What is the tiniest Window Manager in existence for Linux?

[hoppipolla]

I was wondering about this because I wanted one that I could play games on under Cedega, and my first thoughts were awesome, Fluxbox, TWM etc etc, just to give my pc the easiest time possible and offset the (possibly small) performance hit of playing games emulated.

But that got me thinking. What is the smallest window manager out there? Is there ANYTHING smaller than TWM? o.O

Hoppi

[SunnyRabbiera]

CLI?



Maybe ratpoison

[RiceMonster]

TinyWM. It's only 50 lines of code or something like that.

Edit: Here's the code:

/* TinyWM is written by Nick Welch <mack@incise.org>, 2005.
 *
 * This software is in the public domain
 * and is provided AS IS, with NO WARRANTY. */

#include <X11/Xlib.h>

#define MAX(a, b) ((a) > (b) ? (a) : (b))

int main()
{
    Display * dpy;
    Window root;
    XWindowAttributes attr;
    XButtonEvent start;
    XEvent ev;

    if(!(dpy = XOpenDisplay(0x0))) return 1;

    root = DefaultRootWindow(dpy);

    XGrabKey(dpy, XKeysymToKeycode(dpy, XStringToKeysym("F1")), Mod1Mask, root,
            True, GrabModeAsync, GrabModeAsync);
    XGrabButton(dpy, 1, Mod1Mask, root, True, ButtonPressMask, GrabModeAsync,
            GrabModeAsync, None, None);
    XGrabButton(dpy, 3, Mod1Mask, root, True, ButtonPressMask, GrabModeAsync,
            GrabModeAsync, None, None);

    for(;;)
    {
        XNextEvent(dpy, &ev);
        if(ev.type == KeyPress && ev.xkey.subwindow != None)
            XRaiseWindow(dpy, ev.xkey.subwindow);
        else if(ev.type == ButtonPress && ev.xbutton.subwindow != None)
        {
            XGrabPointer(dpy, ev.xbutton.subwindow, True,
                    PointerMotionMask|ButtonReleaseMask, GrabModeAsync,
                    GrabModeAsync, None, None, CurrentTime);
            XGetWindowAttributes(dpy, ev.xbutton.subwindow, &attr);
            start = ev.xbutton;
        }
        else if(ev.type == MotionNotify)
        {
            int xdiff, ydiff;
            while(XCheckTypedEvent(dpy, MotionNotify, &ev));
            xdiff = ev.xbutton.x_root - start.x_root;
            ydiff = ev.xbutton.y_root - start.y_root;
            XMoveResizeWindow(dpy, ev.xmotion.window,
                attr.x + (start.button==1 ? xdiff : 0),
                attr.y + (start.button==1 ? ydiff : 0),
                MAX(1, attr.width + (start.button==3 ? xdiff : 0)),
                MAX(1, attr.height + (start.button==3 ? ydiff : 0)));
        }
        else if(ev.type == ButtonRelease)
            XUngrabPointer(dpy, CurrentTime);
    }
}

[hoppipolla]

Wow, that really is tiny!

Im not sure if its possible to beat 50 lines of code! lol

[sertse]

tinywm wins, but I think dwm takes it for one that is actively maintained and has a decent user base.

[falconindy]

The smallest is none at all. Run your app on a separate X server. I've got a script called newX that looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
DISPLAY=:1
X :1 -ac -terminate &
sleep 2
$*

so running `newX <application>` would launch a new X server with only your application running on it. It'll use the next available virtual console, so if you use ctrl-alt-f7 to get back to your desktop from a TTY, the new X server will be ctrl-alt-f8.

[Exodist]

TinyWM = Winner.

Other light WMs I like are.. Windowmaker and Afterstep

[Mike'sHardLinux]

I usually don't bother with trying to use the most efficient window manager since modern PCs usually have plenty of horsepower, but AfterStep sure does look interesting. The screen shots have quite a bit more eye candy than I am used to seeing on that type of system.

http://www.afterstep.org/screenshots...shot.glass.jpg

[phrostbyte]

The smallest is none at all. Run your app on a separate X server. I've got a script called newX that looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
DISPLAY=:1
X :1 -ac -terminate &
sleep 2
$*

so running `newX <application>` would launch a new X server with only your application running on it. It'll use the next available virtual console, so if you use ctrl-alt-f7 to get back to your desktop from a TTY, the new X server will be ctrl-alt-f8.

++

Most people don't realize that X will happily run without a WM. I do this to make VM sessions, a session which "boots" into an OS, by writing a session which calls VBoxSDL.

[K.Mandla]

Musca might be interesting to you. Not the smallest, but very small all the same.

http://aerosuidae.net/musca