Alternative windowmanagers

[Chad Perrin]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 11:23:15AM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 21:12:14 +0200, Christian Barthel wrote:
> >
> > As a Gnome 2.3x user too, I am also a bit nervouse. Gnome 3 is a big
> > mistake. And there are also rumors that Gnome will be Linux only.
> 
> Xfce is said to be, too. :-)

The XFCE project has elected to support certain functionality by way of
subsystems that only exist in Linux-based OSes.  The window manager and
desktop environment can still be used without that functionality, though.
This was how the XFCE project maintainers decided to make it portable; by
providing a way to not use certain functionality that requires the Linux
kernel and subsystems that depend on it.


> 
> Because the magic of tiling window managers didn't open up to me
> yet, I can't comment on them, but I'm sure many professional users
> do actively use them, as after a bit of learning and practicing,
> those are said to be more comfortable than the "common" windowing
> solutions that urgently need to "entertain" you. :-)

If you want to have a "friendly" introduction to tiling window managers,
I recommend i3.  It's not a "children's" window manager, as beginner
friendly versions of some other things are, but it is still more friendly
to beginners than most tiling window managers in my opinion.

For those who like to dive in head first and wade through the technical
documentation in depth, xmonad and dwm are great.  For those who want a
somewhat gentler initial learning curve, though, i3 is great.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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