KDE and GNOME combine window managers with suites of applications to create comprehensive work environments. As complete as they are, it’s easy to forget that there are other graphical ways to work on a Linux desktop. Sometimes a lighter-weight window manager is in order, such as for laptop usage, children’s use, or quick startup applications. Here are four “alternative” window managers that are mature, fast, and functional. My Take: Should we also add *Box, WindowMaker and XFce to the mix?
Four alternative Linux window managers
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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It doesn’t make sense not to include XFCE. It has gained alot of popularity within the last year. Its’ usability is great. The graphic set is great. The speed is great. The list goes on and on.
how could they skip to mention it?
if it wasn’t for their panel I’d be using it instead of KDE
The author points to http://xwinman.org/others.html
couldn’t find Ion mentioned anywhere… so there… http://modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/
Disclaimer: I don’t use it…
I am agree with you Scortchen 100%
and the next major version will be greater : http://www.xfce.org/xfce_42_info/xfce42.html
It’s sure that this project is very active compared to E for example.
“It doesn’t make sense not to include XFCE.”
1) He is talking about *his* 4 alternative WMs. The ones *he* likes. In that context it *does* make sense when he doesn’t like XFce. He point to other alternatives, using the that common URL. You could include many, many more WMs and every one you do not include creates the likeliness of messages like this one. (I like XFce4 very much btw.)
2) E17, XFce4 are DEs, not WMs. They include WMs though. He seems to be talking about WM’s _only_.
3) To the person complaining abot the XFce4 panel: you can chose another one if you want…
I love this topic!
OpenBox is my pick. (http://icculus.org/openbox/)
Light, fast, works with all the Window Maker dock apps, grab fbpanel if you need a task bar (http://fbpanel.sourceforge.net/) … what more could you want? (Screenshot: http://www.davidcourtney.org/screenshots/sound-juicer.png)
FluxBox would probaby be my second choice.
BlackBox isn’t on my radar at all.
Window Maker is cool, but I could never understand what purpose those appicons and miniwindows served. Sure you can hide them by autoatracting them to the clip and then hiding the clip behind the dock, but woudln’t it make more sense to just have an option to turn them off completely? Clicking the Gnome/KDE compatability button in the Preferences tool doesn’t do it. That only gets rid of the miniwindows, not the appicons. Which is actually the reverse of what would make sense. (Screenshot: http://www.davidcourtney.org/screenshots/sshot2.jpg)
PWM is pretty good. Very light weight. My only outstanding complaint with PWM is that there’s apparently no way to minimize/hide a window. All you can do is shade it. (Screenshot: http://www.davidcourtney.org/screenshots/sshot4.jpg)
amiwm – yuck. nuff’ said.
evilwm – An interesting WM. A bit too light weight though, even for me. (Screenshot: http://www.davidcourtney.org/screenshots/sshot3.jpg)
ION – Another “interesting” WM. It tries to utilize 100% of your screen by slicing windows up into sections. But there’s apparently no way to actually resize a window? (Screenshot: http://www.davidcourtney.org/screenshots/sshot5.jpg)
If you added more WM’s to it you wouldn`t have an article about 4 alternative window managers.
if it wasn’t for their panel I’d be using it instead of KDE
why don’t you just start kicker (KDE’s panel) when you start? i used to do this, but have since switched to XFCE’s panel.
NewsForge has done a good job of publishing interesting articles on thurdays that are long enough to read while i’m waiting for my thursday flights to depart. thanks for the good articles NewsForge!!
It should be stated that KDE and Gnome are desktop enviroments and their window managers, atleast kwin for KDE are sufficient. Though if you do not want to use kwin you can always use ICEwm on KDE. This applies to many Window Mangers. And Englightenment can be used on Gnome.
I run Fedora Core 2 on a PIII 800MHZ 128MB RAM machine at home and KDE and Gnome really kill the machine so I was searching for an alternative. I saw XFCE listed in Synaptic so I had it grab all the packages and do the install then I logged off and into the XFCE session. I liked the simple interface, and when I clicked on Mozilla it actually popped open in a couple seconds instead of the usual 10+ seconds in the Gnome environment. I still haven’t figured out how to do menuing and the file manager takes getting used to, but I’m starting to enjoy Linux more now that it feels more responsive.
