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Lesson 6 Common window managers
Objective List the characteristics of various window managers

Common Window Managers in Redhat Linux

There are many window managers for X. Although Enlightenment has many advantages, it does not fit everyone's preferences.
For instance, GNOME and Enlightenment tend to take up a large amount of memory. If your situation requires low overhead or a fast X session, there are alternative window managers you can use. The following table lists some common window managers along with their advantages and disadvantages.

Window Manager Main Advantages Main Disadvantages
Enlightenment Full featured; easy to configure; only fully GNOME-compliant window manager Takes large amounts of system resources
twm Clean treatment of interface; highly configurable; low memory operation Not many advanced features; not GNOME-compliant
fvwm2 Very conservative use of system resources; uses less memory than twm, but manages to add a 3-D look Not readily configurable through simple point-and-click methods
sawmill Easily extended and configured Limited functionality, as it is mostly used in association with GNOME
KDE Provides an alternative, unifying framework similar to GNOME; very easy to configure. KDE's window manager is kwm Similar to GNOME in its heavy resource usage
AnotherLevel A highly customized setup of fvwm2; very easy to configure Not as fully featured as GNOME or KDE

Select Window Manager

You can use the information in the table to select a window manager, but the only way to find out which window manager is best for your situation is to try them out. The next lesson shows you how to use the GNOME Control Center to select a window manager and edit configuration files.

Common Window Managers - Quiz

Before moving on to the next lesson, click the Quiz link below to check your understanding of common window managers.
Common Window Managers - Quiz