Which window manager do you use ?

[Chrisdafu]

As the title states which do you use ? I use fluxbox in both FreeBSD and RedHat 7.3. It may not be as pretty as gnome or kde but its hella fast unlike those two. Maybe we can get a poll or something going later.

 

[clash]

I have used Blackbox, KDE, and Gnome.

Blackbox, of course was the fastest and most stable. But of course nothing built in.

KDE, full of everything you could possibly need. Unfortunatly, i found it not to be the most stable.

Gnome, has great built in features. But doesn't over do it like KDE. I thought it had the best features/stability ratio that i had seen.

What was the question again?

 

[Spector_306]

In my quest for a good WM for my laptop, I have tryed the following:
1. Gnome
2. KDE
3. IceWM
4. FluxBox
5. WindowMaker
6. TWM

Summary:
Gnome was slow on laptop, but fast on desktop. (Its what I use on my desktop, because its more skinable then KDE) KDE runs resonably well on low end hardware (i've tyred it on a 333 and a 400) I use KDE on my FreeBSD server.
IceWM was the one of the faster WM's I tryed for my laptop, I am currently using it.

 

[Titan386]

I've used KDE, Gnome, and Fluxbox extensively, and have briefly (very briefly) tried Waimea, Blackbox, and Window Maker. My personal favorite is KDE.

 

[Christoph]

I like windowmaker. I had some issues with the changes between Gnome 1.4 and 2.x, and 2.x puked, corrupted my settings and screwed things up enough that I couldn't figure out how to get it to do anything useful. I also like not waiting more than 3 seconds for it to start up.

 

[penetrecion]

I prefer KDE.... don't mind the short wait... gnome's ok but KDE better... I have tried a whole bunch of others, cool to play around with for themes and such but not really laid out in a coherent manner for me (still a window$ slave I guess).

 

[Kendan]

Fluxbox is what is on my Gentoo desktop now I am going to Give enlightenment some time there soon.

 

[UnseenMenace]

KDE 3.1 is my prefered choice, I find that Gnome is slightly more demanding on resources.
The other WM I personally find not to behave in a consistent manner though the desktop and apps.. KDE appears to be the most consistent and tweakable in this respect

 

[mirko_3]

I faced this problem a few weeks ago: choosing a window manager that was fast and looked pretty: I tried first WindowMaker, which is great, and now am using afterstep, which is the best, in my opinion...
I was undecided between enlightmente and afterstep, but after reading a bit I chose afterstep. It's also very easily configurable.... I highly recommend it!! (the transparent console is sooo cool!!)

 

[Cúchulainn]

I've tried just about every wm in the FreeBSD ports collection at one point or another. But only about three have seen an extended stay on my desktop: 1) WindowMaker which I've been using now for about a year an a half, 2) AfterStep, and 3) Blackbox.

 

[Audioaficionado]

As a noob, I like the ease of use KDE3.1 presents. It just works better out of the box for me. I always fight with the others trying to make 'em do what I want.

 

[Richard]

Used most of them at one time or another.

IMO, WindowMaker is the most versatile. It is really quite great at doing what its supposed to do. Its short in the eye candy department, but honestly, how much time do you spend staring at the desktop?

Which is why I don't like KDE. KDE caters to much to the "Gee whiz would ya look at that" crowd. If half the KDErs would put as much effort into actually using Linux as they do in skinning the desktop they'd be software engineers.

 

[David]

I'm not sure, myself. Gnome is nice, but I also like KDE. I dont like the chunky icons and menus etc that KDE has. And I always turn off panel icon zooming. Gets on my nerves.

 

[Cúchulainn]

IMO, WindowMaker is the most versatile. It is really quite great at doing what its supposed to do. Its short in the eye candy department, but honestly, how much time do you spend staring at the desktop?

Which is why I don't like KDE. KDE caters to much to the "Gee whiz would ya look at that" crowd. If half the KDErs would put as much effort into actually using Linux as they do in skinning the desktop they'd be software engineers.

KDE has a pretty specific purpose in my opinion: to provide a similar environment to what people have grown used to in Windows. And it does that pretty well I think. If KDE were to cater to the other crowd it would be WindowMaker or something more spartan. KDE is an excellent wm for transitioning from win32.

WindowMaker does have good balance of appearance, ease of configurability, and speed. That's why I like it

 

[mirko_3]

the difference between windowmaker and afterstep is only, imo, that afterstep looks better... but it's just as fast. of course, I haven't used windowmaker all that long before switching over to afterstep, so I may be wrong...

 

[penquissciguy]

I personally like KDE. I feel that it has a more "finished" feel than some of the other managers, has lots of configurable options, and fits the way I like to work the best. On the LTSP boxen we've been working on at the school where I teach, we use IceWM because of its low bandwidth dependence and smaller demand on resources.

Ken

 

[moorcito]

I've used almost all of them at one time or another in my search for a window manager. WindowMaker was the winner of the window manager war, and I've been using for about two years now.

Having said that, there's a new one that I've been trying out lately called XFCE that I've been using in conjunction with WindowMaker.

 

[Audioaficionado]

Once I learn Linux, maybe I'll know how to configure a desktop too LOL

 

[nil_esh]

I've been using KDE lately (last 6 months). Good set of configurable keyboard controls. Works very well with Xinerama. In general, I like the configuration options. For the most part, I can get things working exactly like I want them. The designers have really thought about what kind of options people would like (though sometimes they are hard to find in all the mess). It's a heavyweight, but its meant to be that.

I've used most of the others, and used to use FVWM, TWM, and others way back in the day. I use WindowMaker in Cygwin occasionally.

KDE users will generally get flamed like we are bunch of newbies. That's too bad, because its really a good desktop environment. It gets a lot of criticism for being a Windows clone, but really it has quite surpassed anything Windows has come up with. I don't get the eye-candy argument, KDE has the crummiest look to it, and I've set it up to look simple and plain so it doesn't get in the way. But do realize that some "eye-candy" is actually visual cues that help you work faster (though a lot of it isn't).

 

[Audioaficionado]

On servers you don't even need a GUI if you don't want it. Same for workstation and desktops. I like a GUI and I have a powerful PC to run it now. So what the heck! Right now while I'm learning the nix basics, KDE is one less thing I'll have to deal with because it just works out of the box for me.