Window Maker is an X11 window manager originally designed to provide integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment. In every way possible, it reproduces the elegant look and feel of the NEXTSTEP user interface.

Window Maker is a window manager that, while having elements of a desktop environment, does keep very strongly to the principles of a basic, light weight window manager. It has an extremely simple, mouse driven interface and in some ways operates in the old NextStep blueprint of functionality.

Continuing with our introduction to old-school Linux window managers, I would like to bring to you Window Maker. The Window Maker window manager was designed to look and feel like the old NeXT GUI.

Window Maker is a fast, lightweight window manager based as closely as possible on the look and feel of the NeXTStep interface. (You may be familiar with NeXTStep an ancestor of Mac OSX, although the look and feel has changed a fair bit between the two.)

I have used Window Maker for some time and have always made my own custom menus. However, the current maintainer of the Window Maker window manager gave us a small tutorial on how to add the Debian menu to a custom menu. The menu package must be installed prior to beginning this tutorial, check your software repositories. Thanks to John H. Robinson, IV (aka jaqque).

As promised, today we’ll take a look at the various interesting window managers for the X Window System which aren’t (necessarily) a part of a certain desktop environment (that means Enlightenment DR 17 doesn’t count here people, sorry, please take a look at the desktop environment guide).

Do you remember our youth? The good times we had, the games we played, and that great discussion we had about what makes a window manager different from a desktop environment? Then our relationship sort of got stuck on desktop environments.

There are literally dozens of window managers that you can use with your favorite desktop environment to get a beautiful and appealing desktop.

Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a stacking window manager for the X Window System which can be used alone or in conjunction with a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE.