Begin Update I discovered XORG has a feature where all running apps can access all keypresses so that nifty AppImage calculator you downloaded can see the sudo pw you enter as well as the credentials to financial accounts. Consequently I chose to give up on XORG related installations. Fortunately, wayland appears to offer a path around your calculator knowing your sudo pw. Another problem for me is I'm currently using windows and VirtualBox for experimenting with Linux. VirtualBox has a problem with wayland desktop environments/windows managers which don't use xwayland. I've tested both sway and labwc wayland windows managers and they both quickly become unresponsive when ran from a VM on my notebook. From what I've found I'm left with a couple wayland options which are the opposite of where I started - GNOME and KDE. My next steps are to strip away all the unnecessary components within KDE, then GNOME, and compare size and function.
For those OK with XORG this is what I used to install IceWM on a Debian base. I was very happy with the install.
sudo apt-get update --fix-missing sudo apt install xorg lxpolkit slim icewm arandr pulseaudio volumeicon-alsa
~/.icewm/ needs to have a file named startup to start lxpolkit otherwise you can't run apps requiring root access from the IceWM menu.
#!/bin/bash
[ -x ~/.icewm/restart ] && source ~/.icewm/restart &
lxpolkit
End Update
I'd like to build the lightest Linux system I can that is based upon Debian or Debian variant, and IceWM or lighter window manager.
Are there any window managers lighter than IceWM?
Are there any guides/videos on installing IceWM on Ubuntu?
I found Run IceWM in Ubuntu minimal installation?. This got me going down a good path but I encountered problems with some menu items. For instance, shutdown and restart would not work - no error given. Also the gparted menu would not start but like shutdown and restart would run from the cmd line.
Pretty much just looking for a desktop which includes a customizable menu from which I can open applications into windows on the desktop, switch between the applications, and share data between the applications.
