Update: seems like the article went popular! If you like it, please Digg 
As promised, today we’ll take a look at the various interesting window managers for the X Window System which aren’t (necessarily) a part of a certain desktop environment (that means Enlightenment DR 17 doesn’t count here people, sorry, please take a look at the desktop environment guide).
So what are window managers? Officially, a window manager in GNU/Linux is a piece of software which controls placement and appearance of windows in a graphical user interface in X. So, what you get is a module which could be used in a desktop environment, or as a desktop environment (in conjuction with other modules, such as a idesk). All the WMs listed here can easily be obtained through your distribution’s respective repositories. You can also visit the project’s website and download the WM from there.
I am a satisfied Openbox user, for instance. There are many other Window managers available for download that were created for X. I’ll try to mention as many cool Window managers out there as possible. If your window manager of choice isn’t listed and it angers you, here’s the deal: instead of swearing and telling me it isn’t fair, maybe you can put together a little description of it, post it in the comments, and I’ll put it in the article, along with a screenshot. Neat, huh? Some window managers that deserve a mention and aren’t listed in this post (because I haven’t tested them and don’t want to make them look bad) are: LarsWM (a fork of 9wm), FVWM, AmiWM, EvilWM, xwm, Enlightenment DR16 & Compiz.
Attention: www.box-look.org is a great site if you are looking for themes, add-ons and more for different window managers.
The list:
1. The *Boxes
They are called the *boxes, because the concept is extremely similar, almost to that point, that these window managers are basically clones. Of course, each has its own goals and quirks, you will see what I mean later.
1.1 Fluxbox
Probably the most well known of the three, Fluxbox is still a fairly minimalist window manager, looking from the outside. Like other *boxes (it is based on Blackbox), a right click anywhere on the desktop will open a basic menu. You can modify this menu by editing the config text file, or simply use a graphical interface for the job. Fluxbox is in my opinion the best one to start with, as it needs little configuration and is able to handle auto-starting, wallpapers and more by itself. It also comes with a lot of themes pre-installed, no wonder - it is very easy to create your own. The window tabs are one of the special add-ons. Compared to Blackbox, Fluxbox even provides a tray with a window list and icon support for applications, running in the tray (this part is called a ’slit’. Window Maker and KDE dock apps are supported as well. The coolest thing about Fluxbox to me is that it can automatically recognize applications that are able show a wallpaper on your desktop (feh, idesk etc.)
1.2 Openbox
Is another Blackbox clone, albeit completely rewritten in C since v3 - leaner, meaner, faster! When I first installed it on Debian I was like, ‘where’s everything else?’. Extensions are not necessary, but add a lot of missing functionality. PyPanel and other modules make your Openbox experience richer while maintaining a minimalist feeling. Again, installing themes is pretty easy, and so is the configuration (rc.xml and menu.xml, pretty straight-forward XML files), you can even configure key-bindings. If you’re a lazy guy like me, you’ll probably prefer a GUI. Use ObConf. A special feature of Openbox are dynamic menus. You can use them to set up menus which show your Gmail inbox and other cool things.
1.3 Blackbox
The original, written in C++, Blackbox remains a very simplistic widow manager. Like the wiki states, ‘it manages windows, period’, Openbox does not give you a tray, and does not handle the keyboard. A number of add-ons are available, though, since the developers emphasize the importance of keeping up to standards. What surprised me is that it uses the MIT license and not the GPL. In comparison to Openbox and Fluxbox, I can’t give you a real reason except plain curiosity, to try Blackbox out. Maybe someone a bit more experienced could give us a better idea?
2. IceWM
For all you Asus Eee owners, this is the program that draws the windows in the Xandros Linux distro which runs on the Eee. IceWM’s goal is to imitate the Windows 95/98 user interface (to a certain degree). It is light and has some embedded functionality (virtual desktops, GNOME/KDE menu support, tray). Spicing IceWM up with themes can give you a nice-looking desktop environment, suitable for old Windows users, but it’s also worth a try if you’re just looking for a light window manager. Don’t let the ugly default theme scare you away. IceWM is very customizable, you can edit parts of it through text files. As always, GUI configuration apps are available.
3. Special Guest: Avant Window Navigator, or ‘AWN’
As far as I know, this is the only Mac OS X-like dock clone which provides the same full functionality as its Apple counterpart, which means you can use it as a window switcher. AWN has matured a lot since I first tried it, and if you like eye candy and maybe want to try a different way of working with your windows, AWN is the Linux WM for you.It is usually used in conjunction with other window manager, as it can only manage- not draw- windows. So it isn’t a full window manager, this is why the developers describe it as a Window Navigator.
