What's so great about Fluxbox? IceWM is lighter

[blackbelt_jones]

http://urukrama.wordpress.com/catego...ndow-managers/

better link.


I also found a link to something even more interesting called The Window Manager Report.

Mama mia! It turns out that there are actually more WMs that I haven't heard of than WMs I've heard of!

I maintain that no one could possibly know about all of these, in a current, comprehensive way. It would foolish to believe that fluxbox, or whatever I happen to be using, is and always will be the best possible WM, but it's not foolish to ethusiasitically support your chosen WM, and to help other people learn about it.

[IsaacKuo]

I am newcomer to this forum but not Linux. I have read this entire thread and would like you to compare these WMs on parameters other than RAM.

Sure, but I don't think there's really a big practical difference in terms of functionality, overall.

There is nice comparison on urukrama's blog

(http://urukrama.wordpress.com/catego...ndow-managers/ )
I find it interesting that two of my favorite features aren't even listed--workspace pager and taskbar shortcut icons. Many users use these all the time, whether in IceWM or KDE or GNOME.

I also don't see systray icon support listed (things like volume control and network-manager applet).

Features not available on IceWM
Support for dockapps
Native (fake) transparency
Dynamic menus
Additional custom menus

I wonder what "additional custom menus" means.

I'm not sure what is meant by "dynamic menus". I can only think that it must mean menus which change on the fly even while the menu is open. IceWM menu items can change without reloading IceWM, which is what I'd normally think of as "dynamic menus", but I don't think the menu will change while it's actually open.

Grouping/Tabbing of windows

Yes, tabbed windows would seem to be the main functional feature present in fluxbox that IceWM doesn't have. I don't really find tabbed windows terribly useful, though.

Chainable keygrabber

This sounds like an interesting feature, although I don't really know what it is.

Features not available in Fluxbox
Alt-tab dialog
Minimize window to tray
Tiling
Per-app settings only grouping
Confirm logout

These features are pretty non-exciting, unless you're a big keyboard fan (in which case tiling may be a must).

The workspace pager and taskbar shortcut icons are more important because they are widely used popular productivity enhancing features.

[IsaacKuo]

I also found a link to something even more interesting called The Window Manager Report.

Mama mia! It turns out that there are actually more WMs that I haven't heard of than WMs I've heard of!

I maintain that no one could possibly know about all of these, in a current, comprehensive way.

Sure, but the majority of those WMs are either dead or mostly dead. For me, one easy requirement that culls out many WMs is that it must be in the Debian repositories. If it's not just an "apt-get" away, then I don't bother with it.

[kagashe]

Sorry for the dead link. It was my first post on this forum and went through Moderator. I could not check it after it appeared on the forum.

@blackbelt_jones
Thanks for tracing the correct link and for discovering the the Window Manager Report.

Coming back to comparison of WMs on the basis of memory usage and assuming the data on this page to be correct.

IceWM looks lighter than Fluxbox on all parameters except no of libraries.

The table also explains the growing popularity of JWM on distributions like DSL and Puppy Linux.

@IsaacKuo
What is your comment on JWM. It is available on Debian. The latest vesrion 2.0.1-1.1 is in Lenny

kagashe

[IsaacKuo]

I found that jwm used a bit more memory than IceWM (with the IceCrack2 theme--memory usage depends on theme). More importantly, taskbar applets like nm-applet didn't work with jwm.

Other than that, my main annoyance with jwm was the uncommented xml configuration file format. Even something as simple as setting autohide required searching around on the Internet to figure out.

[JohnT]

I found that jwm used a bit more memory than IceWM (with the IceCrack2 theme--memory usage depends on theme). More importantly, taskbar applets like nm-applet didn't work with jwm.

Other than that, my main annoyance with jwm was the uncommented xml configuration file format. Even something as simple as setting autohide required searching around on the Internet to figure out.

OK....I think I have it now. Gosh I feel like sucha dope!!! IceWM (with the IceCrack2 theme!!! Why didn't I notice that before.

[JohnT]

I'm not sure what is meant by "dynamic menus". I can only think that it must mean menus which change on the fly even while the menu is open. IceWM menu items can change without reloading IceWM, which is what I'd normally think of as "dynamic menus", but I don't think the menu will change while it's actually open.

http://darkshed.net/article/dynamic-menus-in-fluxbox

[blackbelt_jones]

http://darkshed.net/article/dynamic-menus-in-fluxbox

Holy crap!

[IsaacKuo]

Delayed reaction? Anyway, the same thing will work with IceWM (and other WM's, I would expect).

The ability to change the menu on the fly is something I know IceWM is capable of since it's a built in feature of the "menu" package. For example, whenever you use apt-get to add or remove something, it automagically updates the IceWM menu appropriately.

