Window Manager
lastmod 2022-08-17created 2014-10-257 edits
A window manager is software designed to manage each window on the desktop in a graphical user interface environment.
Whereas Microsoft Windows and macOS have it built in as part of the operating system, the X Window System can use any window manager made by a third party. Well-known window managers for X Window include TWM and Fluxbox.
Desktop environments and window managers for X11
| DEs | Full-featured | |
| Mid-range | Trinity, CDE, Xfce, IRIX Interactive Desktop | |
| Lightweight | EDE (FLTK), Etoile (GNUstep), LXDE (GTK) / Razor-qt (Qt), Mezzo, ROX, UDE, Sugar | |
| Shell | Unity, GNOME Shell, Cinnamon, KDE Plasma | |
| WMs | Compositing | Compiz, Metacity, Mutter, KWin |
| Tiling | ||
| Stacking | amiwm, twm, cwm, mwm, FVWM, IceWM, Enlightenment, Blackbox, Fluxbox, Openbox, Window Maker, AfterStep, PekWM | |
| Components | Window Manager, Window decorator, Dock, Title bar, Task bar, Notification Area, Pager | |
| Related reading | Windowing system, Desktop environment, GUI widget, X Window System, X window manager, Virtual desktop, OpenGL, DirectX, GPU, Mouse, Keyboard, WIMP, GUI, Widget toolkit, Turbo Vision, Qt, GTK, AIGLX, XGL, Shell (computing), Painter's algorithm, Resolution independence | |