I’ve been using Window Maker since 1999. I guess that’s because it was the default WM in Debian Potato, my first Linux distro
It takes getting used to, but actually when you configure it right and add all the cool dockapps, it is great. And very fast.
The only thing that I feel Window Maker should add is those ‘tabs’ from PWM / *Box . That’s the sole reason I’ve installed
FluxBox. Tabs seriously help you reduce window clutter without need to create tens of workspaces. And boy do I hate clutter!
It’s good to read that some people still use these “alternative” window managers as their main desktop, although Gnome and KDE seem to steal all the media attention when “Linux on the desktop” is discussed. I agree 100% that some of these smaller window managers are “mature, fast, and functional”. And because they are simple, they are also easier to manage than bigger X environments that are stuffed full of confusing “advanced” features, which average users will never need.
WindowMaker is my current favourite. It has several ease-of-use features (like a GUI config utility WPrefs.app) and dockable appicons to quickly launch the most used apps. Plus it’s easy to make WindowMaker look good by adding some ready-made themes:
http://lonelymachines.org/new.html
[ Good topic for religious wars. ]
I personally like ratpoison: http://ratpoison.sf.net/
Compiles fast, almost no dependencies, doesn’t clutter up the key bindings, uses up no screen real estate.
little remark: KDE and GNOME are DesktopEnvironements and not WindowManagers, GNOME used to have sawfish as WindowManager (WM) and now uses metacity as WM, dunno about KDE
My favorite WM is fluxbox 0.9 (unstable, the stable version 0.1.14 is quite old and the new one is quite stable
)
Forgot to include the best WM out the (IMHO), FluxBox (http://www.fluxbox.org), one of the fastest, most veritile wm’s out there.
Anyone know of a window manager that concentrates on display quality — looking good — rather than integrating applications or going off on someone’s favorite tangent about window managers?
I’m not trolling for “My window manager looks better than your window manager” responses. Is there a window manager that takes advantage of the best Linux and open source has to offer regarding font display, anti-aliasing and all the rest?
I make little use of either the Gnome or KDE apps, and I suspect that also applies to many others. But I find that both Gnome and KDE offer better, more polished, displays that other, older, window managers.
Since we’re all listing our favourite desktop environment, I’d like to mention ROX Desktop. It’s based around the well-known ROX-filer, but it also comes with a session manager and a window manager. It’s got some fairly unique features like AppDir’s and drag-and-drop saving. What I like most about it, though, is that it stays out of my way and gives me easy, and more importantly, quick acces to all of my files.
little remark: KDE and GNOME are DesktopEnvironements and not WindowManagers, GNOME used to have sawfish as WindowManager (WM) and now uses metacity as WM, dunno about KDE
While that is true, you can’t exactly just stick any ole’ WM “under” Gnome/KDE and expect them to work well together. (KDE has it’s own WM called kwm by the way.) It seems to me that it’s easier to replace metacity in Gnome than it is to replace kwm in KDE. By easier, I mean that you don’t lose as much functionality. That’s just my opinion though.
The problem with using different Window Managers in KDE and Gnome is that some WM’s tend to walk on what KDE and Gnome are trying to do. Themes don’t match, each will have their own tool for setting the desktop background, right clicking on the Desktop might not have the desired effect …things like that.
“little remark: KDE and GNOME are DesktopEnvironements and not WindowManagers, GNOME used to have sawfish as WindowManager (WM) and now uses metacity as WM, dunno about KDE”
On the same note, Xfce I think it actually considered a DE and not a WM, it has waaay too much stuff to be a wm.
Although, some might say fvwm has too much stuff too
. I never use it though.
Window Maker is cool, but I could never understand what purpose those appicons and miniwindows served. Sure you can hide them by autoatracting them to the clip and then hiding the clip behind the dock, but woudln’t it make more sense to just have an option to turn them off completely?
Appicons are useful because you can dock them for quickly launching applications. Once you’ve docked an appicon, you can open the app, right-click the title bar, and choose “attributes”. Then a new window opens and you can define many application specific config options, like telling WindowMaker NOT to show the appicon. And if you don’t want miniwindows, you can choose to “hide” the app instead of “minimizing” it (and making the “hidden” app again visible from the window list you get by pressing F11).
Wmi is my fav. On my 900MHz laptop, I can get the entire wm up and xterms started before I see the gnome 2.4 splashscreen.
