Goals

Pick the lightest possible window manager and window management tools which is still usable to my personal standards.

I will make a choice for Oldschool Linux. I will contemplate providing more than one window manager, or possibly configuring some things to run without X or with X but no window manager.

Also, this research may influence the decision of a default Unity Linux window manager.

Features required

• Workspaces (aka Desktops)
• Alt-left-click window dragging.
• Alt-left-click on a window to raise it without interacting with it.
• Alt-right-click resizing (from any corner!)
• Hotkeys
  • single-step is ok, but chaining is nice for me for alt-space
  • If none is provided, I'm not sure what I'll use. Perhaps bbkeys.
  • Kicking the currently-selected application to an arbitrary workspace.
  • Kicking the currently-selected application to the back of the window stack. (alt-escape)
  • Opening the currently-selected window's menu. (alt-space)
    • If this isn't available, a chained hotkey would be needed for stuff like alt-space,m for maximize.
  • Taskbar
    • If none is provided, I'll probably use [1] lxpanel.
    • Listing current applications.
    • With a tray area that can handle KDE icons. This is simply my standard for testing.
    • date/time clock that can handle strftime:

%F %a %l:%M %P
2009-04-07 Sat 5:33pm

• Simple menu
  • If none is provided then many could be used.
  • I may make one for my own applications but not for system applications.
  • If on the desktop, it must also work on the edges of applications so that I can use the menu even with stuff maximized.
• Run dialogue
  • If none is provided then many could be used, but I'll be making one.

Features not required or desired

• Desktop icons
• Quick launch bar full of icons
• Transparency support
• Widgets
• Bloat

I discounted a number of window managers because I was unable to install them when following proper directions, the project has gone quiet for a couple of years or they fail in some fundamental way which is covered by some/all of the remaining contenders.

There are a number of keyboard-oriented window managers which I tried, but didn't include.

If there is a light/small window manager which you use and it's not in this list, let me know.

If there's a window manager in that list which you've never tried. Do so! They're all compilable with very little effort. Well, except Awesome. [to be re-tested]

Full reviews will be forthcoming.

Judging speed and memory use

What's the best way?

• Not in a virtual machine, that's for sure!
• Reboot
• Same system workload (same startup conditions)
• Judge memory, virtual memory, cpu usage?

• top / [2] htop
• [3] Ganglia
• [4] mem.py
• [5] Sloth
• ... others? (to research)

ps -ao comm,size,rss,vsize
ldd /path/to/executable | wc -l

• All libraries
• All required tools / accessories (e.g. a clock)
  • And their libraries!
  • Also note configuration or other nuisances for any such tools.

Resources

• [6] Giles's window manager reviews

Awesome

[7] Awesome - 3.2.1 (untested!)

I cannot install it:

• [8] Awesome window manager almost vindicated
• [9] Awesome window manager installation misadventure

EDE (Equinox Desktop Environment)

[10] EDE (Equinox Desktop Environment) 1.2

Not configurable enough. It's especially weak with hotkeys.

Argh, my install of EDE got b0rked by my Awesome window manager installation attempt. Boo. Running edewm --version gave me the familiar error and then the screen went black as I was writing notes.

Fluxbox

[11] Fluxbox v?

I prefer Openbox. Fluxbox has some annoyances with resizing from any corners. Tabbing is a great feature, but useless to the way I work.

Argh, the default Slackware install of Fluxbox got b0rked by my Awesome window manager installation attempt. Boo.

IceWM

[12] IceWM 1.2.37

Not bad, but not good enough. Other WMs are better. Window-altering hotkeys aren't configurable?

JWM (Joe's Window Manager)

[13] JWM (Joe's Window Manager) 2.0.1

This one keeps being recommended, but I don't know why. It's not bad, but it's just not good enough.

OpenBox

[14] OpenBox

3.5.0

Default with Lubuntu. Working wonderfully.

3.4.7.2

Almost perfect.

I have a fair history with it and know it well enough. Without further testing and comparison, this would be my first choice.

For just a basic developer system, Openbox alone is just fine. Otherwise I would recommend at least lxpanel.

PekWM

[15] PekWM 0.1.10

Very nice. A definite contender. Cannot hotkey to move a window to another desktop?

xfwm4 (from xfce)

[16] xfwm4 (from xfce) 0.1.10

I've used it. I like it just fine. I just find it a bit too shiny for my tastes and prefer Openbox.

On PCLinuxOS, there have been reproducible issues with Xfce freezing my system and requiring that I exit X. It seems to have worked fine in Slackware.

Has a complete collection of stuff, and still tries to be light. Not bad, but just not right.

Scrotwm

[17] Scrotwm

Would be nice when (if?) they implement alt-tab support. Otherwise, why bother?

Stumpwm

[18] Stumpwm

fvwm

[19] fvwm