Nicholas Petreley explores desktop Linux beyond GNOME and KDE. In this column, he examines and compares several window-managers, detailing which of these applications is best for different types of users. The article is at LinuxWorld.
The Desktop Beyond GNOME and KDE
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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but at least it gives mention to blackbox and fluxbox, my favorite window managers.
The article is entitled “The Desktop Beyond Gnome and KDE” but deals only with Window Managers. Why not mention ROX, Equinox, or other *desktops*?
Who knows why it didn’t review, Rox or the others, but why dont you write an article about them?
Right. We will be happy to host it.
i dunno about anyone else out there, but it seems to me that when counting to 3 in two hops (ie. n, n, n) one must start at 1 to arrive at 3. i’ve got enough of a geek mind to realize that if you count 0, 1, 2, then you’re counting to two, not three. well, aside from that, it wasnt a bad article
Yeah really. That was awkward. But maybe it was more like “if you get this joke, you are geek enough” or something.
I doubt that you need to be a schizophrenic freak to use fluxbox. Not sure though.
IMHO, a window manager without a desktop enviroment behind it is like a mouse with no scroll wheel.
I mean, reading about the Blackbox addon that pops up a dialog box and lets you type in the name of a program and run it like you would from the command line – how on earth can this be faster than moving your mouse a couple of inches and clicking a button on a quicklaunch toolbar.
I understand that window managers are faster, but how does running one without a desktop enviroment actually increase productivity ?
I’m a developer, but I’m pretty new to Unix variants. To me, X and window managers make perfect sense. However, I’ve haven’t been able to grasp what it is that defines a desktop environment. Each includes a window manager, but what else is covered that makes KDE/Gnome/whatever else special?
I get the impression that it is nothing more than a collection of component libraries and applications based on those libraries. Surely there is more to it than that?
“IMHO, a window manager without a desktop enviroment behind it is like a mouse with no scroll wheel.
I mean, reading about the Blackbox addon that pops up a dialog box and lets you type in the name of a program and run it like you would from the command line – how on earth can this be faster than moving your mouse a couple of inches and clicking a button on a quicklaunch toolbar. ”
Huh? Typing the name of a program doesn’t take more than a second. That’s about as efficient as a quicklaunch item.
“I understand that window managers are faster, but how does running one without a desktop enviroment actually increase productivity ?”
No, but it doesn’t decrease it either. Using a desktop is more comfortable to me (now that I have a fast PC) but it doesn’t increase my productivity at all.
“I get the impression that it is nothing more than a collection of component libraries and applications based on those libraries. Surely there is more to it than that?”
What else could it be? Libraries and Applications are all there is in Software.
A desktop provides… well, a desktop. A working environment including things like panels, background managment, applets, etc and it provides the development libs to create applications that integrate nicely and use common features (like printing). There is really not much more about it.
“IMHO, a window manager without a desktop enviroment behind it is like a mouse with no scroll wheel.
I mean, reading about the Blackbox addon that pops up a dialog box and lets you type in the name of a program and run it like you would from the command line – how on earth can this be faster than moving your mouse a couple of inches and clicking a button on a quicklaunch toolbar. ”
Sometimes you want to run programs that aren’t in your menu system. Programs that you dont *want* in your menu system because you rarely use them.
Anyway, I was about to give up on desktop linux until I started using Fluxbox on a Gentoo box. Minimalist’s heaven!
“Huh? Typing the name of a program doesn’t take more than a second. That’s about as efficient as a quicklaunch item.”
Well, that depends on how fast you type, now doesn’t it?
The reason why I like the quicklaunch approach is because for things like web browsers and such, I never have to take my hand off the mouse.
As for the difference between window managers and desktop enviroments, I don’t think you actually have a real ‘desktop’ with a window manager … ie, there is a desktop, but you can’t drag shortcuts or files to it.
Also, as the other guy said, there may be a task bar for program switching, but no fancy toolbars, panels, ‘Start’ menus, etc.
Ugh, he didn’t even mention my favorite one, Window Maker. That’s one’s so popular it even got tons of votes in the OSNEWS window manager poll!
Personally I haven’t run blackbox, it seems like it’s more effort than I want to take to set up, esp considering I’m pretty happy with what I currently have (inertia baby).
Some new guy:
I think you’re right. A desktop adds a bunch of libraries that provide support for drag & drop, desktop shortcuts, desktop menus etc.
Not to mention that Window Maker ships and runs beautifully in Cygwin/Xfree86.
The article is entitled “The Desktop Beyond Gnome and KDE” but deals only with Window Managers. Why not mention ROX, Equinox, or other *desktops*?
I think the biggest reason is that hardly anyone uses them. Either the reviewer doesn’t know enough about Linux to even know they exist, or if he does, he knows 99% of his audience won’t.
I hope both of these projects get better and provide Linux users with more choice than is currently available. Perhaps then we will see reviewers write about them.