4. AwesomeWM
I hear often about this one on forums. Not only does Awesome WM have an awesome name, it’s also clean and useful, although a bit different. The WMs we are normally used to, are called floating window managers. You know how it looks like, when you open a window. Now, Awesome WM opens your app (say, xterm) full screen. If you open another app, it will separate the screen to two equal spaces for both programs. You can adjust the ’tiles’ later, that’s where the name tiling window manager comes from. There is also a possibility to use it in floating mode, but the floating mode won’t give you window borders. Windows are classified by tags. AwesomeWM’s ca. 150 kB size, focus on the basic functions, and pure awesomeness, are some of the pros which you should consider. I don’t recommend AwesomeWM for people who do a lot of graphic design, though. It’s a bit weird working with it, takes some getting used to, especially with the GIMP.
They are both window managers, used in the GNOME Desktop Environment.
SawFish (previously SawMill) deserves a special mention because it was the default WM of the early versions of GNOME. It is written in a Lisp-like language, through which you can add more functionality (SawFish does not come with a panel). Many people still use SawFish (to my surprise!) and there are GUI config tools available for it.
Metacity is, quite curiously, even more basic. It requires GTK+ (it inherits the theme style) and does not work with GNOME 1.xx. Many people use Metacity but don’t know about it, because the options are shown as desktop options, not Metacity options - Metacity is heavily integrated now. It works nice and must be a very solid WM, as we can see if we analyze the percent of people who using it (basically, most GNOME users).
6. AfterStep
Making lists is always a tough job, heh… how should I introduce AfterStep? It takes some of its elements from NEXT’s NextStep OS. There’s a pager to select the current virtual desktop, a taskbar called a WinList and a module similar to a Dock, called a Wharf, which controls launching and manages different applets. AfterStep is a great WM with lots of originality and the flexibility of FVWM (the WM AS is based on) built-in. If you decide to try it out, do use a big screen for a better experience. The main AfterStep page provides pre-compiled binaries, more screenshots and lots of other goodies.
7. WindowMaker
WindowMaker may remind you a bit of AfterStep. This window manager also tries to emulate the NeXT interface. It has similar functions like Afterstep, although without the FVWM foundations, so if you put it all together, along with a Wharf with drag-and-drop support, graphical config tools and support for gradients for nicer window decoration, you get AfterStep’s older brother. WindowMaker is still an extremely popular window manager for X with both the Linux and the BSD crowd. Just take a look at how WindowMaker kicked the other WM’s asses in this poll.
8. JWM
Joe’s window manager reminds me of IceWM, but has an even lighter feel to it. Lots of light GNU/Linux distributions use JWM (DSL, Puppy, SliTaz) due to its low memory footprint. There is a number of add-ons available, SliTaz for instance provides a Panel. JWM is skinnable, but I’ve never seen a really good skin. To me, JWM would always be a second choice to IceWM (more stuff, nicer skins), but as both are very light on computer resources, I suggest you first try the latter, and then see what works best for you.
I hope you liked my little reviews! You can find out even more on this handy little website.
I hadn’t expected such a response to my article about choosing the right desktop environment when I was writing it, but as most commenters noted, it was a really quick write-up, a kind of a brainstorming session about desktop environments where I indicated the pros and cons. Well this time, I tried improving it. More info, more research and more work are contained in this post. Enjoy, and favorite it if you like in the case you’re in a dilemma with you Linux install.
There will be a follow-up post about Window managers, so if you’re interested in that, subscribe to my feed and you’ll be updated when it’s published!
Note these are my personal impressions, so feel free to post your opinion on the article but please keep it friendly, no flame wars/accusations/RMS eats babies etc.
We’ll start with the more popular projects.
1. GNOME
You will find GNOME available in most popular distributions such as Fedora, Ubuntu and Mint. The GNOME project must be doing something right! Choose GNOME if you want a robust, polished, simple and customizable environment. GNOME has everything a standard desktop user would need. I especially like GNOME’s configuration tools and stock apps - simple straight to the point.
If you like innovation though, I don’t believe GNOME is necessarily the way to go: it’s a big project with cool people working on it, but I’m not sure if they already know what the next step is going to be. GNOME still remains a default choice for most people and is the leading desktop environment, which makes getting support easier. There is also a multitude of sites on the Net with themes and add-ons for GNOME.