It’ll be better when all the bugs get ironed out ;]
http://www.wm-i.org
I use KDE most of the time. I have modest hardware, but ample RAM. Under these circumstances, KDE takes longer to load, but runs quickly. I have tried most of the window managers, and tend to like Fluxbox the best.
In Debian, Fluxbox seems to find installed software and put them into the menuing system. Also, the right-click to find anything user interface is at least understandable. What I don’t like is the lack of any way to maximize screen real estate (like what is available in KDE and IceWM).
Not wanting to engage in pyrotechnics, but some manifestations of KDE/gnome seem to look too similar to windows.
I dabble in linux because its open source and its NOT windows (among many other reasons).
My favourite WM/DEs are fluxbox, xfce and windowmaker.
I still use win XP unfortunately, again for a number of reasons & I use a variant of blackbox for windows, bblean.
bblean/bb4win are lean, quick and surprisingly intuitive.
Any windows users reading this who want to try a *nix like shell see: http://www.bb4win.org and bb4win.sourceforge.net
I about died of shock. I use FVWM2, but I can not recall the last time I heard anyone else using it, though I am sure there are others who do.
I like FVWM because it is light (~29MB to desktop with gkrellm) and very configurable. I tried KDE and Gnome again when I reinstalled Slack on my media machine, but after a week in Gnome and 3 in KDE I was back to FVWM. I have it set up with no taskbar, no pager, no button bar. Just an image for wall paper, context menus, and key bindings. Once you get used to working without a “desktop” it is nice to not have the clutter.
I also like fluxbox, it is better out of the box than FVWM, but is not as configurable. Openbox is nice as well.
xfce is popular but did not suit me personally.
If there’s anything this article shows, it’s how poorly Enlightenment has aged. I remember trying to run it when I first started using Linux. That was 1999 (wow, I’m dating myself here) with Mandrake 6. I used to be extremely impressed with the ripple and rain drop effects that it had at the time. Now it’s just taking forever for Enlightenment 17 to show up. In the meantime, 16 just gets older and older. And continues to look worse and wrose.
Enlightenment has not aged well compared to other (lighter) Window Managers.
. . . case in point would be when I was trying to do some web page work with gftp, running xfce and then kde. In kde, the default button is selected , and you only need to press the space bar to choose it. In xfce, you have to grab your mouse and click on the button. Also, I really have gotten used to how konqueror’s context menus let you perform a lot of actions in only a few clicks(e.g. ‘copy to . . . ‘). But, unfortunately konqueror is pretty big and bloated. In fact, I usually find myself just typing ‘mc’ at a prompt for a nice fast fm.
I love icewm, in fact the cpu/net load indicators in the taskbar are quite indispensible, and they are running ‘out of the box’. I really like how everything’s in a few nice config files.
I haven’t really tried out fvwm very much, but I’ve heard good things about it.
Have you people forgotten the Equinoc Desktop Environment
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ede/
Also, I wander, why the media isn’t talking about it. It’s good enough to compete against KDE and GNOME.
sorry, hat should be Equinox not Equinoc
Here are some screen shots and have a look for yourself. Sorry for the above typos, my hands are cold lol
http://ede.sourceforge.net/screens/101shot2.png
http://ede.sourceforge.net/screens/101shot1.png
http://ede.sourceforge.net/screens/101shot3.png
http://ede.sourceforge.net/screens/10shot.png
http://ede.sourceforge.net/screens/10shot1.png
http://ede.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/page.py?screenshots
This Equinox looks strangely like XPde http://www.xpde.com/shots.php . Now, who’s imitating who?
I hope free software has 7 good desktop platforms users can choose from in the future. KDE and GNOME aren’t enough to spark vehement innovation and competition. The other two window managers I hope become healthy competitors to KDE and GNOME are ROX and Enlightment.
I pretty much run Xfce (4.05) exclusively now. I’ve been running mostly Xfce since some time in 1999, having switched over from FVWM. I give Gnome and KDE a try every now and again, and I do think they are great for Windows users, but I just like Xfce. It doesn’t get in my way and it is way fast!
I have used IceWM and [Black|Flux]box, but I keep coming back to Xfce.
Keep up the good work Olivier, and the Xfce team!
