Hi, lovely shell system ;)

I am trying to go in the direction of scaling back as far as possible to make the smallest footprint as well as impact on cpu cycles. I have an older machine(200mHz) that I let friends use(and their kids too) so I figured to test the boundaries of minimalist usage.

First, I guess, do you have any suggestions in this regard?

But mainly I'd like to ask about the bit-depth situation. I've already been tweaking a theme down to what I feel is minimal(where the main point really is to open up as much ram as possible), but I wonder exactly what's happening in the bit depth dept... I'm using 16 bit mode but I can tell that, at least, on the bar it is 24-bit mode minimum. The desktop icons do show as 16-bit though.

Can anybody offer some info in this regard?

thanks

just means you didn't use 16 bit graphics.

200MHz... I assume the computer's running Win 98 or something then. LiteStep isn't really very stable on 9x machines, or at least it didn't use to be. But maybe that depends on the theme too.

devil: I didn't use any graphics.. -the operating system and shell handle that. I set the operating system to use 16-bit, and I haven't found anything yet about setting the shell for the situation. What do you mean? Does it come down to the actual graphic resources of the theme? I ask that because with the Austerity theme the austerity litestep icon it shows as 16-bit as a desktop icon yet shows 24-bit(or more) as the bar button.

Can you offer anymore insight?

West: it would be "or something then".. -thanks anyway :|

that means that the desktop module only does 24 bit graphics...unload it...it is bloat anyway.

I'd assume it would come down to the image/icon. The module 'should' be able to handle 16bit.

Minimal suggestions:
Load as few modules as possible,
use as few images/icons as possible,
use solidcolors,
dont use a popup (the more menu's and sub menu's you open up the more RAM that gets chewed),
setup a custom install (so your only loading things you need)

ps: Are you running windows 95? (ah the memories... :D )

fractal :: if the icon was 16 bit I bet it would load it 16 bit...but I bet that it is actually coded to display with the most compatible colors to the icon.

Hm, I think icons would usually have the entire icon resource loaded... all sizes and bit depths included. It probably depends on how Windows loads icons, and I don't know that offhand.

If you really want icons, convert the icons to 16 *color* bitmaps and use shortcuts or something. All the automatic stuff adds overhead. But the least resource usage you'll get with litestep is nothing but hotkeys. (or I guess you could run everything off of the "emergency" menu)

wouldnt the taskmanager be smaller than ls in that case?