[svlug] (forw) Re: [conspire] could Linux desktop go reasonably any faster?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Steve Litt (slitt at troubleshooters.com):

> We all know Windowmaker respects our machines' resources. A lot of
> people whose opinions I respect love Windowmaker, so I've tried it
> repeatedly, and always failed to make it into something I can use
> productively and with speed. I must be missing something, but haven't a
> clue what it would be.
> 
> For those of you who like Windowmaker, what do you like about it, what
> habits must you cultivate to use it productively, and what kind of
> priority set should a human adopt in order to have a good time with
> Windowmaker?

This probably won't help you much.

In the 1980s, I was an ardent admirer and user of NeXTStep, the
proprietary BSD variant developed by NeXT, Inc., originally for 
NeXT, Inc.'s m68k-based computers and then also for Intel i486.
NeXTStep didn't use X11 but rather Display PostScript as its graphical
display technology -- and it was both beautiful and elegant while at the
same time having many traditional BSD virtues.[1]

Window Maker is an X11-oriented imitation of the aesthetics of NeXTStep,
using the same style of controls, the 'Dock' toolbar, the arbitrarily
large number of workspaces, and so on.  To the extent X11 supports, it
looks and acts the way NeXTStep did.  So, it appeals to me out of
sentiment and because it shares some of NeXTStep's elegance, i.e., being
clean and sparse in appearance and getting out of your way.

Of course, Views Will Differ.{tm}

That connection aside, Window Maker is a medium-weight window manager that does
ICCCM and has hooks for common DEs (or did when I last saw anything abut
that, but I'm no expert because that's not my cuppa).  So, you like its
look and feel or you don't, and you value its DE integration possibilities 
or you don't.


This is also where I could put in a few words about the putative GNUStep DE
and about the historical OpenStep specification, but I am not sure those
would be of interest even though they're relevant.


[1] NeXTStep's direct lineal descendent is Macintosh OS X, but IMO they
screwed up its look and feel to cater to legacy MacOS users.  They also
changed the display engine to Display PDF, because PDF is in contrast to
PostScript free of patent royalties.