Window Managers and Desktop Environments - What are they?

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Window Managers, Desktop Environments and X

Linux is like a stack of papers, it is layered. Different layers do different things. The bottom layer is the kernel, it is the core, manages memory and provides an interface to devices. It does much more, but that is out of the scope of this document.

Above that is X, the X Window System, X11. X is the blank canvas of an artist. It provides the ability for GUI applications to run. It not only provides the screen, but the ability for programs to receive and interpret key presses, mouse movements and clicks. Programs which run on X are 'X Clients', they connect to the X Server, it gives them the screen , and they start.

On top of X can go window managers and desktop environments.

What are Window Managers

Window managers (WM) are X Clients which provide the border around the window. The window manager controls the appearance of an application and how it is managed: the border, titlebar, size, and ability to resize a window are handled by window managers. Many window managers provide other things such as places to stick dockapps (http://www.dockapps.org) like Window Maker, a menu to start programs, menus to configure the WM and other useful things. Fluxbox for example has the ability to tab windows.

Window managers generally don't provide things like desktop icons. These are commonly seen in desktop environments, though it is possible to have icons in a WM through another program (http://idesk.timmfin.net/).

Because of the lack of 'extras', WMs are much lighter on system resources.

What are Desktop Environments

Desktop Environments (DE) are different to the Window Manager in that they provide much more, a whole environment. DEs bring together a range of different X clients: a window manager, a panel for applets, starters and menus, desktop icons and an integrated file manager are common. Other extras provided may be games, music players, and office suites. GNOME uses Metacity as its window manager by default and KDE includes its own KWin. These window managers can be changed.

DEs provide more features than window managers, and this is reflected in their heavier use of system resources.

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