How to get a lightweight system - Base things to install

If you have older computer or you just want to have simple and lightweigh operating system, which will instantly respont to your action (e.g. while opening a instance of a program), but you want to have a fully featured system, just read this post and do as it says.

After installing system (the best option is to install minimal system) install these:

1. xorg and x-window-system - without this, you won't be able to start the X session.

2. Some window manager, like IceWM (icewm-experimental) or Openbox (openbox). You can find more about WMs here and here.

2a. If you install IceWM, install icewm-gnome-support - GNOME support files for IceWM.

2b. If you install Openbox, install tint2 - taskbar.

3. xscreensaver - the name says it all.

4. scrot - small screenshot taking script.

5. numlockx - if you want your NumLock to be activated with start of the OS, then install this.

6. xtrlock - a screen locker.

7. gmrun - a great thing to run things.

8. xosd-bin - displays notifications

9. pm-utils - set of utilities to make your system restart, halt, hibernate or suspend itself.

10. imagemagick - very usefull cli tool for image manipulation.

11. pcmanfm - file manager.

12. gtk-chtheme and lxappearance - GTK+ theme switcher.

13. xfburn - burning tool.

14. feh - great image viewer. You can also set your wallpaper with it.

15. xarchiver - simple GUI archiver. Also install rar, unrar, unzip, zip and p7zip-full.

16. tilda - drop-down (Quake-like) terminal.

17. network-manager-gnome - no explenation is needed, I guess.

18. checkgmail - GMail notification application (for those, who want that).

19. leafpad - simple and light text editor. Of course, if you want, there is always vim.

20. moc - the greatest audio player (run it with mocp).

21. alsa-base and alsa-utils - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.

22. ffmpeg and mencoder - audio and video encoders, converters and streamers.

23. xbacklight - utility to control screen brightness.

24. xcompmgr - composition manager, if you want.

25. lm-sensors - utilities to read temperature, voltage and fan sensors.

26. flashplugin-nonfree - for watching flash videos in a browser.

27. mupdf - PDF viewer.

28. vlc - video player (and not only that). If you want something more lightweight, maybe you can try mplayer2.

29. volti - audio volume controler.

The rest is up to you. Here you can read about some lightweight programs for X.

If you're using Debian or some of its derivatives, you can install all these packages by typing this into terminal (xterm) (you will be then asked to type your password):

sudo aptitude install xorg x-window-system icewm-experimental icewm-gnome-support xscreensaver scrot numlockx xtrlock gmrun xosd-bin pm-utils imagemagick pcmanfm gtk-chtheme lxappearance feh xarchiver zip unzip rar unrar p7zip-full tilda network-manager-gnome checkgmail leafpad moc alsa-base alsa-utils ffmpeg mencoder xbacklight lm-sensors xcompmgr flashplugin-nonfree mupdf vlc volti

If you don't have aptitude installed, then type in terminal:

sudo apt-get install aptitude