Desktops versus Window Managers

I remember using Red Hat 5.0 long before they called it “Enterprise Linux.” The default interface was based on FVWM, with a bunch of scripting which made it more convenient to use, called “Another Level.” It was good enough. Then the next big thing was AfterStep. I loved that one, but the defaults were insane unless the distro packager did it right. In both cases, I very much liked the Wharf, that sidebar which contained all the normal accessories and controls.

Then I discovered IceWM and I still love it. This, while the KDE and GNOME projects were competing in their infancy as the preferred Desktop Environment (DE). Today I cannot stand KDE 4, and I’m pretty tired of GNOME. Still, I’ve allowed myself to become dependent on all the automation of the desktop environments. Oddly enough, I still prefer GKrellM over the built-in system monitors. But I like the one-click convenience on everything else, which comes from integrating so many functions, an integration lacking and mostly unavailable with a regular window manager. I’m caught between the two.

I realize XFCE 4 is a fair compromise, and have enjoyed using it some. But for some reasons hard to define, I can’t quite get comfortable with it as I did with the previous Xfce 3.x series. LXDE seems entirely useless to me after trying it, like something designed by a committee that never actually talks. And I long ago gave up in disappointment with the pace and direction of development taken by Enlightenment. These aren’t hate statements, just recognition they aren’t for me; they did not go where I wanted to go. My sense of aesthetics is entirely my own and I am frankly hostile to all this slick propaganda from the fanboys about their favorite. Their endorsements are meaningless, rather like cult religions which twist common terms to some radical meaning, trying to remove all arguments by defining them out of existence. You want “uncluttered”? Try TWM. I hate minimalism, but you are welcome to it.

This is all about freedom. Freedom is never a pure objective, but a relative and subjective sense of working without unnecessary restraints. The nature of computers and the interface comes with certain built-in constraints. Convenience takes a back seat, but is definitely along for the ride. As the standard desktop environments pull farther away from my curmudgeonly dreams of simplicity my own way, I get this feeling I need to study once again how to get what I want from the old window managers. Having already rejected KDE forever, and feeling a growing sickness in my stomach at the direction GNOME seems to be taking, along with all the other DEs, I’m going to reawaken my old skills and invest the time customizing one of the window managers.

When I consider what the DE concept brings to the user, I’m not sure it matters when none of them offers what I need, and seem to be moving more and more in the direction of hobbyist wow-toys crowd. It’s getting to the point the DEs are more work than manually configuring a window manager. Also, as the X server and all the other software gets more bloated and slower, I don’t want to have additional pounding on my aging hardware with a fat DE. Indeed, the question of using Linux over something else is always a balance of issues, a matter of wrestling with the many compromises and my own shifting needs.