Alternative Window Managers

[brentoboy]

OK, I want to try out "all" the Window Managers, and form my own opinion, but I want to know the roots of each of them. Which one is based on which other one, and why the broke off rather than building on top of the next.

So, let me know your favorite(s) and why. And, if you know, where did it come from. Lets do some WM-Geneology - we can even build a tree of existing WMs.

I started by going to Synaptic and looking for WMs but I got back so much stuff, and most of it looked like "work in progress" "dont use this for real" type of stuff.


Ive used KDE, Gnome, Xfce4, and icewm.
Gnome is the only one I have used enough to know anything about.

[KingBahamut]

windowmaker - http://windowmaker.org
GNUstep - http://www.gnustep.org/
Afterstep - http://www.afterstep.org/
E17 - http://www.enlightenment.org/
Fluxbox - http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/
blackbox - http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net/
Mezzo - http://www.symphonyos.com/mezzo.html
XPde - http://www.xpde.com/

and a few others.

XPde is probably the hardest to compile.
windowmaker my favorite out of them for simplicity.

[Stormy Eyes]

Check this out.

[-Rick-]

Not a WM but an DE: http://ede.sourceforge.net/page/home

[majikstreet]

Check this out.

Good stuff

I personally use fluxbox http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net
It comes from blackbox.

[Brunellus]

KB is a well-known flux hater, but I, too, like fluxbox. I even experimented (briefly) with running fluxbox as gnome 2.10's default wm, and, while I liked having windowtabbing in GNOME, I found that blackbox played with gnome much more nicely.

[Stormy Eyes]

Good stuff

I personally use fluxbox http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net
It comes from blackbox.

I use Openbox myself. As far as I know, Fluxbox doesn't comply with the EWMH spec, and I prefer a window manager that is interoperable with GNOME and KDE should I choose to use them.

[KingBahamut]

KB is a well-known flux hater, but I, too, like fluxbox. I even experimented (briefly) with running fluxbox as gnome 2.10's default wm, and, while I liked having windowtabbing in GNOME, I found that blackbox played with gnome much more nicely.

Now now Brun. I dont hate Fluxbox....just dont prefer it. If your going to use flux, might as well up to XFCE...thats my windowmanager.

[Brunellus]

Now now Brun. I dont hate Fluxbox....just dont prefer it. If your going to use flux, might as well up to XFCE...thats my windowmanager.

Flux is a shade less minimalistic than openbox (which is what I MEANT when I said blackbox, uyy.) and cleaner & leander than Fluxbox, for me.

My littlebro (sixteen years old but not yet a regular ubuntu user), actually thinks fluxbox is cool because it's so brutally businesslike compared to my GNOME and XFCE setups.

[xequence]

Fluxbox is great on its own, though wikipedia says it is slow on ubuntu and red hat for some utf thingy reason. It does take a little while to load from GDM, while openbox is instant.

Openbox is so minimalistic but not customizable! And the parts that are, I have to edit XML or some thing I dont know about.

I used apt-get to download afterstep and to my suprise, I couldent even log into it from GDM. When I use apt-get, I expect it to download AND install it for me e.e Now I am mad.