Re: What's the difference between a display manager and a window manager?
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 10:56:30AM +0100, Misko wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 28, 2006 at 05:21:35PM -0500, Rick Thomas wrote:
> > What's the difference between a "display manager" and a "window
> > manager"?
>
> Maybe Rick wanted to ask (if not him than I am :)
> What is the difference between a "desktop manager/enviroment" (GNOME/KDE/XFce4)
> and a "window manager" (fluxbox/metacity/IceWm)?
The concept of a 'window manager' exists as a well defined term in
the X Window System. There is no 'Desktop Environment/desktop manager'
defined in X11, so it has to be considered an application layer sitting
on top of X11.
A 'window manager' looks after the placement, stacking and decoration of
root level windows, usually provides a few menus in the root window, and
often includes libraries/style guide to assist in developing applications
which are consistent and follow similar conventions and aesthetics.
The 'desktop environment' like KDE/GNOME/MacOS/MSWindows includes a window
manager (in the latter two examples hard wired into the OS) plus a
suite of application programs with consistent GUIs intended to make a
complete self contained easy to use work environment, usually designed
to eliminate the requirement to use a command line shell and hence be
more accessible to a broader customer base..
The terms are not always used consistently, and I am not aware of an
'official' definition of 'desktop environment', but the 'X Window System'
documentation is pretty clear on exactly what is meant by the term
'window manager'.
Regards,
DigbyT
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin digbyt(at)digbyt.com
http://www.digbyt.com
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