Window managers

[Paul_Melson@keykertusa.com]

>IceWM has its own task bar/pager with a clock, so I'm all set there.
>It also seems to be fairly configurable (which you can optionally
>do with a 3rd party utility called "icepref"), and supports themes
>(which is a "good thing" I think, since I didn't like the default
>window dressing...), and it supports virtual desktops.  It doesn't
>specifically support multiple displays, but I solved that by just
>spawning an extra one on :0.1 for the other screen.  So far so
>good... =)
>
>Sawfish is the other one I'm looking at.  I actually have it running
>on my second display instead of another copy of IceWM, so I can
>play around with 2 WM's at the same time! =)  Sawfish is configurable
>with LISP, which means it should be capable of just about anything,
>and it doesn't include any of the things a window manager shouldn't
>do (loading wallpaper, etc.).  The GNOME panel works with it, but
>not entirely perfect.
>
>I'm excited to see what Sawfish can become, but I'm not excited
>about learning LISP and spending huge amounts of time to do it, so
>I suspect Sawfish will take a back seat to IceWM for a while at
>least.
>
>Anyone else have any thoughts on these two?

Here are my $0.02, prefaced by the admission that I am a rabid WM/AS fan. 
I ran IceWM for a little while, several versions ago.  It had, IMHO, the 
same "bloatware" problems that Enlightenment has.  It's feature-rich, but 
at a high cost to the CPU. 

Sawfish is nice (and fast!), but I agree - learning its scripting language 
is a lot of work to be able to leverage its full potential.  And until you 
do, you're basically using OLVWM.  No thanks.

The one wm that I've been playing with on my FreeBSD box, and loving, is 
Blackbox.  I know it's another NeXTStep clone, but it's totally 
object-oriented and very fast.  Not as many cool features as WM, but if I 
needed graphics on a server (especially for remote display to an X 
server/terminal), I wouldn't hesitate to use Blackbox.  Anybody else used 
it?  Like it?

PaulM

PS - Ooh!  Ooh!  [Horseshack style]  I heard through the (relatively 
reliable) grapevine that IBM is going to release a Linux distribution some 
time next year that will have CDE.  I don't know if I'll run it, but 
that's gonna spell doom for low-end IBM, HP and Sun workstation models. 
Simply export your platform-specific application displays from a big 
server, and replace your $10K workstation with a $2K one.