Other BSD Window Managers; List

Partial list of BSD style wm's:
........................
Lightest:
x11-wm/antiwm - C - fullscreen
x11-wm/bspwm - tiling
x11-wm/cwm - C - floating
x11-wm/ctwm - twm variant
x11-wm/dwm - C - requires C compiling to configure
x11-wm/tinywm
x11-wm/twm - C Xlib - reparenting
x11-wm/vtwm - twm variant

Light:
x11-wm/blackbox - C++ - floating
x11-wm/i3 - tiling
x11-wm/jwm - C - floating
x11-wm/qtile - python - tiling

Heavy:
x11-wm/enlightenment, x11-wm/e16 - C
x11-wm/fluxbox - C++ - floating

Unspecified:
x11-wm/compton
x11-wm/euclid-wm
x11-wm/golem
x11-wm/hs-xmonad - haskell - heavy dependencies
x11-wm/mcwm

Update:
x11-wm/aphelia
x11-wm/berry
x11-wm/chamfer
x11-wm/echinus
x11-wm/herbstluftwm
x11-wm/spectrwm

(above contain BSD, ISC, MIT and similar licenses)

9wm derivatives (also use 9wm derived licenses):
x11-wm/aewm, x11-wm/evilwm, x11-wm/w9wm

(Wayland compositors aren't on this list)
 
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Wikipedia is not clear about
fvwm-logo-starburst-blue-250x83.png

being GPL or BSD.
It's in C and it's still the least annoying WM imho :)
 
FVWM is under GPL 2.0 according to https://github.com/fvwmorg/fvwm, which is also its download site according to the Makefile, and official repository. http://www.xwinman.org/fvwm.php also claims it is under GPL. It is so for versions 1, 2 and 3.

x11-wm/fvwm and x11-wm/fvwm2 are different versions of the same window manager. https://github.com/fvwmorg/fvwm3 is for version 3, not available in ports. x11-wm/fvwm-crystal comes from another site, and it uses FVWM as a dependency.

It is possible that the prerelease had a BSD license, because it is unspecified in https://github.com/fvwmorg/fvwm-0.91. It is also possible that FVWM uses BSD licensed components. If that's the case, when GPL takes it, it becomes that. If you like it, just use it.
 
Fluxbox uses about twice as much memory as Openbox. I forgot if One uses C++, and the other C.
View attachment 3967
This graph is not up to date. I've gotten different results for the WM's I've looked at.
top and ps utilities doesn't show the actual memory, that is in use by an app, it shows the amount of memory that reserved for an app, as far as I know. ("RES" column should be RESIDENT, not reserved).

The top() page shows SIZE is the total size of the process (text, data, and stack), and what I've always gone by. Actually RES is the current amount of resident memory (both SIZE and RES are given in kilobytes).
Something to consider is, background and running programs can affect memory stats.

* user quotes from Thread FreeBSD Screen Shots.8877
 
If I remember correctly, (SEE BELOW--I got it backwards but shepper corrected me.)

This is what I originally wrote.
(I think Oko told me) Fluxbox uses C and Openbox C++. I generally use dwm and openbox these days. I use dwm on a 4 monitor setup, and on occasion on laptops, but actually, for laptops, I find it easier to use Openbox. With dwm two or three terminals on a laptop screen quickly become too small to be useful. (Just my workflow and its habits, others find it perfect for that situation).
 
One of FVWM2 versions is licensed under BSD license,
because when you install OpenBSD with Xorg, it includes old FVWM2 version.
Also from Wikipedia:
uwkljA7.png
 
I use dwm on a 4 monitor setup, and on occasion on laptops, but actually, for laptops, I find it easier to use Openbox. With dwm two or three terminals on a laptop screen quickly become too small to be useful. (Just my workflow and its habits, others find it perfect for that situation).

In my x11-wm/fluxbox desktop config I always have an instance of x11/eterm open and shaded at the top left and one at the bottom left open and running top in case I need to access 2 terminals at once.

This leaves me room for x11-fm/xfe open and shaded at the top right and an open space in the lower right corner for multimedia/xmms. I use the terminals and file manager so often it's easier to leave them open. Then there's open space left in the middle for opening the menu, working with text files, images, etc.

