[FAQ] Window Managers: A comparison

NME · Last edited by NME on Thu Feb 05, 2004 8:36 am; edited 4 times in total

Basically, i am really getting fed up with people asking "wich WM is best fit for my needs?"
Really, there are so many topics on this subject that i wanted to put an end to our misery and post a comparison of window managers and their desktop environments. I know i'm a chaotic kind of guy and so i will use version numbers and a changelog. Please post your corrections and thoughts, I'm sure there are people (yes you, taviso

) who know a lot more about their favorite WM than me and i will probably have forgotten to include a (popular) WM.

Of course, the giants go first:
KDE and Gnome
for your consideration:
Poll: KDE vs Gnome

GNOME
Gnome uses Metacity to manage its windows.
The Metacity WM is supposed to be a "crack-free WM": the developers don't want any features that, they think, you won't need.
Gnome's main characteristic over the past years, however, is that it uses the GTK library. GTK was originally developped for The GIMP and adopted by the Gnome project. It generally has a very clean look, something that's found throughout the whole Gnome DE. Gnome tends to be less eye-candy but more productivity; they have guidelines on how a user-interface should behave and be set up, and the project has been modified by Ximian to be fit especially for the office. Ximian, i might add, was recently bought by Novell.
Although Gnome doesn't really start at eye-candy you can get some. Try gdesklets for instance, its in portage. Or pay a visit to art.gnome.org for some nice themes.

KDE
KDE uses the QT library (plus some enhancements), developed by Trolltech. QT is a tidbit faster then GTK+ and is able to show off some more eye-candy. It's typically used by people who want a full-featured desktop/wm and then some. Also, it seems to be the desktop environment in wich people get to know their way around the fastest. KDE uses it's own KWin to show window-decorations, a WM that has all the functionality Metacity has. The two don't differ a lot.
When you're into eye-candy then KDE really is your DE. You probably know of (super)Karamba. Karamba introduced the concept of sensors and display's on your desktop to a wide audience for the first time. In no time people were installing all kinds of cpu/memory sensors, calendars etc.. on their desktops. The same idea was later taken to Gnome with gdesklets.
Your link for eye-candy on KDE: KDE-look.org

The Rest
Most people use Gnome or KDE. Another big group is the "Non-DE" group.
Some users don't want a big Desktop Environment running all the time. After all, DE's tend to suck memory. All their supportive apps running in the background add up to quite a heavy load, especially for older systems. People with say a Pentium 2 probably don't want to use either Gnome or KDE. Then there's of course users who just want to have very simple and very effective WM. They want their apps to work for them and fast! In the following list I discuss only (fairly popular) WMs that are in portage, the other ones you probably won't use if you've read anything new so far.
The poll that is supposed to back up my yacking:
Poll: The other window managers

The *BOX-es
Once upon a time a WM existed, it was called BlackBox. It's main feature was functionality, it's second was speed. This was touched up with simplicity. Many people used this WM, but eventually some wanted to see some new things, or existing things only in a different form. These people started working on their own derivatives of BlackBox, like Fluxbox. Fluxbox is still very popular for the one feature that makes it great: tabbing. Tabbing allows you to hang multiple windows in one space. you can then switch between by touching the tabs that appeared above the window. Again, this wasn't made to be beautiful; but it is functional.
Another derivative is Openbox. It supports some new features and isn't directly build on Blackbox, the 3.0 release was build from scratch. Most importantly however it was, as it states on the website, "written first to comply with standards and to work properly." What did i tell you? These people want functionality.
One last thing: if you put your soul into it (like many *box-users do) these WM's can be made absolutely beautiful, and 100% customized. You just have to make an effort first.

Kahakai
Kahakai was forked of off Waimea (wich was based on BlackBox!). Its codebase is still Waimea for a big part, but its main feature is or will be extensibility using languages like Python, Ruby and Perl. It's fast, light and flexible. There aren't many themes though, it's userbase isn't very big and it doesn't seem to care for really juicy themes, the default just works for them. Of course kahakai can be used with a panel like PyPanel and a desktop-icons manager like iDesk to juice it up a bit... hell, you can use gdesklets if you want. Most kahakai users probably won't though.

