I replied to Marc but I'll report the reply to the whole group for
anyone who might be lurking with the same questions or for anyone who
wants to add their own opinions to help out.
benr.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<quote who="Marc Bruggeman">
> I am new to this list but have been using E and Linux before, but the
> relationship to Gnome (and probably KDE ?) was a bit confusing
> especially during my first experiences wiht Linux. I have a better
> understanding now about Window managers but far from complete.
It was confusing for alot of people. KDE and GNOME are not window
managers, they are desktop enviroments. The desktop enviroment is a
collection of applications coupled together by a common development
enviroment (libraries)that compliment each other forming a seemlessness
suite to the end user. Most of the work is done by these applications.
Because the applications do so much work they "steal" alot of the
functionality away from the underlying window manager, thus you really
only need a window manager underneith to open the windows, and send hints
that can be picked up by other applications in the suite. A long time
ago, Enlightenment was used as the window manager for GNOME. The KDE
project wrote their own minimalist window manager. The problem was that
some functionality was duplicated, E wanted to do it one way, GNOME wanted
it another way. In the end, the GNOME project descdied they wanted a
(imho) stupider window manager that would keep more of the power in the
hands of GNOME and less to the WM itself. So Sawfish was chosen as the
window manager to underly GNOME. And in time they switched yet again to
the current GNOME WM, MetaCity. Each time choosing a dumber WM that the
previous.
This is why typically "power-users" or people with low resources just
don't want to deal with all that over head and prefer something smaller.
Not to mention that with WM's like E you have a powerful range of key
binding options (using E16KeyEdit), and other keyboard controls that
allow you to manipulate your windowed enviroment with minimal mouse
interaction. On top of which you can have alittle or as much on your
desktop as you like, reducing clutter, such as removing the pager and
iconbox from view. Add to this powerful desktop management like
geographical virtual desktops (a 2x2 grid of desktops accessed with
alt-shift-arrowkey) making it easy to remember where applications are
instead of paging thru desktop 1, 2, 3, etc, and the ability to parse
desktop usage into diffrent desktops completely (multiple desktops)
keeping office apps on one desktop, development on another, browsers and
mail on another, so on and so forth. These are all things that make E
DR16 the best power desktop on the planet. And unlike WMs that have
similar functionality (namely FVWM2) it all is unbelievably attractive
and easy to customize and retheme.
You hinted that you were concerned about having to install GNOME and
KDE even if you don't use them. Because GNOME and KDE provide
application frameworks it is true that reguardless of what WM you use,
you will need the suite of libraries and applictaions to use certain
apps. For instance, if you want to use GNU Cash, reguardless of which
WM you use, you'll need at least a minimal GNOME install. If you want
to try out KOffice (The KDE Word Proccessor) you'll need to install
KDE. You may not need everything (for instance you don't need the KDE
Screensaver, or games package which you would probly put in for desktop
usage) but you'll need the core libraries and apps to provide the
depenancies for what you run. But that doesn't mean you actually have
to use their WM. The latest version of E even updates hints for
current versions of KDE and GNOME, which means you can effectively slip
out their WM for E and run everything else. But, as mentioned earlier,
the only real problem here is that the WM and Desktop Enviroment may
want to do some things diffrently which eventually leads most people to
choose which they prefer, the desktop enviroment or the WM and then go
with one of the solely.
Okey, there's a quick overview. Hopefully you can feel just alittle bit
more informed about how things fit together and which option is best for
you.
benr.
--
//Ben Rockwood - UNIX Systems Admin
//email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
//web: www.cuddletech.com
//-> We do what we can, We give what we have,
//-> Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task,
//-> The rest is the madness of Art.
//-> -Henry James
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