Re: Newbie Question - KDE-Gnome-xfce
On Sat, 2007-04-07 at 16:47 -0500, Randy Patterson wrote:
> Thanks for taking to time to post all that information. I have installed
> Gnome, just haven't figured out how to get it going yet! After reading your
> post one of the things that I think I need to do first is read some good
> articles/overviews of the WMs that are out there and how they work. I have a
> backlog of reading to do but will do some googling to read up on this.
As your Google search will probably indicate, [1] Matt Chapman's site is
one of the most popular overviews of desktop environments and window
managers around. It's a good place to start. Be warned that a lot of
the links are outdated. In some cases, it's because the project is
defunct; in others, it's just because the link hasn't been updated. You
can search or browse Debian's repository to see how many WMs are
available through apt.
As far as WMs go, you'll find that many are variations on a theme and
fit into broad categories.
1) The *boxes: These include Blackbox, Fluxbox, and Openbox. They all
share a similar design philosophy. Blackbox, I believe, was the first.
Fluxbox is the most popular. Openbox is my favorite, not least because
of its pipe menus. You'll have to read up on that feature as I can't
really explain it properly.
2) Tiling WMs: These include ion3, PekWM, PWM and others. They
especially excel at managing terminals and can be really cool to use if
you find yourself doing lots of work in the shell. That's not to say
they can't run graphical apps too, though. I would recommend checking
out at least one of these, just for the experience of seeing how they
work. They are very different from anything I ever encountered in MS
Windows.
3) Minimalist: Even more barebones than the tiling WMs, these include
Ratpoison and EvilWM. They are for people who *really* don't like
reaching for the mouse!
4) Maximalist/traditional: WMs that provide some familiarity to anyone
who's been using computers for a while. They often seem like DEs, but
they aren't. They vary pretty widely in their design, so there's a lot
to look at. Among the most popular or useful are WindowMaker, IceWM,
Enlightenment, AfterStep, and FVWM (which has been discussed quite a bit
on this list recently).
One thing you might want to keep in mind is standards compliance.
Another reason Openbox is my favorite of all the stand-alone WMs is that
it aims for (and achieves) 100% [2] ICCCM compliance. WM developers
vary in their adherence to [3] xdg specs; some are downright
contemptuous of them and they have their reasons for that attitude.
Using a WM that is good on standards compliance means you'll be able to
use a wide range of apps and tools out there that are designed to work
with any standards-compliant DE or WM. See, for example, [4] Devil's
Pie. Using a WM that isn't standards-compliant means that many of these
types of apps won't work well (or at all) in that environment. Just
something else to consider.
[1] http://xwinman.org/
[2] http://tronche.com/gui/x/icccm/
[3] http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications
[4] http://burtonini.com/blog/computers/devilspie
--
Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to
dream." --S. Jackson
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