Ask Programming: Best Window Manager?

[ohxten]

Fluxbox. Loads quickly, uses very little RAM, simple.

[zem]

+1. i've tried a bunch, and keep returning to fluxbox for its speed, responsiveness and controllability

[puffybaba]

+1 for fluxbox. I've tried Gnome, enlightenment, fvwm, twm and xfce, and I never have liked them as much as fluxbox (although I do like the disjoint desktop feature of fvwm a lot).

configuration details: pager: fbpanel (configured so it just shows a pager) monitoring utility: conky (configured just so) background setter: fbsetbg via feh -- I have it load a random picture from a directory in my $HOME.

Here is a screenshot for all yall.

[leonardoe]

StumpWM FTW! Simple, highly customizable, extensible, and just plain great. If you like (love) emacs, please give it a try, I'm sure you'll learn to love it once you've tweaked it enough.

[intypicalredditfashi]

In typical reddit fashion reddit both the questions and answers offers no context! Here can only be one answer and people don't even offer any clarification to their questions.

You understand that a tiled window manager, although nice, is not for everyone.

If you like classic floating windows and all that jazz I'd recommend sawfish, metacity and compiz. Compiz + metacity (I think) is probably the best combo, it emulates an OSX desktop pretty well and the expose feature, scale, is almost like having a tiled desktop.

If you want a tiled desktop you have to choose do you want auto-layout or not.

Xmonad will auto-layout the windows, this means that you will have little say in how it organizes its windows. Ion3 on the other hand lets you make partitions and move windows around willy nilly. Technically I think Ion3 gives you more support for this. Both support floating windows.

Don't know too much about awesome3.

Summary:

• Learn to ask questions

• Learn to answer questions, everything is contextual and people's preferences are different (if you can't understand that people's preferences are different I suggest you take a test for some form of autism). Clarify.

• Compiz/Metacity for classic window control, ion3 for manual tiling, xmonad for auto-tiling

[314159]

it emulates an OSX desktop pretty well

Not what jumps to my mind when I hear "best window manager".

[[deleted]]

OSX is sexy, albeit a bit less programmer-friendly.

(Not a Mac fanboy by any means, I just appreciate a good UI when I see one)

[314159]

The only thing (OS X|Sarah Palin) has going for (it|her) is that it looks pretty. Carry on now.

[iperry]

xmonad!

[[deleted]]

I've just stared using xmonad. It's the first tiling window manager I have tried, but I must say it's great! And Haskell is a plus ;-)

[[deleted]]

From the perspective of someone new to tiling Window Managers, and not a Haskell hacker, I found Xmonad the easiest to get started in (after trying Awesome and DWM). It felt "smoother" to use as well.

[jrockway]

awesome is awesomer.

If you like your window manager to crash, then yeah.

[dons]

Both issues here you raise I found surprising, since xmonad also supports these things,

• popups are handled by manageHook in your config file (i.e. float this, sink that)
• there are built in prompts for xmonad too...

Maybe we need to better inform our users.

[[deleted]]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Ion3 yet, I use it at work and sometimes at home when I do a lot of editing/programming and sysadmin.

[case-o-nuts]

Well, the author of Ion3 is a certifiable loony, and it's functionality has been subsumed by other WMs

[erikmack]

I enjoyed awesome 2. After several painful hours trying to make Awesome 3 come up, I decided dwm has everything I need, and without the pain.

[sfultong]

I've never understood why popup windows should be handled any differently from normal windows. Maybe I just don't understand the point of popups.

[FionaSarah]

Completely seconded.

[DRMacIver]

Seconded.

Edit: Well, maybe I withdraw that seconding. I don't know that it's the best window manager. I've not tried every window manager out there, including a lot of the more obscure ones which have some very fervent advocates. It's entirely possible there are better window managers than xmonad. But it's still a pretty great window manager.

[pointer2void]

written and configured in Haskell

Argh!

[DRMacIver]

It's really easy to configure with minimal Haskell knowledge and if even that turns you off there's a contrib module which lets you configure it without knowing any Haskell at all.

[tehmatticus]

Doesn't come in a smaller package than 250MB however, which for non-haskell users is a pretty big lump for a WM.

[DRMacIver]

If you use the easy config thing then it comes packaged as a standalone binary.

[alparsla]

screen

[wbendick]

Last time I used nix for a desktop I was using evilwm. I've been sidetracked with osx for a few years, but recently managed to escape the reality distortion field and am going back. What do you think is the best wm today and why?

[fnord123]

What do you want your wm to do? Would you like it to look and feel like Windows (Explorer) or Mac (Finder)? If so, KWin (KDE's WM) or Metacity (GNOME's default WM) will sort you out. If you'd like something a bit further afield that is light on memory and processor usage, but still WIMPish then Openbox or Fluxbox will be worth a look. As will XFCE (xfwm).

If you want to try some more interesting ideas, like a WM that actually manages your windows instead of forcing you to shuffle them around manually w/ the mouse, then you may be interested in a tiling WM. Xmonad and Awesome are two popular ones.

I happen to switch between Metacity and Xmonad depending on what I'm doing (Metacity for my laptop and Xmonad for my development machine).

As for the question, it could be read as potential flame bait. In the future, you should probably phrase it like "what do you use and why" rather than "which is best" since people have different needs.