FVWM
Yes,it does get more extreme in terms of configurability and the need to customize. Fire up FVWM for the first time and see.. well nothing really. This WM needs to be customized to be useable at all.
But just wait when you have. The options are endless, once you have worked your way through the text-based configs you will have a truely unique desktop. You will know exactly what it will or won't do and that will be how you like it. Actually, about every feature found in any other popular WM can be reproduced with FVWM. All it takes is a lot of patience working your way through the configuration. Naturally, idesk, pypanel, gdesklets and a lot of other desktop-enhancing apps apply.
There's a thread in the fora where users are showing off configs and helping each other enable the various options.

XFCE4
Favored by many former Gnome users in search of something a bit light but still with that "complete" feel. The latest release is XFCE4, a radical rewrite from XFCE3. It provides about the same look and feel Gnome does, since it uses the GTK library. It's not very configurable, but has a lot of nice skins in stock. If you like ease of use and have a lightweight system or just want things to be a bit snappier for you than this could be the way to go.
Your themes, sir.

WindowMaker
WindowMaker was, as it states on the website, designed to give users the look and feel of the NeXTSTEP environment but with better compatibility. It can be configured using its own GUI. The setup of WindowMaker is slightly different from the usual bars in WMs. WindowMaker makes a box out of every iconified application and stocks it neatly in the corner. You can then reorganise the boxes just the way you want, stick all your dev-apps in one corner and your porn in the other! The userbase is loyal and there are lots and lots of themes to be found.

IceWM
When you want a plain WM that just manages, and is fast when it comes to that, then IceWM could be for you. It combines a starterbar with a windowmanager and that's it. It aims to be customizable but not drown you in options like FVWM might do. It is of course very lightweight so if you want to use X on that really old computer that still works you could consider IceWM. It's fully useable with only the keyboard for when you've ran out of old mice.
For your themeing pleasure go here.

PekWM
Yet another lightweight windowmanager is PekWM. It has about the same basic functionality the *BOX-es have (like tabbing and key-chains), and the author knows that. The question of why he made this WM is answered on his website with a simple "why not?". The more choice people have, so says the author, the better. It might be slightly faster than, for instance, OpenBox. This may or may not be noticeable, depending on your hardware. It is, of course, themeable. From the website:
[here]
[here]
[here]
[ and here]

--Version 1.2

Changelog
Feb 05 -- added WindowMaker, IceWM, pekwm and minor changes.
Feb 04 -- added XFCE4
_________________
f# that.

ckdake · l33t Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 889 Location: Atlanta, GA

Don't forget about xfce4! The super light weight but still good looking windowmanager: http://www.xfce.org There are probably others but I use xfce4 so I'm a bit biased.
_________________
http://ckdake.com/

NME · Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2004 7:14 pm Post subject:

I knew i had forgotten an important player in the field :oops:

thanks.
_________________
f# that.

WebsterRF · n00b Joined: 18 Nov 2003 Posts: 18

Aww, no IceWM? I'd still be in the playing around phase with different window managers, and Ice was one of the ones I was enjoying. However, the computer crapped out on me, and since I'm trying to get somebody else's up and running before I fix mine (alhtough I do have the new mobo already...) I haven't had the chance to continue fooling with things.

Thanks for the nice preview.

aroben · n00b Joined: 10 Oct 2003 Posts: 33

Very nice overview. Just one little nitpick:

ckdake · l33t Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 889 Location: Atlanta, GA

However, QT is accepted by the OSI as a valid open source software liscence now. This used to not be the case but they changed it because of developer concerns. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/qtpl.php

So QT used to be not "real" OSS but now it is.

And last time I checked, RMS uses emacs in a console for his gui so i guess that should go in the options somewhere.

_________________
http://ckdake.com/

chipi · n00b Joined: 05 Oct 2003 Posts: 62 Location: Israel

you forgot my favourite... pekwm

even slimmer that the *boxs, and has some neat features. pekwm.org

Reality · Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2004 11:52 pm Post subject: Window Managers

Personally I use WindowMaker. Slim enough for a slower machine, yet themed easily enough for a newbie.

