Thanks for the fine reply to GazL, it has raised my curiosity, and many questions.

I am a happy Fluxbox user and have not tinkered with other WMs since the late 90's (except for also being a KDE user until KDE4).

After reading your post here I have fired up a few fvwm sessions to play around with (and was in fact put off by the default setup, as you cautioned). I have also clicked around the fvwm web site and see a lot of stuff, but no place that shouts "Start here for some quick gratification...".

Are you aware of a guide or quick start that would allow a curious but impatient type to quickly grasp the basics of getting beyond the default config?

(Note: I am playing with fvwm on my slackware 12.1 laptop - fvwm-2.4.20 if that makes any difference).

I commonly use KDE since I'm used to it but I also used XFce and Blackbox in a very tight system (no HD, only CDRW) with 256 MB memory and squashfs back in late 2005 and early 2006. I hacked a LiveCD of Gentoo with packages taken from Slackware (probably although I'm not sure since there was also the packages disc of Gentoo) to make things work.

Windowmaker. I also have fluxbox installed, but I don't use it.

I've been using windowmaker on Debian since always and I'm sticking with it on Slackware too.

vtwm

I like the way it's virtual desktop and Icon Manager(s) work

Regards
Jack

Well, I keep meaning to write one (or at least post my own config) but haven't gotten around to it. I started by reading the man page (which is also available online for 2.4.20 or current) in conjunction with somiaj's guide. I also used the FAQ, which is helpful for filling in some details. Also, before I got to my stripped down evilwm-ish config, I played with some stuff from a theme site. I'm not sure how up-to-date much of the non-fvwm.org resources are anymore, though. Hopefully they're still useful.

Yeah, that does make a difference. The one problem with fvwm is an aspect of its dev process, which produces extremely stable -currents (much like Slackware) but hasn't produced a stable 2.6 release for years (though that may finally be on the horizon) so the 2.4 series Slack ships is way behind the 2.5 series. I build my own 2.5.x's and there's a bit of a learning curve if you learn 2.4 and then 2.6 does come out. So if you're interested in 2.5, you can build it yourself or use my pseudo-SBo SlackBuild for 2.5.31, if you'd like. I'd recommend starting with 2.5, personally - for features, a certain rationalizing of the config syntax, and not having to learn it twice - but 2.4.x is good and what Slackware ships, so Pat implicitly recommends that.

I use KDE alot though it crushes alot when i turn most of the visual effects, otherwise it is just great

xmonad on the desktop, with dmenu and yeahlaunch.

• No desktop environment - no overhead
• Lightweight
• Tiling window management means no more fiddling with layouts
• No menubar/button, no status bar, no system tray, no title bars - no wasted screen real-estate
• Endlessly configurable
• Fast (enough) - a world of difference compared to conventional WMs but still slower than some other tiling WMs
• Written in Haskell

wmii on the laptop, with wmenu (built-in) and yeahlaunch
as above except:

• Faster
• More lightweight
• Excellent, easy-to-configure status bar for battery life, CPU temp etc.
• libxft support for fonts (works wonders with subpixel patches on such a low-res screen...)
• Named workspace tagging
• Provides title bars
• Easier to resize windows with mouse
• Written in boring (but efficient) old C

Openbox & Tint2. I used to use CrunchBang a lot and learnt a lot of tweaks for that combo. It's fast, minimal and configurable.


I tried Xmonad but didn't stick to it long - too much new stuff to learn!

KDE and Xfce. Since my Atari ST back in the eighties I want a desktop with icons. And on my Atari emulator I still use the Thing desktop :-)

Although I've used FVWM for over a decade now, I've never persuaded myself to try to use it as the window manager for KDE.

Could you, please, describe the steps you took to achieve this?

Thanx a bunch.

I use KDE4 with classic menu style and "folder view" desktop.

You can switch that off. KDE runs much faster for me with that, and "Nepomuk semantic desktop," and "Desktop effects," all switched off.

Performance wise, it matches KDE3. In fact, with some things, it is even faster than KDE3. Then there's the whole sound handling thing. Under KDE3, you had to use aRTs. Thank God they got rid of that!

Of course, despite all of this, XFCE and WindowMaker are still more efficient. I tried to switch to XFCE a few months back, but it lacks too many of the nice little features which make KDE a pleasure to use.

XFCE has some really nifty features, though. I love Mousepad. In 10 years of running Linux, I never used a 'GUI' style text editor until I tried Mousepad. It is so simple. Another little XFCE utility which is pretty neat is the Bulk Rename feature of Thunar. It has saved me lots of time already. Wanna remove spaces and replace them with underscores, while switching between upper and lower case? Too easy!

Now I'm using KDE 4 on both FreeBSD and Kubuntu until I get sick of it or get used to it...
I've been thinking about using Python, thinking about using Ruby, thinking about sticking with GNOME, etc. I want Kubuntu, so I installed it, then installed KDE 4 on FreeBSD so they're both the same DE. I like QT, and I like KDE, but GNOME has seemed better to me in ways. Right now, like I said, I'm going to either get sick and tired of KDE or I'm going to get used to it.
I've had a hard time making my mind up lately.

I use window maker... it really suits my needs and i have a feeling that the dock alone provides more screen estate now that most monitors are widescreen.

The scary part is that it was Off! At least as far as the the KDE system settings were concerned. However, that didn't seem to stop a number of processes with nepomuk in their name from running and eating my ram.

The only thing I did that was unusual was that I decided to have a look at Amarok. I'd tried it in the past and hated it, but I'm prepared to give things another look every so often to see if they've improved. Turns out I still hate it. Anyway, All I can assume is that starting amarok in some way triggered the nepomuk activity, despite it being turned-off in general.

I like the basic feel of the KDE4 desktop but I've had my doubts about the underlying architecture and especially the fully integrated, all-your-eggs-in-one-basket nepomuk concept. I think I'm just happier with a more modular approach with good separation between functions.

Couldn't agree more. Vertical space is at a far higher premium on these newfangled shortscreen monitors and the windowmaker dock down the side of the screen works very well on that format.

Sadly, my 1280x1024 4:3 LCD panel just died on me (after 3 years and 2 months - it came with a 3 year warranty! Typical!!!) so I'll be purchasing a new shortscreen monitor sometime very soon.