I was just wondering what are some of the better window managers other than what comes with mandrake (Gnome, KDE or IceVM). Im up to expanding my horizons

What would the experts here recommend for other window managers?

hmm, i wouldn't call myself an 'expert' but i love windowmaker, it's lightweight, and has customizable icons

Uh, actually Mandrake comes with quite a few WMs, they just might not all install by default, but the distro has Windowmaker, Enlightenment (prefer over Gnome, but KDE is still my fav), Blackbox, XFCE, etc.

kde is good... it is my second favorite... there is also twm for the really harcore or those who need a really lightweight, or mwm, look here
http://xwinman.org/

My personal favorite right now is KDE, but I wanted to test some others and see what other people thought about different packages.

Thanks for the input... Ill browse around xwinman.org and read on some of the different ones. Any additional info is always welcome

I prefer windowmaker. I don't like MS windows look-a-likes plus the wmapps are great to monitor stuff s.a. df, uptime, mem usage, cpu usage, network, pop3...

It's clean and proper

amen to that...

aren't you supposed to be able to run a window manager on top of gnome? Mandrake 9.2 comes with Gnome 2.4 with Metacity as the window manager. I keep reading about using the Desktop Configuration Capplet in Gnome to set what window manager you'd like to use, but when I click on it I'm told no application is associated with it and what would I like to do with it. How the heck do I adjust these settings under Mandrake 9.2??

I prefer XFce, even though I use many of the programs which come with KDE; I only use KDE anymore when I need to set something I can't set from XFce or the command line (due to being too stupid).

Robin

Sounds like quite a few people really prefer KDE over Gnome. Im still very new so I really dont want to move to any "Hardcore" WMs right now. If someone can tell me WHY KDE is better, I will go make the switch tonight from Gnome.

P.S. Is there anyone here who likes Gnome as their favorite?

- The Gnubie

I use Gnome. It's much easier to make it look like OS X under gnome then KDE. KDE still seems a bit rigid even in 3.2

"I use Gnome. It's much easier to make it look like OS X under gnome then KDE. KDE still seems a bit rigid even in 3.2"

In my experience, you can make KDE look nearly identical to OS X. Just have the menu bar on top, add a custom window decoration with drop shadows, add an OS X bar superkaramba theme, and a simple drop shadow karamba theme for the desktop menu. I've yet to see anything comparable in Gnome (last I checked gdesklets and anything else couldn't be used to create a OS X like bar).

"rigid"?

I'm not even sure what that means. I guess maybe if you're talking in terms of speed, then yeah, Gnome is a little bit faster. Of course, from the benchmarks I've seen (and personal experience), you're really only gonna notice on a 233 MHz system. In terms of configurability though, I'd argue that Gnome is much more rigid. The interface is so dumbed down for "Joe Sixpack", that options are buried away as "Advanced" or not available at all. Don't even get me started on how retarded it is to use something similar to the Windows Registry (okay, true, at least gconf is XML-based, but it's still a pain).

Basically, I've found I like a lot of Gnome and Gtk-based apps (gaim, evolution, etc.), but I prefer KDE as my desktop. It really just comes down to what you want in a desktop, and your own personal preferences. This is what's so great about Free Software. You can make these choices, they're not made for you :-)

Fluxbox is the WM of the year (according to the poll on this forum).
It's light (1Mb or so), fast, crash-proof, with nice graphic effects etc.
FLUXBOX.

I primarily use Windowmaker, but I keep trying other stuff. I'm currently messing around a bit with Openbox3 and FVWM2, but I've never cared for endless script editing to get what you want. I can do it, but it's tedious. At least Windowmaker has a prefs program that is pretty good. And I also don't care for the Windows look-alike type windowmanagers. I want the thing to look and act like I want it to look and act. Windowmaker allows me to set it up any way a take a fancy to.

I also have the stuff installed to allow me to run the KDE and Gnome programs I want to run. The best of all worlds.

stunter

Well I wouldn't call Gnome my favorite by a long shot I do prefer it over KDE. Gnome has always been stabel which I never considered KDE to be. I think of KDE as a linux hack of Win XP

You don't have to be hard core to use IceWM. It is very compatable to both Gnome and KDE and can run applications that are marked as KDE only, same with gnome.

As far as I know the newer Gnome would require you to edit one of the config files to make IceWM the window manager, it works quite well.

I also like PWM which might be considered hard core as it is very simple, nothing but the background when you start it, uses the mouse to bring up the menu.

This is my first time so if I made a mistake, please forgive me