Desktop Environments

From TWUUG

Contents 1 Explanation 2 List 3 Active Light-weight Linux/BSD Desktop Environments 4 Active Linux/BSD Heavy-weight Desktop Environments 5 Stale Linux/BSD Desktop Environments 6 Proprietary UNIX Desktop Environments 7 Inactive

Explanation

A Desktop Manager or Desktop Environment is used to allow a user the ability to drag-and-drop or navigate in a Graphical User Interface. The Desktop Manager is the graphical representation of your action in comparison to using command line and having to type everything. With Mac and Windows users are used to having only one option for graphical interaction with the system. Running Linux and UNIX allows you to have a choice in exactly how you interact with the system. You can make it look and work like a Mac or Windows or you can make it interact in a completely different way, depending on your preferences and needs. The list below lists many Desktop Managers that you can use on your UNIX or Linux system.

List

• hpwm
  
• IceWM
  
• Integrity
  
• Interface WM
  
• Ion
  
• JD4X
  
• JWM
  
• Kahakai
  
• Karmen
  
• KDE
  
• larswm
  
• lwm
  
• m_swm
  
• Maewm
  
• Matchbox
  
• Mavosxwm
  
• Metacity
  
• Metisse
  
• MIWM
  
• mlvwm
  
• Mosquito
  
• mvwm
  
• MWM
  
• mwm 2.0
  
• NCDwm
  
• NovaWM
  
• OLWM/OLVWM
  
• Openbox
  
• Oroborus
  
• OSWM
  
• PAWM
  
• Pekwm
  
• Perlwm
  
• Phluid
  
• piewm
  
• PLWM
  
• pmwm
  
• pswm
  
• Puppet
  
• PWM
  
• PyWM
  
• QLWM
  
• QuarkWM
  
• qvwm
  
• Ratpoison
  
• ROX
  
• rtl
  
• Sawfish
  
• SCWM
  
• SithWM
  
• Stumpwm
  
• Swm
  
• tekwm
  
• The GREAT Desktop
  
• Treewm
  
• TrsWM
  
• tvtwm
  
• TWM/VTWM
  
• UDE
  
• uwm
  
• vuewm
  
• w9wm
  
• Waimea
  
• Whim
  
• WindowLab
  
• WindowMaker
  
• wm
  
• wm2/wmx
  
• wmG
  
• wmii
  
• WWM
  
• XD640
  
• XDSwm
  
• XIGE
  
• XPde
  
• XWEM
  
• xwm
  
• YAWM
  
• ZWM
  

Active Light-weight Linux/BSD Desktop Environments

• aewm - A Lightweight Desktop Manager based on X11.
• aewm++
  - A clone of aewm that utilizes C++ programming to simplify hacking and modifications.
• AfterStep - A lightweight Desktop Manager with low resource usage and high configurability.
  
• amiwm - An X window manager that tries to make your display look and feel like an Amiga® Workbench® screen.
  
• awm - awm is a custom window manager. It's small, functional, and fast. It is based on dwm and is just ~1800 lines of code.
  
• B4step - B4Step is a Window Manager running under X11R6 (Solaris and Linux), featuring a new innovating way to manage window banners.
  
• Blackbox - Blackbox is that fast, light window manager you have been looking for without all those annoying library dependancies.
  
• CDE - A lightweight commercial Desktop Environment.
  
• Clementine - Clementine is only somewhat functional at the moment. Unless you plan to hack on the source, it is not recommended that you do much with it.
  
• CTWM - a lightweight Desktop Manager.
  
• ede - The Equinox Desktop Environment, Equinox is small and very portable desktop environment designed to be very lightweight in memory and resource usage.
  
• EPIwm - EPIwm is a window manager which is intended to be small, fast, configurable while maintening a large feature set.
  
• Evilwm - A minimalist window manager for the X Window System. 'Minimalist' here doesn't mean it's too bare to be usable - it just means it omits a lot of the stuff that make other window managers unusable.
  
• Fluxbox - Fluxbox is yet another windowmanager for X.
  
• flwm - Flwm is an attempt to combine the best ideas seen in several window managers.
  
• FVWM-Crystal - FVWM-Crystal aims to create an easy to use, eye-candy but also powerful desktop environment for Linux or other Unix-like operating systems.
  
• Golem - Golem is a fast, lightweight window manager for X11 which is very customizable.
  
• GWM - The GWM (Generic Window Manager) is an extensible Window Manager for the X Window System Version 11.
  
• Hackedbox - Hackedbox is a stripped down version of Blackbox.
  
• HaZe - a real B&W window manager
  
• Heliwm - Heliwm is designed and developed to be one of the smallest and lightest window managers in the world of X. I believe that saving memory and CPU time contributes to less electricity consumption, thus saving natural resources.
  

Active Linux/BSD Heavy-weight Desktop Environments

• Enlightenment - Enlightenment is known as the never ending beta, the last stable release was Enlightenment16 in 1999, which was a light-weight desktop environment, since then they have been working on a heavyweight highly graphical environment. Visit the wiki Enlightenment page for more information.
• Gnome - GNOME offers an easy to understand desktop for your GNU/Linux or UNIX computer.
  

Stale Linux/BSD Desktop Environments

• 9wm - A lightweight Desktop Manager based on the X window system. (Not updated since 1996)
  
• foXdesktop - The Fox Desktop Environment will evolve to a fast and powerful desktop environment for *nixes. It uses the FOX C++ GUI Toolkit, which is designed to be fast and resource inexpensive.
  
• FVWM - FVWM is an extremely powerful ICCCM-compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager for the X Window system.
  
• FVWM95 - Fvwm95 is a hack based on fvwm2. It tries to emulate the good features of a well known product without bloating the regular fvwm code.
  

Proprietary UNIX Desktop Environments

• 4Dwm - Is normally found on IRIX workstations.
  
• 5dwm
  

Inactive

• 3Dwm
  
• Alloywm - I could not find the project site for this project, so I am assuming it is inactive.
  
• BadWM - A minimalistic window manager for the X Window System
  
• DXWM - Digital's dxwm is part of the DECwindows offering.
  
• EfsaneII - Efsame II was a lightweight desktop environment that want inactive in late 2004.