i'm an intermediate user of linux and find that i use the terminal more and more and hardly ever use the desktop to do task. I am running Fedora Core 2 with the Gnome desktop enviroment. I wanted to know is there a distro, desktop, windows manger combo that i could use that would be more efficient and less graphical based, but still run programs with graphical interfaces like AIm and Gimp? Also im kind of unfamilar with windows managers. Do you need both a desktop and a windows manager or can you just use a manager? Any adice would be appreciated.

There is Ion, a graphical window manager, for those whole like command-line. And no, you don't need a desktop environment. After login on any virtual console, just use: startx /path/to/ion

Yves.

and so with the x server and without a desktop i could still use GUI interface programs?

See here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=258296

Yves.