Replacing windows XP at home.

Peter petermatulis at yahoo.ca
Wed Jul 26 19:56:55 UTC 2006


--- Joshua Lewis <joshua.lewis at familyfunzone.net> wrote:

> 
>    I have a hard question to ask and I realize that there are a
> thousand
>    answers to this question.
> 
> 
> 
>    I am replacing my XP system with a FreeBSD 6.1 system. I finished
>    installing it last night and cvsuped. Now I need to choose a
> window
>    manager.
> 
> 
> 
>    There are what seems like hundreds of different WM in the ports
>    collection and there is no way I will be able to find the time to
> read
>    them all and get any kind of good idea on what each one does.
> 
> 
> 
>    I am hoping a few people form the list could e-mail me what they
> like
>    and for what reason.
> 
> 
> 
>    I want something lean and fast but I want to have my cake and eat
> it
>    to because I do want something that is not strait up ugly and is
>    functional.
> 
> 
> 
>    KDE seems like it is bloated so I was considering Gnome. I have
> also
>    been reading about enlightenment and it sounds interesting. I have
>    looked into Fluxbox and it also seems like it would do the trick.
> 
> 
> 
>    Would I be better off just going with Gnome or KDE? I realize once
> I
>    start installing apps that I will probably wind up installing
>    something that uses Gnome or KDE libraries so I am going to wind
> up
>    bloating my system any ways right?

I know both KDE and fluxbox quite well.  They provide two entirely
different experiences.   Installing KDE will give you applications and
a heavy desktop environment (with menus everywhere) while fluxbox will
just give you a light window manager.  I suggest you go for KDE first
just to convince yourself that it is possible to have a Microsoft-like
experience within an Open Source OS and then go for fluxbox.

If you want something in between KDE and fluxbox then you may want to
try XFCE.

Of course, there are many more alternatives but these are the ones I
have used a fair amount.

Peter

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