Window Manager questions
 

Which WM's support window snapping? I'm using XFCE w/ Compiz at the moment, and it's buggy at best (xubuntu 12.04 64 bit). It also removes the top bar from windows, meaning everything is Alt+F4 to close (which is probably some inanely simple setting to restore I have heretofore overlooked...). I'm experimenting with Enlightenment now, and love the general feel of it (which surprisingly despite the little animations I haven't bothered to turn off is snappier than XFCE), though it seems some of the bottom toolbar icons aren't functional (the elephant in the room there being the Weather Notifier, which is a big one for me, and the clock, which is a non-functional analog clock symbol). Any suggestions? My current setup uses Ctr+Alt+NumPad 0-9 for window behavior, Ctl+Alt+ArrowKeys for navigating around my (current) 4 Virtual Desktops, and adding Shift to take the open window to the desktop with it. Perhaps Enlightenment with an add-on/plug-in/patch for more hotkey control/window snapping?

This Reddit thread and its comments might have some hints for you.

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/commen...eudotiling_wm/

Fluxbox has a tabbed windows feature, but I doubt it will satisfy the other needs you list.

Thanks frankbell, that first link especially has some good bits in it. Incidentally I have restored my top bar (window decorations setting), though I'd still rather use something lighter than compiz. I've looked into a lot of lightweight distros lately, with the snappiest ones seeming to be the ones that will load entirely into RAM. Has anyone done anything with Fatdog64 or the beta Vector 64 bit? Anything I can setup on xfce I can set up on a distro that supports it (which is most likely most to all of them), and I'm also tempted to see what flux/openbox are capable of after reading up a little on...I think it was CrunchBang? Which again, is not distro specific.

Getting more specific, other than Lunar, are there any distros with a guided compiled system, Gentoo style (minus the migraine)? I love the idea behind lunar, but am not a fan of how seemingly sparse the updates for it are.

You're welcome. Your other questions go into areas I'm not competent to assist you with.

I do know a little bit about Crunchbang--it's a distro with a lightweight interface that the developer created, as the saying goes, to scratch his own itch, then it took on a life of its own. http://crunchbanglinux.org/

#! looks really sharp, and given it's based on Debian repositories, would have most if not all of the same toolsets my xubuntu rig has, minus the clutter and junk I'm trying to veer away from. Do you know if it was capable, either through user input or natively, to be run entirely in RAM?

the reason you don't gave the baoarders round your windows when using windows while using compiz is because you haven't enabled it in the settings.
as for alternatives, kwin offers similar effects to compiz including snapping windows.
have you considered sabyon for a distro with a package manager like gentoos. you never said why the migraines but I'm guessing because of gentoos famous reputation for being hard to install. sabyon uses potage too. I've never used it though so take my word with a grain of salt

I indeed have considered Sabayon, for the very reason of Portage. It does not reside in RAM however, which is more and more becoming a trait I am looking for. The headache is indeed Gentoo's installer, which is mostly just the fact that it is terribly time consuming to build. Try as I might, I have a wife, kids, and a full time job, and can't be on a computer 24/7 to babysit something installing (part of the draw to Lunar...also a source distro, but semi-automated), which was another point in Sabayon's favor (using portage on discreet programs when time was available).

Here's a question : how hard would it be after installing any distro to then go back and piecemeal recompile choice bits of the OS to tweak their performance? Would this be functionally the same as compiling said program (or say, the kernel) to the computer, as in Gentoo, while using the binary packages on the less used or less important programs/dependencies?

I hate to double post, but figured I'd follow up. I am back to xubuntu 12.04, with a massively stripped install (and getting smaller by the day). xfwm4.10 has integrated gridding, and either my DVD-RW or the HDD (a 5400 rpm 320 gb that came from an external HD) doesn't play nice with anything but ubuntu variants. Either way, after a long series of tweaks, including VRam, setting swappyness to 10 (and possibly 0 soon), and reconfiguring to Chromium for damn near everything (well, everything online), the thing is absolutely burning rubber, and that's without even bothering with turning off compositing. I imagine once that's off, the thing will be even faster. Now, for the next quick question...I had seen somewhere how to speed up Thunar's initial open, as it is quite slow, but had forgotten the procedure. I just added it to start-up, so when I reboot next, I can see if that in fact WAS the work-around, but failing that, anyone have any clue?

Thanks again guys!

PS: I did so much stuff on the CLI last night, I actually got mad when a recommendation was made to use the Ubuntu Software Center...so inefficient! :P