Heheh, this subject seems to always be a smash hit on Unix-related forums. What window managers do you people use? I have been using Ion (http://modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/) for a few months now. This is a rather unconventional window manager, it does away with the usual concept of windows and makes everything full screen. You can split the screen into multiple areas where different windows live, and you can have many workspaces. The cool thing is that pretty much everything happens with the keyboard, I hardly touch the mouse anymore. Apart from having a real good geek-factor, this window manager seems to have actually increased my productivity. One drawback - running Gimp on this thing is quite an undertaking (because of all the separate windows).

Can't you use ion's floatws with gimp? It's probably made just for that [wink].

EDIT
Some of the wms i've used:

• Fvwm2 -- absolutely horrible to configure


• Fluxbox -- I can't figure out how to use that bar-thingy


• Kahakai -- it has some nice transparency effects but unfortunately it's dead.


• Pekwm -- It takes no memory! It's sooo tiny and okay-looking at the same time!


• Openbox -- Also light on memory usage but i find those xml conf-file a little too verbose


• Metacity & xfwm4 -- Nothing to say about these, they don't really have any features

[Edited by - jyrix on September 24, 2004 10:50:22 AM]

I like fluxbox and kahakai for lightweight window managers.

I use KDE is I want to show off neat effects and ease of use to someone I'm trying to convert.

When I VNC into my box I use xfce 4.

When I log in and run x at the actual machine, I run KDE.

I use metacity.

I use openbox, I used to use blackbox but bb lacked the ability to layer windows, I wrote a patch that added just that.. but I didn't have time to make it 100% working..

I use xfce4, so strictly speaking that makes my window manager xfwm4

Fluxbox is my backup wm/desktop though to be honest I couldn't tell you how it's any different to any of the other *boxes

Currently using Enlightenment... used fluxbox before, when I was little short on memory. Going to give Metisse a try when I decide to upgrade my ancient GF2 to something way faster (Metisse is OGL 3d desktop)...

I used to use bare window managers like you, but then I realised I wasn't very productive at all with them, so I switched over to dropline gnome 2.6 and never looked back.

Quote: Original post by bytecoder
I used to use bare window managers like you, but then I realised I wasn't very productive at all with them, so I switched over to dropline gnome 2.6 and never looked back.

So, you're using metacity, like me. :)