If you’re looking for an alternative to GNOME or KDE, but still want a very full featured desktop, check out Xfce. It also has better support for multi-head (two or more monitors) support, and the Xfce menu is now compliant - so you can edit the application menu using Alacarte or another menu editor that supports the standard. It brings some new goodies, like support for remote fileshares in Thunar (its file manager) and a totally rewritten panel. The most recent release, Xfce 4.8, was released just a few weeks ago. By default, anyway: Xfce is very customizable, so you could easily clutter it up if you really wanted to. The project moved away from the CDE look and feel long ago, and Xfce now has a nice, clean, simple look and feel. The ugly duckling days are long over for Xfce, though. It was initially a clone of the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), which was a staple on UNIX workstations. Xfce uses the same toolkit (GTK) as GNOME, but is more minimalist than GNOME and has a different flavor. It’s fast, lightweight, but still packs plenty of features in.

Xfce is one of my longtime favorite desktop environments. Whatever the reasons, in no particular order, I’ve got five of the best window managers for you to choose from. Maybe you just want something old school because it’s fun. Maybe you want something a bit more configurable, or more minimalistic. Sometimes you want something that’s more lightweight than KDE or GNOME. GNOME and KDE, for example, have default window managers (Metacity and KWin, respectively) but also provide a lot of features and applications that you won’t find with something like, say, FVWM or twm.Įven though KDE and GNOME get most of the attention, though, it doesn’t mean they’re always the best choice. Window managers do just that - manage placement and handling of “windows” in X. What’s the difference between a desktop environment and a window manager? I’m glad you asked. For the purposes of this round-up, I’m looking at the best desktop environment/window managers for Linux. I’m using the term “window manager” a bit loosely in the headline because, well, it’s a headline.

If you’re ready to shake things up on the desktop, we’ve got five of the best alternatives for you to choose from. GNOME and KDE are the most popular desktop environments for Linux by a mile, but they’re not the only games in town.

Best window manager for linux