The Window Manager Report

I’ve recently found a very comprehensive and informative overview of window managers for Linux: ‘The Window Manager Report’.

I’m sometimes amused by the number of persons that still direct new users of Linux for more information about window managers to Xwinman.org (where Window Maker still heads the charts as most popular window manager and Openbox or Pekwm aren’t even choices in the poll). I used to think that was the only overview of window managers available (other than Wikipedia), and was therefore very pleasantly surprised to find this excellent site.

Giles Orr, the creator of the website, gives a comprehensive table of window managers, giving a brief description, linking to its homepage, Wikipedia, and Freshmeat page (where applicable), and mentioning when the wm was last updated. You can sort the table according to your preferences (name, version number, release date, etc.).

He also provides a Bloodlines chart, showing who borrowed ideas and/or code from whom.

If that wasn’t enough, he also created a table of the memory usage of window managers, indicating how light or heavy a window manager runs as well as on how many libraries it depends. If you only want a window manager written in a particular language (C++, Python, etc.), you’ll be happy to know that he also has a page for that.

The site is regularly updated. The last update for the window manager overview was done yesterday (April 7 2008). Giles Orr started with reviews of window managers last year, but hasn’t added any lately.

This site has helped me discover some unknown window managers, as well as a few neat ‘helper applications‘ (even, or especially, if that page mentions some archaic apps). Many thanks Giles! 🙂