That is, what over time, I've found to be the best working configuration for my laptops.
 
Fluxbox uses about twice as much memory as Openbox. I forgot if one uses C++, and the other C.

If I remember correctly, (I think Oko told me) Fluxbox uses C and Openbox C++.

I think Oko originally said it correctly; Openbox=C, Fluxbox=C++

And for confirmation the wikipedia entries (summary box - viewer right top)
Openbox coded in C
Fluxbox Coded in C++

And from www.xenocara.org
Package: fvwm
Version: 2.2.5
Comment: Locally forked, newer upstream versions have incompatible
licensing.
OpenBSD has strict licensing criteria only for base apps. The base code has also been audited. Newer fvwm versions are available in ports.
 
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One of FVWM2 versions is licensed under BSD license,
because when you install OpenBSD with Xorg, it includes old FVWM2 version..
Also from Wikipedia:
uwkljA7.png
Xorg default window manager is twm not fvwm. Xenocara does come with twm but when you start X OpenBSD by default you get
fvwm. OpenBSD includes third window manager cwm (It is OpenBSD fork of Calm Window Manager also in FreeBSD ports). It is very popular among OpenBSD users and personally I have being using it for almost 10 years. Until 2014 OpenBSD had a scrotwm tilling wm in its base written by its own Marco Peereboom principal developer of OpenBSD's software raid stack and a Dell storage/raid engineer. After he was removed from project due to high level politics scrotwm got removed as well. It's descended spectrwm is maintained in ports. However cwm does have a primitive tilling mode now.
 
Xorg default window manager is twm not fvwm
I didn't say that FVWM is default Xorg WM, I wrote that OpenBSD just includes old fvwm2 version,
which is licensed under BSD license, because it's in the base system. I don't really know if there is a such thing,
as default Xorg WM ( % startx by default starts TWM, when using full xorg package, but when you're using
xorg-minimal, it'll start nothing). Personally I like FVWM very much (new, not old), and I don't care how it is licensed,
until it is free and open source software.
 
In my x11-wm/fluxbox desktop config I always have an instance of x11/eterm open and shaded at the top left and one at the bottom left open and running top in case I need to access 2 terminals at once.

This leaves me room for x11-fm/xfe open and shaded at the top right and an open space in the lower right corner for multimedia/xmms. I use the terminals and file manager so often it's easier to leave them open. Then there's open space left in the middle for opening the menu, working with text files, images, etc.

That is, what over time, I've found to be the best working configuration for my laptops.
I use twm with window titles set to tabs rather than full window width. That way even if a window is maximised there's still some desktop space to the right of the window title tab that I can click. I have desktop clicks set so left mouse click raises a panel, volume control and twm icon manager (and right mouse shows the twm menu that I use relatively little). Accordingly I have no need for multiple monitors, its so easy to flip between maximised windows and I'm physically unable to look at two different screens at the same time anyway :)

I have switched over to booting OpenBSD primarily now, base system plus 7 packages (I use yad to show my own menus/panel/volume control instead of using twm's).

$ pkg_info -mz
firefox-esr-i18n-en-GB--
libreoffice--
mpv--
mtpaint--
osmo--
xfe--
yad--
 
I've used evilwm in the past. Somewhat similar to the OpenBSD cwm. (I think cwm was inspired by evilwm, but not sure). It didn't, despite its lower use of resources, seem that much faster than openbox on any of my machines.
 
I've never found the perfect window manager. I wish "perfect-wm" was on your list. Gnome used to be passable, but now is ugly, KDE is OK but maybe too messy for me, while x11-wm/i3 is very nice in terms of cleanliness but is a navigation headache. Some days the old wmaker window manager actually seems better.

It would be great if i3 had a navigation helper of some type. Maybe a floating thumbnail screenshot to follow the mouse along the tabs (like chromium does with its tabs) or something similar to that, so that I wouldn't have to dig among'st my always-too-many tabbed windows. It could remain clean, but yet have a dash of gnome-ness for navigation.
 
I've never found the perfect window manager. I wish "perfect-wm" was on your list
I call that JWM, that's if you like using XML for menus and WM set up. Not everyone agrees.

