The Window manager is an essential components to any machine. It is a layer of software that interprets mouse clicks and keyboard strikes and tells the actual desktop environment where you clicked, how many times, and what it did. A Desktop Environment is merely the customizable layer of the Windows Manager. For instance, My computer uses Metacity as its main Windows Manager, though its desktop environment is Gnome Classic. Besides Metacity, (which seems to be the only one that runs ubuntu well on my machine), there are many window managers that can be used with many different desktop environments. It is truly the most customizable interface for home computers at the moment. Some of note are;
Compiz - replaces Mutter/Metacity on Gnome and other systems, supports 3D and is aimed at more advanced users. Supports Tabbed Windows where Metacity does not.
KWin - Default Window manager for Kubuntu and other KDE systems, has many bells and whistles.
Fluxbox - Not meant for those familiar with windows. This environment goes in a strange new way with desktop environments and omits all bars from the screen, instead relying on a very complex context menu accessed via right clicking on the desktop and other means. It can be very fast and efficient if you know how to use it.
Openbox - main Windows Manager for LXDE, you would find this in use on a Lubuntu system.
Unity got a lot of mixed reviews when it first came out, due to it's overly mac-like and casual look. Though it was in no way flawed, it strayed too far from the tradition desktop paradigm "folders, desktop, trash bin, etc." replacing this instead with a huge deformed taskbar that took up the entirety of the left side of the screen. Some people say this became prominent during the netbook boom a few years back, though I would attribute it to the dev team wanted to mimic apple and its design. It does seem a bit like windows 7 what with the dynamic icons that shiver, wiggle, and shake.
No comments:
Post a Comment