About X and WindowManagers

[idyllwild]

Hi all, "I am a Linuxnewbie..."

I'll be reinstalling Linux on my old Mac again, as I hear the MkLinux pre-R1 distribution is pretty stable and complete now.

My question is: Can you explain the relationship between a "Window Manager" and packages such as GNOME or KDE? I know that I need an X server (eg. XFree86) and that the Window Manager is an X application to handle the drawing of windows. What then, is GNOME or KDE for, if they come with their own window managers (eg. kwm in KDE)?
I've seen ppl mention how they run a Window Manager in conjunction with GNOME or with KDE. What's the reason for this? Are the other WMs (Enlightenment/Blackbox/IceWM/WindowMaker) better than the ones shipped in the KDE/GNOME packages?
Do I need different programs under KDE or GNOME?
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/confused.gif
As I remember, the previous release of MkLinux (DR3) was loaded with KDE...

[Llhorian]

Originally posted by idyllwild:
My question is: Can you explain the relationship between a "Window Manager" and packages such as GNOME or KDE? I know that I need an X server (eg. XFree86) and that the Window Manager is an X application to handle the drawing of windows. What then, is GNOME or KDE for, if they come with their own window managers (eg. kwm in KDE)?
I've seen ppl mention how they run a Window Manager in conjunction with GNOME or with KDE. What's the reason for this? Are the other WMs (Enlightenment/Blackbox/IceWM/WindowMaker) better than the ones shipped in the KDE/GNOME packages?
Do I need different programs under KDE or GNOME?


Okay let me see if I know all the answers http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif
First you have X for the graphical environment, then you have a window manager to handle things like borders,buttons,menus and the likes. X with only a windowmanager can work quite nicely, look at Enlightenment, or Windowmaker or Blackbox, they are all windowmanagers you can use just with X, you don't need Gnome or KDE with them, but you can use it with them.
KDE and Gnome are desktop environments, they need a windowmanager to run, KDE has kwm but can also be run with Blackbox.
Gnome does not have its own windowmanager and is mostly used with Enlightenment or Sawfish.

The difference is that as I said, a window manager handles all the menus,buttons and that sort of stuff. But a desktop environment is bigger. It is an environment for applications to run in, it controls the workings of the applications (I think). For instance there are a whole lot of applications for KDE that you can only use when you have KDE (or at least the kde libraries and stuff) installed.

So lemme see if we can get this right. First you have X as a base for the graphics. Then you have a window manager as a base for the buttons,menus,borders. After that you can choose to also run a desktop environment as a base for certain applications, but it is not necessary.

Hope I got all this right http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif



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--Llhorian
'Linux, it's a little bit different.'

[sleepingbear]

Thanks! that answers some of the dark, nasty questions that my cranial CPU hasn't had the nerve to tackle yet. I'm trying to hack through this linux stuff with X on top (plus Blackbox).