Managing fluxbox manually has always been easy. I don't bother with fluxconf. I have recently played around with Gentoo 2006 and I could not tell much difference between it and Ubuntu because they both start up in Gnome and The desktops are identical. I know the underlying infrastructure of the OS's are different but I am talking strictly on looks here.

Well gentoo doesn't default to anything at all, but gnome accross two platforms SHOULD look the same by default, figuring on how it IS the exact same software after all.....


But I digress...


Fluxbox just isn't efficient enough for me. It takes too long to open and browse the menu, and keyboard shortcuts are absolutely pointless when you have MANY applications that you regularly use...(Not to mention a single click is infact faster than a ctrl+shift+w, etc.)

Windowmaker is clearly the way to go. It is much faster, it's lighter, and has better support(such as UTF-8, which JUST now finally got in fluxbox), not to mention it just looks more elegant and it's system of managing applications absolutely kills the whole Fluxbox idea of, "all of your applications on one tiny little taskbar". It makes multitasking much easier.

Also the menu system, with detachable menus and the ability to auto-generate a submenu based on the output of a command or the contents of a directory,(Great when trying to open up things such as videos or images, VERY BeOS like) is probably the most efficient menu i've ever come accross.

Let's not forget about GNUstep compatibility and Objective-C support.

Windowmaker is the best of the light managers, and the 2nd best overall.(first being GNOME, 2nd windowmaker, 3rd IceWM)

KDE desktop

Currently running KDE, but I have been wanting to try something different. I have my eye on both fluxbox and windowmaker. Right now I'm sticking to KDE because it has everything I need for now.

blackbox because, it's fast and just does what i need, no extra bloat stuff. I only have aterms open anyway (expect for firefox and movies).

KDE. It lookes very nice and has many interesting stuff.

I've switched several times between KDE and GNOME. Currently use KDE exclusively. I prefer the cleaner look of GNOME, but on all other points KDE wins.

I used to worry about memory usage, use fluxbox, program in a terminal window and stuff like that. That was before I realized that anything close to a modern pc will run the so-called bloatware just fine, and if you have such a computer I don't see a reason to deny yourself the conveniences of a full-blown desktop environment and great IDE's like Eclipse or KDevelop.