## Pick your Poison
## Daniel Jung <>
Unlike Microsoft's Windows OS, FreeBSD offers many unique window managers.
Starting with a fancy looking Enlightenment to just plain, simple TWM.
Choosing which X window manager is totally up to you depending on your
machine, of course.
Making choice for X window manager was difficult one for me since there
are so many available. I went with WindowMaker. While it offers variety
of choices of theme and easy to work environment, it also runs with little
hardware support. Another manager, I am using is called AfterStep. This
is an another manger that enables you with wide selections of your
environment and works well with limited hardware. Since everyone has his
or her own taste in what he or she wants in a window manager and
requirements, take a look below for info on varieties of X11 window
managers.
| Name |
RAM Recommended |
Details |
|
Runs with 16mb; 24mb recommended |
Multiple Work Spaces; Easy to configure |
|
Runs with 16mb; 24mb recommended |
Pager; Multiple Work Spaces; Easy Configuration and modularization |
|
Need at least 32mb or more for smooth operation |
Very graphical; Fancy Desktop; Pager; Multiple Work Spaces; Memory hog |
|
32mb or more is recommended |
Very stylish and graphical; Desktop; Pager; Multiple Work Spaces |
|
Runs with 8mb; 16mb is recommended |
Stylish, yet easy on your RAM; Pager; Multiple Work Spaces |
| TWM |
Should work with 8mb |
Very simple; default if no other manager is installed |
There are several other managers such as CDE, WM2, MWM and so on. But, it
seems like Enlightenment, KDE, WindowMaker and AfterStep is leading the
way in popularity. I suggest you try them all if you can until you find
the one that fits your needs and hardware requirements. I hope this
somehow helped you decide on which window manager is for you.
- Daniel
Return to Issue #2
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