“Well, that depends on how fast you type, now doesn’t it?
The reason why I like the quicklaunch approach is because for things like web browsers and such, I never have to take my hand off the mouse.”
Yes it all depends of course. But I guess 80% of the people working with Unix usually do something like programming or other kinds of text editing at work so clicking icons isn’t very productive for them.
If you are graphic designer, this is a different story of course.
“As for the difference between window managers and desktop enviroments, I don’t think you actually have a real ‘desktop’ with a window manager … ie, there is a desktop, but you can’t drag shortcuts or files to it.”
A desktop is usually only rendered by an application (Nautilus or KDesktop) and this can run in any windowmanager. There are also many people disabling the “desktop” in their “desktop”.
For example people running Gnome without Nautilus.
“Also, as the other guy said, there may be a task bar for program switching, but no fancy toolbars, panels, ‘Start’ menus, etc.”
Many windowmanagers have such features, like IceWM, WindowMaker, Enlightenment. Fluxbox and Blackbox also have a panel. It’s really difficult to say “this feature makes a desktop environment”.
This is one of the reasons why I don’t get it, when for example someone says “Gnome is too slow for me, so I use Sawfish alone”. Duh? I did the same for a while, running Sawfish and the Gnome Panel. Now was I using Gnome or not? =) So IMO it’s really more about the development environment that Gnome and KDE offer. You can run both without a problem (try running Windowmaker with Kicker (the KDE Panel) and the Gnome-Panel, Nautilus for the Desktop and Konqueror as the file manager
You will get a mess but it’s perfectly possible).
Thanks for the clarifications. I’d probably understand better if I did some development with them.
It feels weird to be a regular user again.
IceWM. It has quicklaunch. Without a desktop environment.
My understanding is that the ‘desktop environment’ provide the configuration tools, launcher/panel with application management function and some sort of icons management function (actually many more to list). Window manager mostly manage the application windows decorations or desktop menus (and many other but minus the DE function).
WM normally faster on its own but without DE, it is less user friendly especially to newbies. But for those who frequently use the same function on the WM, it maybe more productive. My experience is shows that after quite sometime not using one of the WM, when I try to use it again, I just forgot the application name to type and also forgot the configuration file to edit for WM customisation. Then the result is another short learning curve.
By the way, for me the fastest DE is Equinox Desktop Environment but it still lack of functional features and also th WM style is quite ugly (too windowish). The code seems base on XFCE WM but with integration to FLTK2. Unluckily it look like the development stagnent for quite long.
Typing a command means you need to know what you want. Quick launch is like multiple-choice.
if you want to improve productivity then you have to try launchbar for macosx. it’s an amazg product. you just begin typing the name of the file or url etc and it will find. great for people who don’t like to use a mouse.
I just bought OEone’s HomeBase (it was only $30USD, so what the heck..) and is it ever nifty! They take an altogether different approach to the whole DE concept. Basically, HomeBase is Mozilla/X11 running on top of a modified RH 7.1, but you’d never know it unless you went digging! From bootup to shutdown there’s very little evidence of what the underlying OS is, or what the windowing environment is.
The major applications run windowless. This is mail, browsing, calendar and an embedded AbiWord offering up basic word processing.
For popups (and the Linux terminal that they recommend for “advanced” users) they offer a very minimal window manager, I think it might be sawfish with a custom theme, but I’m not too sure.
Anyway, the whole thing is pulled off very well. To be honest, I’m surprised that it’s not getting more publicity than it is, it’s one of the few really nifty things I’ve seen done with Linux, and offers a peak at how it may succeed on the desktop. I doubt that it’ll completely displace my real OS/env combo (Debian, XFCE) but it certainly is a welcome breath of fresh air.
(My $0.02.)
Ben
(PS: I’ll probably review it and post that to my site, I can tell someone at osnews if they’re interested.)
I have been using larswm for two years. The objections in the article to larswm are well taken, it is not for use in all environments.
I use larswm on my HP terminal. I only run xterms and vim -g For this kind of minimal use, this minimal window manager is perfect. I never have to resize or reposition a window. Changing the active window is easily done from keyboard short cuts. In this environment larswm lives up to its motto “Because Managing Windows is the Window Managers Job”
Sorry because in my previous posting with the title [i]RE: What does the “desktop” do?<?> I mention that EDE was stagnent. However I was mistaken since they just release the first beta on 4th July at Sourceforge not at their official website, so I just missed that.
Well, it’s quite complete now and very user friendly especially to get connected to internet. What I don’t like still the WM style that very much like Window$ but the speed is far ahead any other DE. Even it is faster that my IceWM.
If any of you interested to give a try go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/ede and download the binary. I think maybe there are still problem with configuration directory but it just a minor. mkdir .ede inside your home directory will do for minimal config but the DE will start without its application menu.
Better try it yourself. It is VERY, VERY ,VERY FAAAAST!!!!