I give you props for OpenBox. I use it myself, but I had to wuss out and get fbpanel too because I need a taskbar and system tray
I just have to ask, which wm docks are you using in the upper right hand corner of your screen shot?
————————————————————–
Overall I thought it was a good article. I used to use FVWM2 a lot when I first got interested in Linux because it was very light weight. My only problem was I kept losing my config file every time I had to reinstall (I didn’t have sense to back it up
)
“In the meantime, 16 just gets older and older.”
Depends on how you look at it. There are updates on E16. A developer (Kim) took the source of E16 and hacked around in it. Now we had so far 2 new releases: 16.6 and 16.7 (not sure if .7 is already final).
“And continues to look worse and wrose.”
Not compared to E16, that’s for sure.
The new releases include KDE3/GNOME2 compatibility, FD.o compatibility, bugfixes (important ones even). Worth a look IMO.
(I agree E17 takes long, but i don’t blame the developers. You can try the same software out just fine btw if you wish to compile. But E17 itself, the DE, won’t compile currently.)
Just kidding
I’m impressed by all the support shown here for XFce 🙂
Even XFce 3 was awesome – it is ideal for those really old boxes we have lying around – those with small amounts of RAM.
Love XFce 4 in Xinerama mode – bye bye taskbar, hello IconBox. Although when I only have 1 screen I keep the taskbar.
I’m glad Fedora Core 2 included XFce 4 – but the setup didn’t provide any checkboxes for it – had to install it manually – then go and find the IconBox rpm.
Low CPU usage, low memory usage – looks great, customisable enough, great plugins, small download – happy days!
I’d really like to see a rerun of this poll in OSNews, dating two years back:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1299
KDE is obviously still currently the most popular DE and Gnome probably still comes second with somewhat similar marginal, but I’d expect that XFCE4 has now become more popular than Fluxbox and WindowMaker put together.
My Take: Should we also add *Box, WindowMaker and XFce to the mix?
>
>
[Shakes head while laughing at this nonsense]
People *WAKE UP* !!
*Box, WindowMaker and XFce have been in use *LONG* before
you clown stumbled across them. You guys haven’t discovered
*ANYTHING* except maybe what free choice in choosing the software you choose to run on your system actually means.
But that’s something that for whatever reason a good number of you seem to be strongly against whenever you start your “What’s Wrong With Linux And Free Software/Open Source” rants.
Oh well…….
no matter what the speed of the system, i always use Openbox3.
then again, with most of the *box WM’s (save Fluxbox) there isnt much to review.
the apps menu, the configuration utility, and…
it would be a minimalist review for a minimalist WM
Well, I use KDE as my default desktop (functionality!), and XFCE 4.05 sits there for whenever I feel like it (clean looks). It’s got almost all the neat little perks KDE has that I want. But I think it’s a Desktop Environment like KDE, not a Window Manager. Not that I’m exactly clear on the difference.
As for that XPde thing, wow. I appreciate the work that went into it, but I’m already having brief lapses of forgetting whether I’m in KDE or Windows… Having a desktop that looks like Windows, on Linux, would make it worse
I might use it to play practical jokes on my friends, though…
I mean other than the CLI.
I really don’t see why we have to run a tcp/ip stack to get a point and click type interface – even if it looked like ms-windows 1.0.
Anybody know of such a thing?
x11 big bro want to know what you doing, and that bastard don’t want to see Linux becoming successful in desktop market.
—
AISB, IT was a Disater when Linux met x11/x*.
Disater -> DISASTER
Nobody is coping nobody. They are both independent projects. I *think* they started roughly about the same period.
Someone has to mention waimea.
http://waimea.org
Yes I also love WMI! WMI is quite new but uses some novel and interasting ideas.
It is very powerfull, fast and lean. The command line interface is great!
The only things i miss is better mouse support (sometimes i must be able to use the desktop only with the mouse), less bugs (though the last version is quite stable for me) and better visual feedback (it feels quite unresponsive and “flat”).
Personally I run XFCE on every box which has the processing power for it. My slower machines run FluxBox.
LarsWM? http://home.earthlink.net/~lab1701/larswm/
i’m FC/Gnome guy, but this WM is so cool and polished (and up to date, too). i really dont like cheap windows/NeXT/Be etc etc look-a-like’s w. ugly decorations (arghhh, dark gradients!!!! like some black metal CD covers) and weird menus if i want something lightweight. mimic is bad.
pekwm is the best wm I ever used, fast, small footprint, and loads of advanced configurabilty.
