window managers vs kde/gnome
 

ive always used kde and found it pretty good, but realized there's lots of little apps installed that i never use.

i'm under the assumption with regular window managers (enlightenment, icewm..etc) you dont get those little apps?

how do you go about installing one of them? do all programs work with them? (mozilla/xmms/openoffice.org/etc...)

any window managers to recommend?

Well, by and large, the apps are independent of the IDE. KDE apps require KDE libs and Gnome apps require Gnome libs, but they don't require the IDE, as such. Some stuff like certain configuration tools or what have you might not work, and some act funny or need tweaking, but they most all work with any wm. And, as far as general apps like mozilla, yeah, those all work. But those apps will still be on the system whether you use them or not unless you delete them. You'll save memory and things will generally be faster - and simpler - with a wm.

I was a blackbox freak until I tried fluxbox which is 99% like blackbox and I like the other 1%. :D Either of those are my favorite though, for something a little heavier, there's stuff like icewm and windowmaker.

Oh - and you install them just like any other app.

Of course, if you were feeling adventurous, you could re-create your favourite KDE environment, but without the clutter! If you run kwin as your windowmanager, and have kicker running on startup, you're 1/2 way there already.

I am having great trouble changing window managers in Mandrake 9.0 with Gnome 2.0.
gconf will not allow a change of window managers, and I've tried the 'killall metacity;enlightenment' trick, but all I get is an enlightenment message about editing the xinitrc file which it does, but cannot get enlightenment to run or install. Have played with run levels but all came to naught. My themes are in ~/.themes folder as gnome wants.
Any help?