Subject: Re: [SlugLUG] Window Managers, Desktops Enviroments and GUI's.
From: Andrew <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 13:32:22 -0800

Well, Phil is probably the most knowledgable about window managers, but
as for me, I use golem on my system. It has a plugin for sliding
desktops, and I just set key bindings to go between desktops (which
produces the cool sliding effect).

A desktop environment is typically GNOME or KDE. Those both run a window
manager within them, and try to provide extra functionality (like
drag'n'drop). I regard them as a complete waste of time and memory,
but that's my opinion because I don't use any of their features.  KDE,
IIRC uses its own window manager by default, and GNOME uses sawfish
by default.  Each can use other window managers that are compatible
(implement the GNOME/KDE interfaces).

I used to use GNOME/KDE, then, one day (a little more then a year ago),
I decided to be hardcore and use fvwm.  I went on it for quite a while,
then swapped to golem.  The main problem with golem is its development
has essentially stopped dead in its tracks.  I've chewed the rag a bit
with some Sourcemage people about taking it under out wing, but lack
the time for it.

If you want absolute configurability, I'd use fvwm[.*].  It by far has
the most stuff you can do with it.  IceWM seems to be Phil's choice.  It
seems like a reasonably good choice.  It looks too much like Windows for
me.  I've used pwm, briefly.  If you are way into keybindings, pwm is
the only way to go.  It has the best support for keybindings out there.
The only reason I don't use it is because it doesnt handle multiple
displays properly.  If you ask Google for window managers, typically the
first link takes you to the mother of all WMs page.  If you like screen,
and want to turn X11 into an uberscreen-like environment, then ratpoison
or ion is the way to go.  Ion is a little more functional then
ratpoison, but both are keyboard-necessary WMs.  Blackbox seems to be a
favorite among a number of Linux users.  I personally don't see whats so
great about it, but it seems to be pretty and easy to set up.  There's
also afterstep and Window Maker, both NeXT derivants; they include a
dock of some sort, but, then again, fvwm has a wharf and golem has a
pier that do the same thing.  I suppose if you like wasting memory you
can use Afterstep or Window Maker.  That's my WM breakdown.

On my system, I wrote a Perl script to change the background to
something random, then put it in my crontab to run every 20 minutes.
Recently, I moved to four monitors instead of one.  At that point, I
added a loop to my script to update all backgrounds.