window managers made for speed

[^WarHawk]

What exactly is the difference between a desktop environment and a window manager? All I know for sure is that a desktop enviroment still needs a window manager to run.

If I'm looking for speed and stability I can say that desktop environments like KDE and GNOME are out of the question, right?

The WMs that I've been looking into so far are BlacBox, IceWM, and Enlightenment. How do these compare?

[kuber]

In my experience there is nothing better than Blackbox. Windowmaker and IceWM are prettier, but not as fast.
Blackbox is just so simple and elegant. I absolutely love it.

[PLBlaze]

Yep, :cool: BlackBox :cool: is very small and pretty :D

[Stween]

afterstep is wot i generally use ... i find its liteweight enough, but doesn't look too ugly :)

enlightenment is wot i use when im showing off :D coz it looks so damn classy. If ur lookin for speed, probly best to avoid enlightenment

[cga]

I use iceWM. Its fast, functional and very easy to configure. I have been experimenting with BlackBox as well, and its very nice too, though I rather prefer iceWM.

I used fvwm for quite a while before I got into iceWM, and its also light and fast, though it is a bit harder to configure. You can, however, tweak everything in it.

Heh heh, I use twm for the root account!

So, give 'em all a try!

[ColdPack]

Blackbox is truly the fastest, cleanest window manager.
I use others, too, but for performance and simplicity, blackbox is the best!

[^WarHawk]

Thx for the feedback, but I'm still wondering about two things.

What is the difference between a desktop environment and a window manager (what extras make a desktop environment what it is?)?

And...
Is it possible to add icons to my workspace using BlackBox or IceWM?

[cga]

Blackbox and iceWM will not directly support icons on the root window, however, you can use something like DFM along with your window manager and that will get you your "desktop icons", if you must have them.

Window managers are just that- they manage windows, draw the boarders, handle placement and so forth. Desktop environments, like Gnome and KDE are actually complex frameworks for applications. They require a window manager to work with them. The result is an environment somewhat like MacOS or Windows. The draw back is that they eat lots of resources and are, er, somewhat like MacOS and Windows.

Hope that helps.

[X_console]

I haven't used IceWM or Enlightenment for long periods of time so I can't comment on them. However, I've been using Blackbox for a very long time now and I can tell you I've had no problems with it. Configuring it is really easy, and it's fast and stable. Perfect for my laptop. If you must have a desktop manager with it, there's a module I believe which allows you to use GNOME. I think you can use KDE with it also.

[uriah.k]

icewm, window maker, another level, fvwm 2 and 95, I like them all, but icewm is my fave.
From the comments about blackbox I saw above I'm gonna have to start using it-and I'll probably like it a lot too.:-)
You can use icewm with kde apps and also with the kde desktop shortcuts on screen(ala windoze) I was once using fvwm with kde(but without kwm running) once. It was cool. and quick.
The program xfm is a pretty good file manager in my experience with it. It seems to work in every xwindows wm/enviornment. It can be easily started from an xterm(or rxvt or whatever)
xfm(enter)

[Molecule Man]

I found that once had 96mb RAM, there was no measurable difference in the speed of Blackbox and Sawfish. At 32mb, There was barely a difference. This was on a Celery 366.