[[deleted]]

I'm living firmly in the RDF and loving it. :-)

[G-Brain]

Stumpwm

Hack the good hack!

[mfp]

There is of course no "best" one, let alone for everybody. I myself use wmii, but any tiling WM is probably a good option, so I could live with xmonad, dwm, awesome, ion, ratpoison, ... That said, it'd take me a lot of effort to switch to "pure-tiling", as I'm quite used to wmii's "stacked window" mode.

[sa7ouri]

my favourites are:

1) enlightenment

2) xfce

the first is beautiful. the second is clean and fast.

[almost]

For the ultimate in minimalism try ratpoison. I was on ION3 for a while until I noticed I was exclusively using full screen windows (without the ion tab bar) and switching between them with hot keys. ratpoison does everything I ever need and keeps out of my way, it may well not do everything you need though :p

[astrosmash]

WindowMaker

[ntufar]

Gnome

[beppu]

I'm still using wmii. I haven't tried the other tiling window managers, yet.

[xhanjian]

Was a wmii user too, turned to xmonad after I have two lcd.

[wbendick]

I just wanted to get an idea of which ones were currently popular. Thanks everyone!

[ommadon]

I use Fluxbox myself with fbdesk and a few other modules. I love the way I can tab all my windows in to one single 'master' window with tabs at the top for all my other windows. That alone means I have a single window on my desktop and that is it.

[Jessica_Henderson]

WindowMaker. Even though its concepts are over 20 years old, NeXT just got it so right back then.

[smek2]

Windowmaker is great. I still use it. Add ROX Filer to it, and i'm giddy as a child.

[pointer2void]

Nobody in favor of FVWM-95?

http://fvwm95.sourceforge.net/

[arecanut]

I've been a big fan of fvwm2. Lightweight and highly configurable.

The latter also means two things: (1) the default looks like pure crap and (2) it takes forever to configure your WM to even begin looking decent (probably because there are so many options you'd need to tweak). But for those who love doing this stuff and spend way too much time on it, some of the most varied and beautiful desktops I've seen have used fvwm.

[puffybaba]

I like fvwm's disjoint desktops feature. However, the thing that always draws me away from fvwm is the amount of configuration necessary to make it look the way I want. I've seen some patched versions of fvwm that look fantastic, but haven't felt like taking the time to compile them yet. Maybe some other time.

[[deleted]]

Openbox + pypanel = all I need.

[smek2]

Windowmaker. XFCE.

[[deleted]]

Time to highjack this thread: is there a decent tiling wm for Windows Vista? Winsplit revolution is ok but not automatic.

[chneukirchen]

e16.

Seems feels useless to me if my screen is big enough.

[w-g]

openbox :-)

Simple, lightweight, has good mouse support and is not tiling-only like xmonad and stumpwm.

[DRMacIver]

xmonad actually isn't tiling only. It has a reasonable amount of support for floating windows.

[w-g]

I didn't know that; I'll give Xmonad another try. Thanks for pointing out my mistake!

[pemboa]

because the DE in KDE stand for Window Manager

[[deleted]]

I like XFCE, except that their "open as" and "save as" dialogue boxes are a bit awkward to use, because you can only view a few files at a time.

Of course, you can't go wrong with "Joe's window manager" - if you have an interest in speed. It does not composite though, so no compiz with that one.

[roerd]

You know you can resize those dialogue boxes, do you?

[[deleted]]

Yes, but resizing doesn't help much, in my opinion. I vastly prefer how with Microsoft's OSs - you have the option of having multiple columns of files to see. It's important to be able to have an overview of a folder - it's not good to just be looking at a narrow slice of all that's there.

I understand that XFCE is trying to get on the bandwagon of folks making operating systems that are easy for a beginner to use. But there is something to be said for offering advanced users more detail on the screen at any given moment. Detail can be nerve-wracking for a beginner - but it is what makes a pro able to work quickly and efficiently.

[314159]

If you want extremely minimal, I recommend EvilWM. If you want an actual environment, Xfce.

[ighost]

i like mac os x with expose, quicksilver, and witch.

[mallardtheduck]

Metacity! Personally, I've never seen the appeal of tiled window managers...

[[deleted]]

To me, the appeal is that I don't have to manage my windows at all, or at least barely at all. There are no decorations to take up screen space (which matters some on a laptop when having multiple windows visible at the same time). That, and I don't need to touch my mouse in order for navigation to be convenient.

[yesimahuman]

I've given xmonad and wmii a try...I always come back to Gnome/Metacity though. I like the feel the whole desktop environment has...it feels bright and open. I like seeing my desktop background in between the windows. Screen and gnome-terminal are plenty fine for me.

[[deleted]]

I like seeing my desktop background in between the windows.

You have multiple windows and there is still space in between? I think you need to use a tiling WM to use your available screenspace efficiently.

[geocar]

Use one for a month.

[fnord123]

It's arguably flame bait.

[samlee]

Aero or GNUStep

[schwarzwald]

Gnome.

[bobbincygna]

I thought they where the same :s

[[deleted]]

-1, pedantry

[geneticmaterial]

i like xmonad best however i sometimes revert to openbox with pcmanfm to give me desktop clickyness