Re: [gentoo-amd64] How do I choose a second window manager?

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Paul
Hartman<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Mark Knecht<markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>   A discussion on another list made me realize I'm a little tired of
>> Gnome. It does what I need, mostly, but it feels sort of old and dry.
>> I haven't run KDE in years but I'm hesitant to build it and keep it up
>> to date. I really think I'd like something more minimalistic. I ran
>> fluxbox years ago and liked that it was small and fast but at the time
>> getting to apps was a hand-crafted menu editing task that I'd rather
>> not repeat today.
>>
>>   QUESTION: Is there something small, fast but also easy to use in
>> terms of the environment automatically creating menus when apps are
>> added or removed with emerge?
>>
>>   From a pure-fun standpoint something 3D might be fun, but I don't
>> need it and expect that my old ATI Radeon X300 card probably isn't up
>> to the task anyway.
>>
>>   How do others choose a window manager and what do you value in your
>> window manager that makes you stick with it?
>
> I use KDE4 and keep XFCE as a backup. I use KDM as login manager and
> it easily lets me choose which one I want. I use only XFCE on my
> laptop because compiling gnome or KDE is just too much work for it. I
> could easily use XFCE (or Gnome) as primary desktop environment and be
> happy, but I'm just used to KDE.
>
>

Hi Paul,
   I do a lot of audio work using apps and a kernel (rt-sources) from
the pro-audio overlay. Jack, Ardour, etc. Really low latency and NO
long window manager
delays are more important for me that they probably are for others. I
ran KDE years ago and it just didn't work very well, but in those days
even Gnome wasn't very good so I used fluxbox which was great. Well,
today Gnome is fine, and maybe KDE would be also. Historically it just
wasn't a good fit more me in the past.

   I guess the other thing that I'm interested in is getting beyond
this "flat/old Gnome is sort of like Windows" sensation that I am
feeling right now so to warrant the effort to actually use something I
suppose I am really looking for something with a really different feel
but it still really works in terms of getting jobs done. Something
that makes me feel good about even firing up the desktop.

Cheers,
Mark