Okay, well my junior year ended today which means I have two months of summer and I don't have a real job so I have a lot of time to do what I want. I'm starting to look at Linux security and BASH scripting. I have a laptop that is going to have half Debian and have FreeBSD. The problem is I don't know what is the most efficient WM to use. I've used Fluxbox and Blackbox and FVWM2 and others. I was just wondering what the opinions of you guys that basically break apart the *NIX system daily and such.

Please don't tell me that there is no best and all that. I'm just wondering your opinions. I'm probably gunna stpend the next week just spending like 4-6 hours a day breaking down multiple ones and seeing which ones I like best and pros and cons of each.

Basically, I'll be using it for the stuff above: bash scripting and security like network security and local (probably both for and against (on my own computers ofcourse)) and digging through the system to learn how things work.

If anyone does stuff like this and prefers a certain WM, could you leave information on why you like it and what you find better about it than the rest. It would be really nice for all information.

Thank you,
Tex

I like dwm because:

1. has everything i require from a window manager
2. is written in c, 'configuration' is done by directly modifying one of the source files
3. light

It depends on what you prefer, because many are equally fast. I use fluxbox and ROX-Filer (file manager), these are fast, stable, and do everything I need.

I use WindowMaker.

I like the pinnable/rippable root window menus.

I like the way the dock works and the fact that it's designed to be on the side rather than the bottom which maximises usable vertical screen space (makes it a good choice for 16:9 displays).

I like the fact you can configure most of it through the GUI, though you can still edit it manually if you wish.

I like the support for dynamically generated menu content.


My biggest dislike of it is that it blocks ALL onscreen applications from running during a window resize operation, which I think is pretty poor on a multitasking system like linux. Once I learn a little more about programming X11, xevents/atoms and the like, I'll have to dig into the code and see if I can do something about that(it sounds as if there's a tight loop where there shouldn't be), but it's beyond my capabilities at present.

I'd always recommend Fluxbox; I consider it highly usable and it's easy to make it pretty with themes and such without sacrificing simplicity in design and operation. And Fluxbox is also one of the most popular lightweight window managers, so it's got the "popularity effect" of a Linux distro like Ubuntu, meaning that any problem you'd ever run into has probably been solved by someone on a messageboard somewhere and using Google will give you a wealth of forum posts, tutorials, and other learning aids.

When it comes to Fluxbox-specific features, I really don't have much use for the Slit, but I love, love, love tabbed windows.

H_TeXMeX_H & rkirk: I am downloading the fluxbox-git right now and I'm efficiently going to install it on the computer.

GazL: Thank you for that info on WMaker. Back when I was researching stuff on NeXT like, I looked at that with the most confused face. I think if I took a week or two to figure out how to use it, it would work well. The problem with using it on the laptop I want to use is that its a 14" screen and the boxes(not sure what they are called) on the sides of the screen took up too much space to actually use the screen.

Thank you for all info both already and future.

BTW, does anyone have any stories about vtwm? It looks like after some configuring, It can be usable and very efficient.