Then, for reinstalling programs, I grep the config file for Programs and Startup.
 
As far I am aware x11-wm/compton just do compositing. :)
Yes, it is nice compositor, I like it much, here is my ~/.config/compton.conf:
Code:
dbus = true;
backend = "xrender";
vsync = "opengl";
dbe = false;
glx-no-stencil = true;
detect-transient = true;
sw-opti = true;
detect-rounded-corners = true;
use-ewmh-active-win = true;
detect-client-opacity = true;
detect-client-leader = true;

mark-wmwin-focused = true;
mark-ovredir-focused = true;
shadow = true;
clear-shadow = true;
no-dnd-shadow = true;
no-dock-shadow = true;
shadow-ignore-shaped = true;
shadow-radius = 5;
shadow-opacity = 0.8;
shadow-offset-x = -8;
shadow-offset-y = -8;

fading = true;
fade-delta = 5;
no-fading-openclose = false;
fade-in-step = 0.03;
fade-out-step = 0.1;
frame-opacity = 1;
inactive-opacity = 1;


shadow-exclude = [
        "class_g = 'conky'",
        "class_g = 'Wine'",
        "class_g = 'Pale moon' && argb",
        "class_g = 'Firefox-esr' && argb",
        "class_g = 'Firefox' && argb",
        "class_g = 'Seamonkey' && argb",
        "class_g = 'Notification'",
        "name = 'Notification'" ];

#fade-exclude = [ ];

wintypes:
{
        tooltip = { fade = false; shadow = true; opacity = 0.85; };
        popup_menu = { fade = false; shadow = true; opacity = 0.9; };
        dropdown_menu = { fade = false; shadow = true; opacity = 0.9; };
        utility = { fade = true; shadow = true; opacity = 0.85; };
};

I use fast "fading" and light 5px shadow radius on all sides of window. It works OK for me for years.
Here is how it looks like
ODSGLFF.png
 
My use of x11/compton is quite bipolar. Sometimes I hate transparencies and so I do remove Compton. Other times I feel I need transparency and so I install it again. :D

My config is pretty simple:
Code:
# Backend
backend = "glx";
#backend = "xr_glx_hybird";
vsync = "none";

# Fading
fading = false;

# Shadow
shadow = true;
no-dnd-shadow = true;
no-dock-shadow = true;
clear-shadow = true;
shadow-exclude = [ "_BSPWM_FLOATING_WINDOW:32c = 0", "! name~=''", "class_g = 'Conky'" ];

# Other
detect-client-opacity = true;
unredir-if-possible = true;

Btw, what dbus do with x11/compton?
 
From compton man page
--dbus Enable remote control via D-Bus. See the D-BUS API section below for more details.
Anyway it doesn't hurt and work well with this setting pretty well.
 
I would think the primary advantage of using one of these standalone window managers would be being able to ditch things like dbus. Otherwise why bother if your starting linux crap like consolekit, or dbus? At that point just use a full Linux DE because you have already lost to Lennart. ;)

At least that is my interest in this thread is to eventually be able to run a fully desktop with sndio, openmdns, no dbus, no consolkit, no hald, no pulseaudio and no avahi. So I can use custom utils written specific for FreeBSD instead, and integrate those FreeBSD specific tools.

I also think we could use a thread like this for panels, and one for standalone utils that are FreeBSD specific like automount, networkmgr, dsbmixer, virtual_oss, etc. To keep track of all of these various components for piecemeal setups in a single place would be nice.
 
Otherwise why bother if your starting linux crap like consolekit, or dbus?

Personally, while I don't like it very much, I use dbus because "Trash" won't work in your file manager without it,
like in pcmanfm for example, or in any other file manager as well, but I use trash pretty often,
it's a nice feature. Also many apps may have problems without dbus launched. So nowadays,
if you want a fully working *nix desktop, you need to use dbus. For example, without dbus launched
you'll not be able to use one instance of gimp for all your projects, it will launch new gimp instance
every time you open your project or image, and the same situation happens with many others apps,
if you don't use dbus.

But for hald, for example, there is really no need, autofs is available on FreeBSD and it works pretty well — Thread 61251.
 
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