Filed under: Developer, Features, Linux, Open Source, Beta
Flipping the Linux switch: Enlightening experiences with window managers
Do you remember our youth? The good times we had, the games we played, and that great discussion we had about what makes a window manager different from a desktop environment? Then our relationship sort of got stuck on desktop environments.It's understandable, of course. Most new Linux users feel more comfortable with something a little heavier than a window manager like Fluxbox or WindowMaker. The interesting thing, of course, is that many new users are either consciously or unconsciously playing the field of not only distributions, but desktops.
Rest assured, KDE will not text you a hundred times a day to beg, plead or curse if you switch desktops. GNOME will not mail you a dead fish from the opposite side of the country, book rate. In this relationship, it is always okay to have a wandering eye, not only for what is out there, but for what's on the horizon.
We like Enlightenment as it stands now. It's one of our favorite window managers. It doesn't feel too foreign to the new user, but it is still extremely lightweight. If there was a spectrum with the heaviest desktop environments on the right, and the lightest window managers on the left, just right of the middle would be the venerable Xfce, and just to the left of the middle would be Enlightenment.
But as for what's on the horizon for Enlightenment? We have seen e17. Right now it's an alpha release, and we're waiting not too patiently for the coming out party. We are smitten.



After spending the better part of an hour on 