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).

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.

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.

If you’ve never used Window Maker on your Linux desktop, you’re missing out. I’ve dabbled in nearly every window manager/desktop environment out there, and while all have their pros and cons, I always go back to Window Maker.

JWM (Joe's Window Manager) is a very lightweight window manager for use with X windows under Linux or Unix. My compiled version weighs in at 138KBytes in size, not the dozens of megabytes like KDE or GNOME. If you are looking for a simple kiosk system interface or a lightweight desktop for a dedicated server, then JWM should fit the bill nicely.

If you’re in a dilemma, just use this post which quickly describes some of the most popular (though not all) desktop environments and window managers. The desktop environments and WMs listed here can easily be downloaded from your distribution’s respective package management system (type “apt-get fluxbox” in your terminal to get fluxbox with apt, for instance).

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.

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.

"Recently I switched from GNOME to Stumpwm (wiki), which means that I jumped out of a desktop environment to a simple window manager. So far, I'm very satisfied with such a change and never looked back. Stumpwm, as its website says, 'is a tiling, keyboard driven X11 Window Manager written entirely in Common Lisp'. This definition summarizes the reasons why Stumpwm is so suitable for me..." --