What I’d suggest is that they build an experimental fork of GNOME for people to try out new things. Stock GNOME became really boring in the past years. We don’t need Cheese, we need something NEW!
2. KDE 4
To most KDE 3 users, KDE 4 came as quite a shock: while it retains the KDE philosophy, which is ultimate configurability, some changes are so radical that it looks more like a fork than the next version of the second most popular desktop environment for Linux. That is why I can’t say whether I feel KDE 4 really is a step forward - but here’s the cool stuff: it looks great (Qt4 did the trick there), supports Plasma widgets, is pretty configurable (though not as much as its predecessor).The thing that I don’t like with KDE 4 is that it still has an overwhelming beta feeling to it. It doesn’t give you the impression of being production-ready, because it crashes a lot and still has some issues with GNOME apps and lots of other inner workings which I’m not really knowledgeable about. The only stable, polished and usable version is probably the openSuSe KDE 4 desktop. If you want to experiment and see something cool, then sure, why not. KDE 4 certainly has vision, but is more or less still a thing to play, not to work with.
3. KDE 3
My first KDE experience was when I booted the Knoppix Live-CD. I liked it a lot, but it was so filled with options and icons I was a bit overwhelmed. That’s really the main difference between KDE and GNOME. You can do a lot with GNOME, but KDE really lets you customize everything. No, sorry, more than everything. It’s not really something for the new user - in my school ,where I set up a Knoppix machine, I erased and removed lots of icons and options, so nobody would be confused. It takes a while to get used to KDE. An ironic thing is that there is also a huge pile of themes and add-ons for KDE, but only the default theme looked nice to me. The cosmetics department will prefer KDE 4. In conclusion, whatever I say that bothers me about KDE 3 isn’t really credible, because most of it can be changed in the KDE control center. The only cons I can really think of is KDE’s mediocre speed and simply too many colors (inconsistent icons, especially in the tray).
4. XFCE
Home users might consider switching to XFCE if they think GNOME is a bit too slow or their computers. XFCE won’t be a huge performance improver, but it’s got all the basic stuff GNOME has, and provides excellent GTK+ integration, so your GNOME apps won’t look weird. XFCE also provides tools for configuration, though there is not an abundance of options. Most people that choose XFCE by themselves love it. For me personally, XFCE was a cute environment and I hear it is still in very active development. You should check XFCE out if you want to have a good-looking desktop that isn’t just a window manager, but still brings you some speed and simplicity.
There are two versions of Enlightenment. DR17 is the new Enlightenment, completely rewritten. What sets Enlightenment DR17 apart from other desktop environments is that it is focused on eye-candy while not (ab)using your computers resources as much as other DE’s tend to. Enlightenment is pretty popular these days, I know a few people who simply love it. When you install DR17, you’ll be able to decide… it’s gonna be a radical change for most of you, because of the approach that DR17 takes. You may find it beautiful, or kitschy. I belong to the latter, but maybe you’ll like it. You can use Enlightenment only or in conjuction with other environments, like GNOME. DR17 enables you to choose which modules of Enlightenment you want to use. There is also a Ubuntu version with a custom Enligtenment desktop avaliable. Try it out if you want and write your impressions in the comments section.
Well, that’s it, I haven’t had any experience with other complete desktop environments. If you do, please comment and tell us about it, I’d be glad to learn more about DE’s, and so would other readers.
What is your desktop environment of choice?
Well I guess I should join the Firefox 3 review bandwagon. I’ve been using Firefox 3 since beta 5, which came bundled with the new version of Ubuntu. I also upgraded my browsers on both my PC and MacBook, so I got an impression of the browser’s functions, bugs and most importantly speed on all of the three major platforms, except Vista of course, but Vista sucks, so why bother. Get your read on, I’ll be starting with:
Windows XP SP3
I’ve been using Firefox on XP for a long, long time and there were a lot of plugins which ceased to function. The most important ones worked, though. So I uninstalled all of the old ones and gave some alternatives a shot. The upgrade went pretty smoothly, although the plugin compatibility check took a considerable amount of time. What you can really notice is the increase in speed. As a matter of fact, it runs almost as quickly as on Linux. I don’t like the theme they used for XP, though it’s interesting to see that the larger Back button isn’t stupid design at all, on the contrary, it makes work faster.
