What window manager do you use and why?
Philip
philip8888
Cool topic, Which one do you use?
I’m not sure if you mean desktop environments ie (Gnome, KDE, Fluxbox etc.) or if you mean 3D Window Managers ie (Compiz, Matisse etc).
Anyway…
I’ve tried 'em all and personally I like Gnome with Compiz, KDE is a little busy for me, but both of them are very good. As far as the slimmer desktops I actually like Fluxbox better than the others. Enlightenment is pretty flaky in my experience but that was a while ago.
What’s great about all of them is how customizable they are. I have a mix and match of several icon sets so it is very easy to roll your own.
Window Manager = Compiz Fusion (with Emerald Themes)…
because 1) I am a sucker for “da cube” 2) Fun to use and looks really cool all the time.
Using Gnome on Ubuntu (functional enough and cleaner (I was always a KDE fan previously)
Most importantly I like the set-up because it is the best advertisement for Linux that I can think of. I have Vista Ultimate on dual-boot cause it came preloaded… so I know just how “incredible” it is (cough). With major computer mags in Aus (where I am) saying that Ubuntu is a better upgrade than Vista and calling it the “Windows killer” I figure that the time has never been better to try and coax
my misguided work mates and friends to switch from the other OS and I can roll around with my laptop plug into Twinview on whatever screen is around, fire up the eyecandy and make them drool (I run 6 Desktops always 3 for business 1 for personal 2 for audio and they roll around nicely) and even though I appreciate the stability speed and usability of Linux at the end of the day it is the “hey look what I can do” that makes them go “well I want that”. After I get them started and nurse them through their withdrawals they invariably see the light. 
Yes I was referring to KDE, GNOME, Fluxbox, openbox, etc. Desktop Environment.
I use Openbox on top of KDE no Compiz.
If I use any other lightweight panels pypanel lxpanel etc. qjackctl cpu runs off the chart.
So I have to stay with the KDE panel.
But running Openbox on top of KDE does help to lighten the load.
I just use Openbox with pypanel and idesk. It’s light and efficient. I configured my desktops, panel,menu and icons as best as possible for my use of the computer. It was a bit long to do it at the begining, but now that it’s done, it’s done. I can change the OS, i’ll have always the same.
I use Fluxbox… a few apps in the slit but nothing else… played with using Gnome Panel for a short while this year… but really only fired it up to work out what I had installed on my gentoo pro-audio OS (i created from chroot environment in Ubuntu Studio) no fancy 3d environment and no icons e.t.c… light clean and fast… of course I have a large number of keyoard shortcuts to make life a little faster…
Allan K
sonofzev
Littlewolf Music
Melbourne Australia
Current EP Submerged out via If? and Elektrax…
http://www.elektraxrecordings.com/elek015.html
FVWM here with tint2, stalonetray and fvwmPager to replace all the panels I’ve tried. I’m more of a fan of 2D and pixels instead of all the cool 3D stuff, and to be honest my old lappy wouldn’t be very happy with 3D either. Fast, light on resources, simple and as nice looking as I have time to make it, that’s all I need!
like Philipp, I use openbox-KDE (KDE is an old habit). I disabled tons of unnecessary things because it’s a DAW and has to be super-stable. I have sessions opened for weeks, jackd running non stop for that long, with rosegarden+ardour+some VSTis+etc. When I come back home and turn on my screens, I expect to have all these apps up and waiting in the same state I left them. So I don’t compromise the DAW functionality with fancy but not necessarily stable graphical features.
On the other hand, I do need a couple of panels. I have one bottom panel on my left screen with usual app icons, and one vertical panel on the right hand side of my right screen with all audio apps icons, so everything is (to my mind) coherently located. I have been running this setup for about a year after I built up my DAW and tried a couple of OSes (ended up with a custom debian sid). I don’t think I will change anything to my window manager, I find it nice, convenient and light enough.
XFCE4 here.
XFCE4 here.
I’m a big fan of XFCE (and it’s window manager XFWM). I love all the little nuances and quirks. It’s very snappy and configurable. I’ve grown to very much enjoy using it, especially as my programming environment.
Definitely recommend XFCE for audio work too.
gdm