grep '^Exec=' "$file" | sed -e 's:^Exec=::' -e 's: %.::'
done
program_exists () {
which "$1"
app=`get_app_names $xdg_paths | $dm -p 'Execute:'`
[ ! "$app" ] && exit
if [ ! "`echo "$app" | cut -d' ' -f1`" ]; then
app=`get_xdg_app_cmd $xdg_paths -n $app`
echo "$app" | wc -l
[ "`echo "$app" | wc -l`" != '1' ] && app=`echo "$app" | $dm -p 'Which program?'`
[ -z "$app" ] && exit
fi
program_exists $app && exec $app &
i was never really a ffan off dmenu so i wrote this graphical launcher using zenity,, and tied it to my windows key
the entrys need to be edited depending what programs you have installed..
#!/bin/bash
menuitem=`zenity --list --title="Application Launcher" \
--width=280 --height=225 \
--text="Application Launcher" \
--column="Program" --column="Description" --separator=";" \
Firefox "Firefox Web Browser" \
LeafPad "Test Editor" \
Lxterminal "Lxterminal" \
Pidgin "Messenger" \
Thunar "File Manager" \
VLC "Media Player" \
Wicd "Network manager" \
Shutdown "Shutdown the pc" `
case $menuitem in
Firefox) firefox;;
Lxterminal) xterm ;;
Pidgin) pidgin;;
Thunar) thunar ~/;;
VLC) vlc;;
Sonata) sonata ;;
Sylpheed) sylpheed ;;
Wicd) wicd-client -n ;;
LeafPad) leafpad ;;
Shutdown) sudo /sbin/shutdown -h now ;;
esac
As cool as it is, the fact that it needs to be manually edited to add every app turns me off to it, as I install/uninstall new progs all the time. I could just eliminate the clutter and use it for only essentials though, the rest can be run from the terminal. Wintervenom: Very nice script, might actually try that one today if I don't switch to jwm, thanks for the nifty menu Do you mind if I copypasta to my website/some friends? (with credit)
Decided to use jwm, as the majority of you say it is the lightest floating WM, however I may still try xmonad, as I haven't ever actually tried a tiling wm. and Mythus, you have an extremely lightweight system, I might actually emulate that one on my computer (minus the Prague MM, I prefer Amarok or Songbird). Also, what is Orage?
Thanks for your suggestions everybody!