Slashdot recently had a bit on Stallman going to India and this link: http://faifzilla.org/toc.html

It's a good read at the least, inspiring at most. -Happy Hacking!
_________________
--
---
Steve (Reality)

trapperjohn · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 6:23 am Post subject: Re: Window Managers: A comparison

NME · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 8:32 am Post subject:

Just posted an update including windowmaker, icewm and pekwm.
I'm considering including Enlightenment tonight.
_________________
f# that.

plate · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:21 am Post subject:

On the lowest end of the scale, in the "almost not a window manager anymore" category, you'll need Ratpoison and Ion and Ion2, and maybe a word about LarsWM, a port of Plan 9's 9wm for Linux...

By the way, here's a good overview of window managers in existence.

ILikePi · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 12:54 pm Post subject:

psst....afterstep
_________________
Keyboard not found.
Press F1 to continue.

Corw|n of Amber · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 4:59 pm Post subject:

Oh! Why no Enlightenment? It's SO pretty AND fast and useable and and and...

*ANNOUNCEMENT : Please ignore the Rasterman fanboy, thank you.*
_________________
Whoever is enough of a fanatic to KILL people should be shot on sight.

axxackall · Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 11:56 pm Post subject:

timfreeman · Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:33 pm Post subject:

And sawfish?

http://sawmill.sourceforge.net/

axxackall · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 2:10 pm Post subject:

shm · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 3:07 am Post subject:

homeobocks · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 4:17 am Post subject:

Never forget Enlightenment! DR17 will rule!
_________________
HOW DO I SHOT WEB

Hypnos · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 4:33 am Post subject:

Wow, that's actually a fair and insightful preview -- good work.
_________________
Personal overlay | Simple backup scheme

Vann · Guru Joined: 04 Aug 2002 Posts: 357

Yes, I'll be able to run DR17 on my nice HURD box.

darkarchon · Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 8:05 pm Post subject:

the full performance comparison can be found at:
http://www.windowmaker.org/features-performance.html

they ran the numbers on april 5, 2003 on a p2 233 with 32mb of ram using debian and the default configs for each.

darkarchon · Posted: Tue May 11, 2004 5:26 pm Post subject:

fluxbox vs windowmaker: my numbers

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=171935&highlight=
_________________
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" -- Patrick Henry, 1775

zojas · Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2004 9:22 pm Post subject:

I really think you should add ratpoison and wmi to the list.

Ratpoison is a whole new paradigm for window management. it's designed to act for X like 'screen' does for terminals. ratpoison requires no use of the mouse for window management (actually, it practically forbids it). This is good if you're a programmer and have to deal with editors, xterms, and web browser windows. but can be an issue if you have to deal with lots of floating palettes (gimp)

ratpoison's homepage:
http://ratpoison.sourceforge.net

an impassioned article about using it:
http://handhelds.freshmeat.net/articles/view/581/

finally a screenshot of my custom frameset so I can run some dockapps with it:

http://desertsol.com/~kevin/screens/040709_ratpoison.jpg
wmi is a new, fairly immature project, which tries to get ratpoison-like operation but still have traditional mouse interaction and title bars too.

wmi has two modes; a ratpoison-like mode, and a 'floating' mode. that way you can easily run programs like the gimp (in traditional, floating mode) as well as full-screen mode apps (like xterm, etc)

http://wmi.berlios.de/
_________________
http://www.desertsol.com/~kevin/ppc

bizkit · Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2004 12:16 pm Post subject:

THANKS!
_________________
Gentoo newbie -_-

discomfitor · l33t Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 927 Location: None

For now, E17 isn't so much of a big deal since they're working on E16.7 so rapidly. They have a new release every week...quite nice.

That's not to say I don't want E17 right now, because I do. I'm just being realistic.
_________________
There is no substitute for experience.
Imperfection indicates a lack of effort.