Why so many window managers?
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| phsolide Mar 16, 2009 8:54 AM EDT |
Why has the X11 community produced so many window managers? This isn't a particularly frivolous question for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to: 1. "Windows" doesn't really have window managers. Neither does the Macintosh system. 2. Writing window managers was declared a dead art during the CDE Interregnum. 3. Recent window managers, like the one in this article, do things widely considered "primitive", like tiling windows. And they very seldom fall by the wayside: I still use "twm" when given a choice, for its speed, and low on-screen pixel consumption. What the heck is going on with window managers? |
| jsusanka Mar 16, 2009 9:09 AM EDT |
nothing is going on with window managers. If people want to write windows mangers let them. That is the beauty of open source. People write what they consider art and their own project. I say the more the better. Let's not get brain dead like corporations and start telling people what they need to be working on no matter if it is what they like or not. Having people work on what they love and enjoy creates the greatest projects. Who cares about windows and mac. They are restrictive, proprietary, and both take bsd and make it an insecure piece of junk but it is pretty (well except windows can't stand looking at windows and can't afford a mac so going on what I hear and see on the web with mac). Having the os boot into a gui is not a good idea. I think the desktop has to be separate from the underlying os. That is just good modular design and it should stay that way. |
| bigg Mar 16, 2009 9:54 AM EDT |
> Who cares about windows and mac. That's what I thought too. If anything, it's a good thing to have choice of window managers because Windows and Mac don't offer choice. |
| d0nk3y Mar 16, 2009 5:02 PM EDT |
Totally. To paraphrase some famous guy "I may not agree with your choice, but I will voraciously defend your ability to have choices." |
| gus3 Mar 16, 2009 5:07 PM EDT |
"... but I will voraciously defend your ability to choose wrong." As long as I can trust that your wrong choice won't endanger my own ability to choose. If it does, prepare for a fight. |
| caitlyn Mar 16, 2009 5:53 PM EDT |
I recently did an article on another tiling window manager, PekWM, which has made life much easier on my netbook: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/03/improved-linux-screen-s... I use it combined with fbpanel, pcmanfm, and vl-hot to give me a very functional desktop that makes it easier to deal with the multitude of windows I tend to have open on a small screen. On machines with a larger screen I'm a fan of Xfce. The point, of course, is that I made a less than popular choice because it suited my personal needs. Each window manager is different and has different strengths and weaknesses. To me the variety of choices is one of the great strengths of Linux. |
| phsolide Mar 17, 2009 1:05 AM EDT |
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that everyone should get behind a single window manager, and indeed, as a twm user, I'd probably feel deeply dissatisfied with anyone else's choice. I also think that a window manager as a separate process adds to the stability of X11 vs Windows "every window for itself". That particular decision about Windows constitutes a big mistake for Windows design. What I don't understand is *why*, relative to Apple and MSFT's single window manager, love-it-or-buy-it-anyway choices, has X11 sprouted so very many window managers? I mean, all the HCI people in the world helped design the Mac interface, and the Windows interface. It just seems to me that this is an unexamined area of open source. As a devout follower of Henry Petrofsky, I take the view that "Form follows failure". What continuing irritant has caused people to develop these pearls of window managers? |
| tracyanne Mar 17, 2009 1:40 AM EDT |
Quoting:Why so many window managers? Because we can. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 17, 2009 3:56 AM EDT |
Not only that, but window managers are relatively simple to write, the interfaces are well documented and they have a huge impact on how you can use your computer. |
| tuxtom Mar 17, 2009 4:14 AM EDT |
Long Live AfterStep!!! |
| NoDough Mar 17, 2009 10:58 AM EDT |
>> ...MSFT's single window manager, love-it-or-buy-it-anyway choices... Got me to thinking, I know I've seen replacement window managers for MS Windows. I went looking and found this... http://show-desktop-alternative.qarchive.org/ Look at the "Cube Desktop" about 3 items down. I wonder where the code for that came from. Hmmm. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 17, 2009 11:01 AM EDT |
In contrary to popular belief among non-programmers, it's not all that hard to create a 3D cube :-) Sure, he nicked the idea from Compiz but I doubt he nicked any code. As if Compiz would run on Windows... |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!