1/28 What do people think is the best Window Manager nowadays?
I've been using fvwm2, but I'm wondering if there are better
ones out there.
\_ CDE! The Common Desktop Environment! Better Windows than Windows!
It's fast, small, easy to use, has easy configuration, multiple
desktops, virtual desktops, multiple backgrounds, it's the industry
standard and has a whole host of other great features!!!! Which
just goes to show that just because something has a nice feature
list doesn't mean it's worth more than a bucket of piss with a
hole in the side.
\_ Neal Stephenson writes in his famous "In the Beginning was
the Command Line" essay:
"I have my eye on a completely different window manager
called Enlightenment, which may be the hippest single
technology product I have ever seen, in that (a) it is
for Linux, (b) it is freeware, (c) it is being
developed by a very small number of obsessed hackers,
and (d) it looks amazingly cool; it is the sort of
window manager that might show up in the backdrop of
an Aliens movie."
\_ Point by point: Reason A: That's nice. B: That's nice.
C: So what? D: So what?
\_ Stephenson is a writer, not a hacker.
\_ Stephenson is also an idiot.
\_ And said exactly what has already been said, that
Enlightenment is way kewl and uh also really kewl
looking, and it has themez and its kewl and yeah!
\_ I use E at work, and interestingly, it's never
crashed at me, never gotten too slow (on a PPro200
running FreeBSD.) It does all the stuff I want a
WM to do (icons, background menus, virtual desktops,
etc) with an amazingly small amount of setup, it has
a great, simple configurator (as opposed to editing
dozens of lines of weird config syntax, I can have
the configurator do it for me), and regardless of how
I want the eye candy part of it to look, I'll always
find a ready-to-run theme for it. What else could I
want? Just because I have self-flagellation as an
option, doesn't mean I have to do it... -John
\_ And it has themez!!1 And itz kewl!
\_ twm has a great, simple configurator: ED.
Ed _is_ the standard, you know.
\_ twm. anything older just doesn't work as well, anything newer either
leaves important things out or contains too much bloat. and twm,
like /bin/csh, is already Everywhere You Want To Be (tm).
and what's more, twm doesn't waste space on my TIMEX SINCLAIR:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 24 Jan 1 1970 /usr/X11R6/bin/twm*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 156904 Sep 29 17:39 /usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm2*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 2.23499e23 Oct 12 14:55 /usr/bin/enlightenment*
I don't hold much confidence in the last decade's crop
of "stripped-down" window managers. but (and I say this
without having used it much), blackbox is not too bad,
if you like the AfterSteppish look. all IMNSHO, -brg
\_ Blackbox is a really stripped down window manager:
<DEAD>portal.alug.org/blackbox<DEAD>
\_ ED! ED! ED is the... oh. -geordan
\_ If you want a stand-alone, nice-looking, easy to configure with GUI
interface, fast and stable window manager try WindowMaker.
Although, I find that Elightenment integrates better
with GNOME (which I really don't need)
\_ enlightnment, if you like living on the bleeding edge
\_ Emacs
\-twm --psb
\_ If you want to do work, use twm or one of the derivatives that
allows virtual windows. If you want to fuck around and be kewlist
k1d on the bl0ck, then get enlightenment, or anything else that
has "many themez!!!11" as its claim to fame.
\_ Though I agree that enlightenment is rather garish, inclusion
of themes does not make a wm bad. I get plenty of work done
on WindowMaker, which supports themes. -- ilyas
\_ I've used WindowMaker and it seems like a clone of AfterStep.
I personally use sawmill at home and CDE (bleh!) at work.
\_ The mere inclusion of a particular feature does not in and
of itself equate to "badness". However, regarding wms, the
projects that focus on kewlness have a tendency to get into
MS featuritis and forget about speed and simply usability
along the way in the race to be D m0st kewlish \/\//\/\ uv
dem awl! Da B0mb WM uv awl Da B0mb WMs!!!111 Stick with
something fast and functional like twm or early derivatives
if you want to get work done. Use the later crap if you
have lots of spare cpu and ram and want to be k-rad.
\_ Twm is pretty fast, but doesn't support virtual windows.
\_ As stated earlier, "If you want to do work, use
twm or one of the derivatives that allows virtual
windows." Thank you.
Personally I can no longer get work done without some sort
of ability to switch between multiple windows or terminals.
The one (minor) feature that I like in Windowmaker is the
ability to collapse a window to its title bar. This lets
you juggle multiple windows on the screen pretty easily.
Admitedly, one shouldn't pick a wm on one feature alone,
but WindowMaker failed to annoy me in other ways, and I
seem to use the aforementioned collapsing windows a lot.
Its memory footprint isn't terribly large either.
-- ilyas
\_ I didn't like the title bar thing. Personal
preference.
\_ The major, massive advantage of GNOME (with either
Enlightenment or Windowmaker) is that you don't have
to spend hours futzing around with stupid config files
to create your ideal session; you place windows and save
the configuration. There are plenty of simple themes for
people who complain about garishness. -tom
\_ I believe WindowMaker has this feature also, without GNOME.
-- ilyas
\_ Yeah, and it has a freakin' CORBA ORB in there! GNOME
as distributed computing environment! Whee! All to
try to replicate OpenDoc.
\_ The default twm is perfectly functional with zero futz.
\_ gee, does the default twm place my 8 terminals,
xload, xclock, and netscape exactly where I want
them? -tom
\_ Yes.
\_ without futzing? No. Shut up. -tom
\-twm + 3 monitors. who needs virtual real estate when
you can have real real estate. --psb
\_ Uh, people who can't have real real estate? |
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