[olug] Alternatives to GNOME3

Sat Jun 4 05:19:15 UTC 2011

My suggestion would be XFCE.  It's much closer to the old Gnome - taskbar,
launchers, panels, systray, notifications, etc. XFCE seems to have been
picking up a lot of new users based on disatisfaction with Unity and Gnome
3.  I have used XFCE in the past (before Unity and Gnome 3 were even
announced) and have always found it to be a better system (much lighter on
resources, much faster in terms of speed, and more configurable).

Now, having said that, even before I found XFCE, I had played with quite a
few window managers.  Window managers tend to not have as much built into
them as full desktops, but they stress doing window management extremely
well...  And, for other things that you want, you can supplement them other
tools. Here's a few examples of some of the window managers I've looked at
and liked: (Screenshot of Ubuntu running XFCE:
http://www.unixporn.com/screenshots/displayimage.php?pid=321&fullsize=1)

- OpenBox.  Very nice, lightweight window manager with built in task
switcher, launch menu, multiple desktop support, etc.  Supplement with a
good taskbar (like tint2 or fspanel) and you have a very usable system.  So
usable that it is, in fact, the default configuration of the CrunchBang
distro (a re-spin based on Debian).  I highly recommend checking it out if
you are willing to move away from Fedora. (Here's a screenshot of my
CrunchBang with OpenBox:
http://www.unixporn.com/screenshots/displayimage.php?pid=513&fullsize=1)

- PekWM - another very lightweight window manager, with configurable menus,
lots of themes, etc.  It adds a few cool things you won't find built into
most window managers like the ability write rules to determine how it treats
specific windows (ie, say you always want Firefox to launch on desktop 4,
you can write a rule that willl implement it... or say you want Gedit to
always take up 50 percent of the screen aligned along the right side - you
can write a rule for it).  Another feature you will find in some window
managers (but not in many of them) the ability to arbitrarily group windows
into a single frame -- similar to the idea of multiple tabs in a web
browser, only in this case it can be *any* applications.  I've used this in
the past (and kind of miss it in my current configuration) to work on
projects where I'm using two or three applications like a text editor
(emacs/vim/jed/etc), a terminal, and a debugger or some other tool.

- Fluxbox - very similar to PekWM, many of the same features put together in
a different way.

With both PekWM & Fluxbox you'd want some kind of a taskbar (like tint2,
fspanel or one of the 10-20 others out there).

- IceWM - this is the window manager that it seems that time has forgotten
about.  It's small, light weight, and includes a taskbar, launcher menu, and
shortcuts on the taskbar (with it's own systray).  It's only about 10
percent short of being a full desktop, but it's much smaller and faster that
Gnome/Unity/KDE/XFCE. (Screenshot:
http://www.unixporn.com/screenshots/displayimage.php?pid=521&fullsize=1)

- Awesome, wmii and Xmonad - these fall into a whole different category if
you are the adventurous type.  throw out the title bars and floating
windows.  These window managers are designed to use the maximum amount of
space on your screen at all times by tiling the windows based on a pattern
you set in your configuration.  Sounds weird?  It kind of is at first, but
after a while you get used to it, and even depend on it's functionality.
 And, even better - many of the commands for changing windows, moving them
around, changing the tiling pattern, etc. are available via the keyboard
(yeah, they are accessible via mouse too).  Once you get used to the
keyboard commands, you find that you can navigate your windows more quickly
and efficiently (but, it really does take some getting used to and a lot of
time / retraining to become profficient).  (Screen shot of Awesome running
on a dual-head setup - big screenshot:
http://www.unixporn.com/screenshots/displayimage.php?pid=753&fullsize=1)

Anyway - hope this helps...

George

On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 9:20 PM, Kevin <sharpestmarble at gmail.com> wrote:

> I just installed Fedora 13, stock windowing system.
>
> I find that I am not a fan of GNOME3, specifically the lack of a
> window list/taskbar. I can get around that using alt-tab. However, if
> an application has multiple windows open, then only the most recent
> one is selectable. I can hover on an application and click on the
> window I want, but that defeats the whole purpose of using the
> keyboard for application-switching.
>
> I would like to switch to another system, but don't know which one I
> should switch to. I was a fan of GNOME2's system of picking a
> configuration and going with it; KDE doesn't rub me right.
>
> I just want things to work, but GNOME3 makes too many compromises in
> the way of UI speed. Does anyone know of an alternative to GNOME3 I
> should try?
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