Window Managers

The window manager controls how the graphical environment looks and works. In what is perhaps the most easily visible demonstration of the dynamics of the open-source software development community, rather than a single window management system being "blessed" for FreeBSD as would occur in a commercial operating system, dozens of different window managers are available for X11, as diverse in individual behaviors as the tastes of the people using them. Most window managers support "themes" as a central feature, allowing the user to swap out interface elements for new ones, so your user experience is almost infinitely customizable even within a single window manager. If you don't like the way X11 looks or feels, you can either customize your existing window manager or switch to a completely different one.

Figure 5.2 shows the same session as Figure 5.1, but this time it is running under the Window Maker window manager.

Figure 5.2. A window manager such as Window Maker completes the user environment equation by giving you window controls and interface utilities.

In Figure 5.2 you see that each of the application windows now has a title bar with controls to maximize and close it. You can resize or move a window in any window manager interface. On the right side of the desktop is a menu from which you can launch applications by clicking an icon. Right-clicking the mouse on the desktop opens another menu from which you can select various options or launch applications.

When you first configured X11 and launched your first graphical session in Chapter 2, the window manager FreeBSD chose by default was TWM, a minimalist user environment with only the most rudimentary window decorations and control options. There's not much you can do in TWMyou can launch windowed programs by typing their names at the command line in an xterm, you can move and resize windows, you can kill processes by clicking on them in the right way, and that's really about it. There are no icons and there's no file manager. There is no preference-setting utility. You can't even specify a background "wallpaper" image without the help of extra programs. For seasoned UNIX veterans who shun modern convenience, TWM is perfectly adequate, but if you plan on spending any significant amount of time using the X11 environment for desktop computing, you're going to find yourself wishing for the integrated features to which we've all become accustomed in modern desktop operating systems. Fortunately, to satisfy this need, FreeBSD makes available not one but two full-fledged user environment suites designed for this very purpose: KDE and GNOME.