Home > X window manager

Unlike the Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms, which have historically provided a vendor-controlled, fixed set of ways to control how windows and pane s display on a screen, and how the user may interact with them, the X Window System allows the user to choose between various third-party window managers. Window managers differ from one another in several ways, including:

• customizability of appearance and functionality:
  • textual menus used to start programs and/or change options
  • docks and other graphical ways to start programs
  • multiple desktops and virtual desktop s (desktops larger than the physical monitor size), and pagers to switch between them
• consumption of memory and other system resources
• degree of integrationIntegration may be any of the following: Usually integration is the construction of an object, a theory, etc. from separate more limited parts. The result is something composite or integral . Racial integration or simply "integration", in United States us with a desktop environmentIn graphical computing, a desktop environment DE offers a complete graphical user interface (GUI) solution to operate a computer. The name is derived from the desktop metaphor used by most of these interfaces. A DE provides icons, toolbars, applications,, which provides a more complete interface to the operating system, and provides a range of integrated utilities and applications.

Alternative shellAmongst other things, a shell is: An animal shell, the hard, rigid outer covering of an animal such as a mollusk or gastropod or tortoise or turtle. See also: shell (material). The hard outer layer of eggs. The hard outer layer of some plant fruiting bodis for Microsoft Windows have also emerged. For example, LiteStepLiteStep is a Windows shell replacement under the GPL, for Windows 9x and up. It was inspired by AfterStep, which in turn was inspired by NEXTSTEP. LiteStep was initially developed by Francis Gastellu as a closed source project until April of 1998 (versio can replace the user interfaceThe user interface is the part of a system exposed to a user. In general, the system can be any kind of system with which a user may interact at will, such as a mechanical system or a computer system. For example, in an automobile the user interface consi on Windows 95, 98, or NT with an Afterstep style. OS/2OS/2 is an operating system created by Microsoft and IBM and later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2", because it was intended as the preferred operating system for IBM's " Personal System/2 ( PS/2)" line of second-gene ships with Presentation Manager as the default shell, but third party sources can supply alternatives.