glocal,
glad you like it.
I will try to help you, where I can, if something remains unclear, just ask again
In the default browser settings there is comment saying it is advisable that Opera remain the default browser because Firefox crashes too often. Is that still the case? Would it be better with Firefox v3? If yes, would responding 'yes' to Firefox (and OOo) offering to auto-update work?
no, not longer valid.
Firefox runs stable, since I use "aufs" instead of "unionfs".
I must correct that text.
Firefox 3 currently has no advantages.
It uses a lot of space instead, as it manages the internal security database less efficient.
I never tried an auto-update of OpenOffice.
I fear, it would use a lot of space inyour savefile.
I plan to make a new SFS for OpenOffice 2.4.1 within the next 2 weeks.
I tried the above TaskBarShowClock=1 setting to get icewm to show a clock, but the font is ridiculously large.
You can set the fonts in /root/.icewm/prefoverride.
The menubutton is in /root/.icewm/themes/ACTIVE_THEME/taskbar/linux.xpm.
You can edit that in Gimp or MtPaint.
Some themes use a different one, like menu.xpm.
* While trying to slim things down I removed expose, icedock and desklets. Is there anything non-critical that can be removed? eg this laptop doesn't have a webcam, nvidia or a gameport. I very much doubt I will ever connect anything to the serial/parallel ports either (but I am not sure if the internal modem is connected to a serial port). Am I right in thinking that if I blacklist these modules and re-master Muppy, it may not detect hardware correctly on other machines?
Yes, the latter would be the case.
You can however on your machine move some files from /root/autostart/ to /root/autostart/off/ to avoid, that they load.
Like the nvidia-installer, or Muppywebcam.
* Certain dialogue windows are too big for 800x600 and the Confirm/Cancel buttons are not visible.
Yes.
You can move them by pressing ALT, then click in the window and drag it.
Or right-click the windowborder for dragging.
Or rightclick the corresponding entry in the taskbar - move.
* what is that little square in the bottom-right corner?
A dummy-window required by the internal clipboard.
* with icedock i had this problem: I enabled iceshutdown and every time I started Muppy it immediately shut down! I was effectively locked out, but I found a way to get in and change the settings manually. Why would anyone want to do a shutdown right after bootup? Shouldn't there be a mechanism to prevent/warn about this?
This I don't understand, what is iceshutdown?
How can I enable it for tests?
* on at least one occasion 'checking if version update' at bootup took suspiciously long to the point I thought it had crashed. But it continued ok eventually.
The way to generate the help-index is slow, as it scans subfolders.
Using my gnome.sfs I work on, it can take endlessly.
And it deletes .wh files from "unionfs", what is no longer needed with "aufs".
Will both be fixed in 0084.
* Being new to this, I had major problems with grub. The installer said the text was copied to a newsomething file that didn't exist -- and I tried the installation several times. Then, editing the menu list manually is not the easiest thing for newbies. The fact that there are several (obsolete?) grub directories with conflicting instructions doesn't help. I noticed there were conflicting instructions for other settings as well (eg icewm, I think)
Yes, I'm not happy either, this needs to be enhanced.
* other than taking HD space, do all these packages affect performance? I mean, it may be a luxury that there are 4 browsers with my spec.
You can check the Mini without the addons.sfs, to check, if it improves speed on your computer.
This depends a bit on the memory.
Thanks for your detailed report!
Mark