dwm 4.8 has been released. “dwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled and floating layouts. Either layout can be applied dynamically, optimizing the environment for the application in use and the task performed.”
dwm 4.8 has been released. “dwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled and floating layouts. Either layout can be applied dynamically, optimizing the environment for the application in use and the task performed.”
This is DWM?
http://www.suckless.org/shots/dwm-20070930.png
Looks good if it were released in the early 90’s.
No offense.
Edited 2008-03-14 00:06 UTC
Its not about looking pretty, its about being simple & small with transparent code, look around the website:
“Code complexity is the mother of bloated, hard to use, and totally inconsistent software. With complex code, problems are solved in suboptimal ways, valuable resources are endlessly tied up, performance slows to a halt, and vulnerabilities become a commonplace. The only solution is to scrap the entire project and rewrite it from scratch.”
“But ingenious ideas are simple. Ingenious software is simple. Simplicity is the heart of the Unix philosophy. The more code lines you have removed, the more progress you have made. As the number of lines of code in your software shrinks, the more skilled you have become and the less your software sucks.”
As someone who used to use ion pretty frequently, this is right up my alley. These guys seem to view software in the same way I do.
Tiling WMs are more about getting work done than impressing passerbys with things like alpha-blending or animated menus. First of all, those features consume finite system resources to produce useless eye candy. Those resources have a real cost in hardware upgrades and an opportunity cost in loading time and time wasted rearranging virtual workspaces. Secondly, feature bloat leads to more complex codebases, which in turn leads to more bugs. Given a fixed number of developers working on a piece of software, the larger the feature-base, the less time spent on any given feature, such as those that are the actual purpose of the application in the first place.
Funny that you comment “impressing passerbys” because I used wmii (dwm’s “big brother”, by the same author with a little more configurability- if you want to try a tiling WM I highly recommend it) and my co-workers watch me use wmii and are amazed at how fast and efficient it is compared to their gnome/kde systems.
If you find that you use a lot of terminals at a time like I do, I HIGHLY recommend checking out a tiled WM- you spend zero to little time managing windows and more time getting things done.
The fact that DWM doesn’t look like much is important. It’s a window manager, it doesn’t do anything so you shouldn’t even have to notice it is there.
DWM does a really good job of hiding away and never getting in your way.
Why do some people assume everyone is after eyecandy? I’ve been using linux for 9 years and have used more wm’s then I can remember. I see no need for compiz and all kinds of fancy effects, they just get in my way. Not saying their is nothing wrong with any of that stuff but it’s not for everybody. I use fluxbox myself =)
The benefits of a mouse-free WM are one of the few usability hints that ever worked for me. Of course, it’s a big adjustment, and has its limitations (the web, for example, is not too keyboard friendly, although things like google’s shortcuts and Opera’s spatial navigation mean you can get through all but the nastiest of sites without having to tab through links); after you get it under your fingers, it is much easier to use your computer (especially with laptops, where you would have to go to the evil touchpad). Their speed and simplicity are just icing on the cake.
compiz sure is shiny, tho.
http://vimperator.mozdev.org/
I’ve tried most of these – preferring fluxbox on the whole. But I keep coming back to gnome. Gnome rather than KDE partly because of the slightly simpler aesthetics, and partly because you don’t have this default mode of click, click again like in KDE. Yes, you can customize probably, but Gnome does most things my way out of the box.
The problem is the file manager. Its not a very disciplined way of working, but if you’re used to having everything on the desktop, flipping to another with the file manager on it doesn’t quite feel right. Nautilus is terribly slow when folders get large, but it makes up for it by being just part of the desktop.
I do use fluxbox sometimes, like it in the main, and have tried both dwm, ion and wmii, but in the end keep coming back to gnome day to day. WindowMaker is interesting but the icons and way of using desktops are irritating. On lower powered machines the minimalist ones are a lot faster, that’s certainly true.
The real place for them is where the user will never use the desktop as a work environment. If you ever install a one app machine with auto login, there is almost no reason to provide gnome or kde. Fluxbox or ion or wmii or dwm may do as well or better and a lot faster. At least until they have to fire up a file manager! Then they will be totally baffled, and you’re in for a site visit.
Have you tried replacing the wm inside Gnome ?
There is a Gnome-Openbox hybrid which is vastly quicker than standard Gnome.
I can’t remember how long it has been since I used a “file manager” in Linux… a terminal w/ bash completion is infinitely faster if you’re a decent typist.
Check out thunar or rox-filer if you want a fast file manager, though. If you really want to view your files as icons they’re a lot faster than nautilus/konqueror (especially if you aren’t running KDE/GNOME already).
I occasionally use xfe ( http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/ ) when I get nostalgic for fileman.exe. But mostly I use zsh.
I’ve never tried this one… Must.. install..
I like using DWM with small screen (12″, 1024px*768px) like on my Thinkpad X31. I’m not always switching hands between keyboard and mouse moving windows.
I give you, i wouldn’t recommend dwm to a newbie.
If you want effects, Awesome is a rewrite of dwm using compositing
http://awesome.naquadah.org/
(English isn’t my main language, sorry!)
stop apologizing! Your English is NOT that bad. I hate it when people always apologize for not speaking language perfectly. You are doing better than me, I barely know English, much less a foreign language