Ubuntu Linux 8.04
Loads up in three seconds, a real rocket! Firefox 3 integrates with your GTK+ theme, so you’ve got some cool visual consistency going on which is actually an exception in Linux. A problem many reviewers forget to tell you about is that even though this is great for GNOME or XFCE, KDE 4 ain’t no beauty with FF3. It just uses the ugly default GTK theme if you don’t do any tweaking. Uuuuugly… If you want to use Firefox with KDE 4, I recommend you use this theme.
Firefox is a great browser for Linux and is probably the most widely used one, but note that even though the final version of FF 3.0 is far better than the beta, it crashes more and has more bugs than the other major browser, Opera 9.5 for Linux. I personally experience the worst crashes when trying to print stuff.
Mac OS X
It’s probably got something to do with my config: Firefox 3 needs about 8-10 seconds to load in Mac OS X. I like the way they changed the theme for the Mac, now it looks like a part of the OS, so thumbs up for that. Somehow, I can’t get ScribeFire to work with Firefox on the Mac - it’s a big problem for me, so currently I’m staying with Flock on the Mac, because FF 3.0 crashes repeatedly when I’m doing complex stuff, like running a lot of tabs with Java and Flash or have more than 10 tabs open at the same time.
Are you using Firefox 3? How do you feel about it?
Well, a lot of time has passed since my little article about the ten apps I immediately install onto a default Linux setup. And time in open source means evolution! I’ve switched to a few apps that really make my desktop experience more enjoyable because of speed, stability and beauty.
Let’s see what we got…
I’ve always been an Amarok fanboy, then I switched to GTK+ and with it to Audacious. But it has never been the same. Banshee, which is now at version 1.0, has everything you need, and MORE. Podcasts, Internet radio, album artwork, it’s just liek Amarok, only in my opinion, better, prettier and simply the best player for GNOME out there. It has integrated iPod support too. Rhythmbox is just nothing compared to Banshee.
Opera (the new one, 9.5)
Until you’ve tried he new 9.5 version of the Opera browser, you have no idea how fast the Internet can be. The Opera team did a great job, redesigning their flagship browser from both the inside and outside. Because of Qt it may look a wee bit better for you KDE folks out there, but hey, I’m using it on GNOME and it still looks slick. Oh, and Opera is now officially one of the few popular browsers which don’t lag on Digg.
It’s a mind-mapping application. What, you don’t know why you should use a mind-map? Hm, well, that’s OK with me, if you don’t want to boost your productivity for like 50%…
An open source Limewire clone, with all the functions, minus the adware/spyware/whatever other doo-doo they put into it. I’ve been searching for a stable p2p app for Linux for quite a long time, I hated aMule and gtk-gnutella-what’s-its-face was a bit too spartan for my taste. It does BitTorrent too, so there’s no need for a special client for that (or just use Opera).
It’s really hard to describe this app! Well, yeah it is an app launcher, but at the same time it’s so much more. Please check the main site, it does a good job saying what power GNOME Do gives you. And don’t let the name deceive you, it works on KDE too (didn’t test this!).
Have fun testing these cool apps out!
I got lots of emails from people asking me what are my favourite apps to install after I get a new Linux box up and running, so here they are:
1. Emesene - has support for MSN Plus nickname decoding, unlike Pidgin.
2. FileZilla - better than gFTP, can use it on my Mac OS X, XP and Linux box. Export/import your settings, and you’re good to go.
3. Mono and Paint.Mono - I hate the GIMP, but I don’t hate Freedom! So I take the middle road.
4. VLC - plays almost everything, be it sound or video. Screw Totem and Rhythmbox, this is all I need.
5. JDarkroom- my text editor of choice: a simple, full-screen editor. I don’t know why I’m so addicted to it. You can use Pyroom if you don’t like/have Java.
6. GTK Record My Desktop - If I’m making a screen-cast, this is my app of choice (GTK- stands for the GTK frontend, and recordmydesktop is the actual app, so there are many other versions too). It can record both video and sound and provides a high-quality OGG output.
7. Wine - Sometimes you just need it.
8. Google Earth - When you’re preparing to go to a foreign country or a place you don’t know, it’s much better to use Google Earth than a map. You see what the landscape looks like.
9. Kino & Cinelerra - Kino is a very decent app for making simple home videos and stuff. Cinelerra is of the more powerful type, as long as you’re OK with the interface you can do video-editing-magic. Believe me.
10. GNOME Bluetooth apps - I often transfer videos and images from my cellphone. The Bluetooth app packages that are part of the GNOME project are pretty fine for my needs.
