Free desktop environment vs window manager software for linux

AntiRight Desktop Environment is a lightweight and scripted desktop environment that uses the Motif toolkit. Development is carried out with a minimalistic philosophy in mind.

The software consists of a text editor, a desktop panel, a sticky note utility, system management panels, a file manager, a calculator interface, a color/background selector, a command launcher, a simple help system, an email and Web browser launcher, a theme selector, a preferences utility, a series of system monitors including a graphical load meter, and a CD player.

The desktop panel consists of launcher icons, a launcher panel button, a screen lock button, a virtual desktop switcher, an alarm utility, a command launcher, a clock, a user counter, a load meter, and a mail checker.

dynamic window manager or dwm is a dynamic window manager for X11.
As founder and main developer of wmii I came to the conclusion that wmii is too clunky for my needs. I dont need so many funky features and all this hype about remote control through a 9P service, I only want to manage my windows in a simple, but dynamic way.
wmii never got finished because I listened to users, who proposed arbitrary ideas I considered useful. This resulted in an extreme CADT development model, which was a mistake. Thus the philosophy of dwm is simply to fit my needs (maybe yours as well). Thats it.
Main features:
- dwm has no Lua integration, no 9P support, no editable tagbars, no shell-based configuration, no remote control, and comes without any additional tools like printing the selection or warping the mouse.
- dwm is only a single binary, its source code is intended to never exceed 2000 SLOC.
- dwm is based on tagging and dynamic window management (however simpler than ion, wmii or larswm). It manages windows in tiling and floating modes. Either mode can be applied dynamically, depending on the application in use and the task performed.
- dwm doesnt distinguishes between layers, there is no floating or tiled layer. Wether the clients of currently selected tag are in tiled mode or not, you can re-arrange all clients on the fly. Popup- and fixed-size windows are treated floating, however.
- dwm is customized through editing its source code, that makes it extremely fast and secure - it does not process any input data which hasnt been known at compile time, except window title names and status text read from standard input. You dont have to learn Lua/sh/ruby or some weird configuration file format (like X resource files), beside C to customize it for your needs, you only have to learn C (at least editing header files).
- Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, its pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions.
- dwm uses 1-pixel borders to provide the maximum of screen real estate to clients. Small titlebars are only drawn in front of unfocused clients.
- dwm reads from standard input to print arbitrary status text (like the date, load, battery charge). Thats much simpler than larsremote, wmiir and what not...
- It can be downloaded and distributed under the conditions of the MIT/X Consortium license.
- Optionally you can install dmenu to extend dwm with a wmii-alike menu.
Enhancements:
- This release contains certain major bugfixes, especially regarding banning/unbanning client windows.

Zirconium Desktop Environment is a new low resource desktop shell optimized for usability.
Zirconium Desktop Environment operates on the philosophy that the desktop environment needs to stay out of the users way and provide the quickest access to the functions that are truly needed from a desktop shell.
Principle Zirconium Desktop Environment design goals:
- Very easy navigation by taking advantage of the corner effect by placing the icons for the 2 most critical functions (program launcher and window switcher) in the top corners.
- Minimal use of on-screen real estate. This is accomplished by "recycling" the window title bar by overlapping the already minimal on screen furniture on top of the title bar when a window is maximized.
- Eliminating the "system tray". Instead of using a pixel wasting systray icon to communicate status to the user programs are expected to use the ZDE Notification Daemon to sent small unobtrusive notifications to the user when something of note occurs. The ZDE Notification Daemon uses the SOAP protocol for universal compatibility and network transparency.
- Web integration. An (optional) backdrop manager based on the embedded Gecko engine from Mozilla is provided to provide for "Weblets" to run on the desktop. The ZDE session manager also provides a SOAP API that can be accessed by signed or expressly permitted Weblets to access the ZDE system.
Components of the ZDE system:
Corner Menus.
The left corner menu opens up the Program Launcher. Note that the Program Launcher is a custom navigation window and not a pop-up style menu. The Launcher window closes when an item is activated or the mouse pointer leaves the window.
The right corner menu is a list of open windows for window switching. It is a standard GTK pop-up menu.
Mini-Bar.
In the top center is the Mini-Bar that shows essential items like the time, volume control, battery and network status. The Mini-Bar is the same height as the Title Bar of a window so that when a window is maximized the title bar is partly covered by the Mini-Bar.
Notification Daemon:
When a SOAP message for a Notification arrives the Notification pop-up appears briefly. When not shown the very edge is visible in the lower-right. Mousing over the edge makes the Notification appear again and the mouse leave event closes the notification making it very simple to dismiss a notification by just mousing over it. Clicking the visible edge will open a Notification History window showing all notifications that have been logged during the session.
Window Theme:
The Window Manager theme needs to make special allowances for the way ZDE is arranged. The title bar needs to be 22 pixels high and the controls need to be 22 pixels away from the ends of the title bar to allow for the corner icons.

desktop-data-manager includes a clipboard history for many different types of content (text, images, ...) and an application to take screenshots from a single window/subwindow, rectangle of the screen or the whole desktop.

The two applications are designed to work well together. For more details please visit my homepage.

Notes: If you find some bugs/problems with the application please contact me at einki(at)users.sourceforge.net. The Program is programmed to work in a GTK/GNOME environment but at least the basic functionalities will work in KDE too.

Oroborus Theme Changer is an app for changing the theme in the Oroborus window manager.

Oroborus Theme Changer is an app for changing the theme in the Oroborus window manager.

To use the app just

#cp otc /usr/bin

It presumes your theme directory is located at /usr/share/oroborus/themes - if it is located anywhere else then change the value prefix in the otc file.

If you dont have an .oroborusrc file in your home directory then it will create one for you.

As usual this app. comes with no guarantees or warranties and is covered by the GPL

GNOME Video Arcade is a simple xmame front-end for the GNOME Desktop Environment.

Just getting this project off the ground. Im hoping to create a simple and easy-to-use xmame front-end that is not just another mame32 clone.

This project is aimed at casual gamers like myself that just want to play classic arcade games on their desktop.

Linux Commander is a powerful file manager for the X Window System.

It is partially modelled after Window Commander for Windows.