It would be a little more interesting for the menu to dynamically change while it's actually open...but I don't really see the point of such a feature.

[blackbelt_jones]

I already told what I like about IceWM a couple times, so I won't repeat myself again.

This is funny, because my assumption tends toward the opposite. I always suspect that there may be something better out there.

In particular, I like using IceWM, but I knew that Damn Small Linux and other lightweight distributions used fluxbox and jwm. So I naturally assumed they were probably lighter than IceWM. If I recall correctly, DSL used to default to IceWM, but now it doesn't even include IceWM.

But now that I've put it to the test, both fluxbox and jwm failed to better IceWM in any way.

Except one way--fluxbox has tabbed windows, while IceWM does not.

Still, the bottom line is that fluxbox is very popular, and I'm left wondering if I haven't missed something. So I asked. And now that I've asked...I think that I did not miss something. My current theory is simply that fluxbox fans are simply insufficiently informed about IceWM.

Sure, but the point seems to be that nothing you love about fluxbox is exclusive to fluxbox, and in fact they seem to be the rule for lightweight window managers.

When something is the rule, rather than the exception, it's easier to list the exceptions. I did that when I pointed out that jwm unfortunately uses non-helpful barely commented xml files instead of well commented flat text files.

It's as if you were waxing poetic about the fact that your wife has five fingers on each hand, or two legs.
.

And so I should leave my wife because some other woman also has two legs?

Everything that can be loved about a human being is an expression of something universal, which is called humanity. There's really nothing that you can love about a person that is not shared with others, perhaps everybody. Everyone is special, but no one is so special that they have invented new virtues just for themselves. Every human being is an individual expression of God's universal truth.

Likewise, everything that I love about fluxbox is an expression of something much larger, which is called Unix. I love the way fluxbox can be programmed with shell commands, but that's not unique, though I like the way fluxbox does it best of anything thing I've tried. I know for a fact that XFCE has a lot of my favorite fluxbox features, and you'll never find me debating anyone who talks about how much they love XFCE. If I dig deeper, I will almost certainly find more cool features for XFCE. If I can find a way to make XFCE settings as portable as my fluxbox settings, I could switch tomorrow. And my experience with GNU/Linux tells me that there probably is a way, because (within reason) there's always a way to do anything. Right now I'm too wrapped up ion Fluxbox, but never say never.

It doesn't surprise me that other WMs are also an expression of Unix, but in the case of IceWm, I haven't been able to access it, and you haven't chosen to help me. A half hour spent with Google also got me nowhere. If you want other people to discover IceWm, try showing them how to use it, as I have tried to do with Fluxbox. If you find that difficult, maybe that's where IceWm has a problem for some people. Or maybe someone should think about how to produce better documentation. Telling other people what you like about it isn't going to change the mind of anyone who is happy with what they're using. But a year from now, I could be an everyday IceWM user. In fact, everytime I say something really sucks (e.g. SUSE, Ubuntu) I wind up as a faithful user in a matter of months.

To put it another way, I intend to continue singing the praises of fluxbox, but when I start talking about how fluxbox is the only great wm and everybody should use it, tell me to shut up. I have an opinion about my painful encounters with Ice WM, but I don't have an opinion about IceWM, because I know that I don't get it. It may be a great window manager, but there's plenty of room for more than one great window manager in the world of Linux. Just not on my desktop.

[blackbelt_jones]

To put it still another way, I agree that I don't know much about IceWM, and if I knew more, I would probably like ti more. But so far, I have found it difficult to learn. The fluxbox configuration files are completely self-explanatory (to me). When I look at the IceWM text files, it's not so clear (so far). Am I responsible for this lack of communication, or is Ice WM? It doesn't matter. Whether it's the user's fault or the window manager's fault, the window manager is the one that has to go.

[sawsedge]

Interesting thread.

I'm grateful for all the choices available to Linux and I have to say IceWM is my favorite window manager. I've tried several including Fluxbox. For my tastes, IceWM is the most usable. I don't care for the task-switching in fluxbox. The IceWM taskbar is much easier.

Even though my hardware is now 6 years old, none of the WMs or desktops I've tried are sluggish by any means.

I find the IceWM config files pretty easy, though I really had no trouble figuring out fluxbox configs.

I've made several themes for IceWM too.

[Syngin]

heh, as soon as I saw this title I thought to my self "uh oh, this is going to get blackbelt foaming at the mouth"

lol yeah me too. It can be sort of like watching a car wreck at times ...

[Megatron X]

// isaackuo, how does windowmaker run on your system???

[blackbelt_jones]

lol yeah me too. It can be sort of like watching a car wreck at times ...

Yeah, but a high quality car wreck. A European car wreck!