(at least in my opinion)
I am currently using fvwm2 and it is amazing. There really isn’t much it can’t do. The only problem is that it takes a while to get configured, which can be annoying for some. But it’s one of those things where once you finally get it configured, there is little chance of going to another wm. Its menus can be dynamically generated and even scripted.
And fvwm2 can be configured to look VERY sharp. Just check out some of the desktop screenshots on http://www.fvwm.org.
For those who don’t fear reading documentation and spending a little time getting it configured, give fvwm2 a shot. You’ll probably end up with a window manager that is more taylored to your preferences than you ever thought possible.
XFCE4 is good, their filemanager (XFFM)is bad (techie-experiment). I think a lot of your desktop experience is in how easy you can navigate your system. I always get lost using XFFM, so at the end I find myself again in Gnome or KDE desktop
I give you props for OpenBox. I use it myself, but I had to wuss out and get fbpanel too because I need a taskbar and system tray
Nothing wrong with using fbpanel in my opinion.
I use it primarly as a quick launch bar so I can have 1 click access to my most frequently used programs. Much faster and more convenient than making room on the Desktop (because mine is always covered by programs, then right clicking on an empty area of the Desktop and navigating down through the menus to find the program you want. Even if you setup “shortcuts” for your most frequently used programs in your OpenBox Menu by putting them right on the main menu, I still think fbpanel is more convenient.
I also use the task bar part of fbpanel for the same reason. It’s easier than middle clicking on the Desktop and finding the minimized program you want.
I have’t created a “start” menu for myself in fbpanel. I still use OpenBox’s Desktop Menu for that kind of thing. But that’s mainly because I already have my OpenBox menus setup how I want and I just haven’t taken the tmie to write a “start” menu for fbpanel yet.
I just have to ask, which wm docks are you using in the upper right hand corner of your screen shot?
wmfire
wmcpuload
wmdiskmon
wmmemload
wmupmon
wmnetload
wmbiff
and I started using wmtop too
I also like wmsvencd, wmusic, wmmixer, wmmsens and wmsystray.
Though since I posted those screenshots, I switched back to GKrellM. It’s more cohesive … all in one. And I like that GKrellM supports themes.
XFCE is my window manager of choice. It offers the best balance of low resource utilization and user friendliness.
For whatever reason, DEs are out, too heavy, too sloww, too complex, too buggy, whatever… i don’t waste my time with them, no matter if i’m running the latest P4/AMD shoulder-missile.
I started with KDE when i discovered Linux, then GNOME, anti-establishment, bla…. then, XFCE4, but … there wasn’t anything that IceWM wouldn’t do faster, then Fluxbox which is my favorite, very little configuration, works fast, then, WindowMaker, never made heads or tails of it, icons stealing space on my screen together with appicon and the dock, i got a 17″ monitor , i can’t afford that, i’m sure there is a solution for it but it is complex and i ain’t got time, then, OpenBox, fast, no taskbar, no clock, no nothing, and the fonts, so freaking small, i can’t see that, so i ended up with Fluxbox as number 1 and IceWM as number 2.
I don’t understand why people who elect to ponder the *other* WM’s never pick-up on Fluxbox (or worse still, pick Blackbox).
Fluxbox is fast, intuitive, and – most importantly – actively developed.
Props to Openbox, really came into its own after the 3.x release. Polished & solid.
Enlightenment D17 is an interesting beast. Sure its been years in the making with no sign of it on the horizon, but writing a window manager isn’t their top priority. They’ve simply put their focus on developing a usable framework of graphics libraries. Some stuff of theirs is already usable, like Entrance & Evidence. Its the one to watch, should be pretty amazing whenever it decides to appear.
It’s definitely true that KDE plus some window managers are not good combinations. I remember one time when I was trying to figure out how to get KDE working under Sorceror linux, and I goofed up and had KDE running on twm. That was really bizarre looking and strange to work with.
Atart ST desktop with TOS 2.06 starts faster then all your WM and X’s, same as Amiga Workbench. It gives you more then all of your WMs.
Here’s a window manager I bet few have heard of:
http://joewing.net/programs/jwm
(shameless plug)