Is It A Good Idea To Install IceWM ?
 

I got ubuntu 8.04 and someone suggested that I substitute Gnome for IceWM as my default desktop manager.

1) Does IceWM eat up less resources than Gnome?

2) What are the advantages and disadvantages of IceWm over Gnome?

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Yes. Year..two ago on the box (ASP Linux 11) where I had IceWM and Gnome with IceWm desktop system used 67..75 MB of RAM, with Gnome memory usage was over 128..175 megabytes. This was long ago, right now number will be probably different.

Advantages: lower hardware requirements.
Disadvantages: less features.

I heard that IceWM project is dead. Information isn't verified.
You could try blackbox/fluxbox/XFCE, they also need less resources to run.

I use IceWM almost exclusively. Fully customizable graphics, not a bland gray like other WMs. Very light on the resources. And a CPU and NET meter in the task bar, very useful. Not as featurefull since there's no desktop environment (icons on the BG image to start apps). But it has a toolbar with launchable apps and their icons. Not as gui driven for customizations, but not exactly rocket science either. I like it. I like it enough NOT to use many if any of the other WMs. Although I initially gravitated towards it because gnome and/or kde was always broken to one degree or another in debian unstable. And upgrades to a 10MB WM versus a 300MB WM makes my dialup connection happy.

HTH

Though I'm not against the use of IceWM, but if you are looking for some alternative to Gnome then I would like to suggest Fluxbox rather than IceWM. Both of these are good but from the point of view of memory consumption, for me, even saving a few MBs is really good enough. Fluxboxx takes very less memory and is extremely customizable [like Ice]. Give it a shot and I'm sure you'll like it. Get started with this,

fluxbox.org/
sourceforge.net/projects/fluxbox/

Specific to Ubuntu,
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Fluxbox

Thanks.

There's no answer to your question. Try it, taste it, then decide. It's like asking "should I buy these trousers?".

Sure. Strictly speaking IceWM is always going to be lighter than gnome. But in practice it all depends. If you are going to continue using -let's say- nautilus, under IceWM, then your memory footprint is going to be lighter, yes, but not *much lighter*.

Gnome is a desktop environment (DE), IceWM is a window manager (WM). A DE is a set of integrated pieces (bars, toolbox, applications, desktop manager, window manager, a login manager, control panels, stuff, stuff and more stuff). A WM is just a WM. All the DE's have a WM so a WM is only a subset of what a DE can give you. Obviously, a WM is much more limited. It just "manages windows", hence the name. Some WM's, like IceWM, have some extra stuff (like a taskbar and a menu).

Just look around, google for screenshots. Install it and try it and decide for yourself.

For screenshots: http://lynucs.org