Linux Desk-Top Environments (DTEs) and Window Managers (WMs)
Aaron Sloman

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL DOCUMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM OR THE SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE.
NEITHER THE UNIVERSITY NOR THE SCHOOL NOR THE AUTHOR OF THIS DOCUMENT CAN ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY CONSEQUENCES OF FOLLOWING THE ADVICE OFFERED HERE.
(In other words: the normal conditions of mutual-help for Linux users apply!)

UPDATE 15 Aug 2012: A screenshot of CTWM, taken on a 1920x1080 screen is here.
It shows a latex file being edited in an Xterm window, and the preview xdvi window showing the formatted output of latex.

I use focus follows mouse without raising the input window, so I can type into the source
window while the formatted output overlaps part of it.

There are also other things visible, including a small xclock window, showing date and
time, a larger xdaliclock window, a small xload window, the CTWM display of windows on
that desktop, some visible some not, and on the bottom right the map of my ten current desktops.

(That's my style, but many others are possible.)

UPDATE 2 Jul 2012: Back to using Ctwm on all three machines

For several months I have been using Ctwm on all my machines, having found Openbox
not flexible enough for my needs. I use

 1. ctwm-3.8a-27.1.x86_64 on a 5 year old desktop PC in my department at
 Birmingham University using Scientific Linux 6, with kernel
 2.6.32-220.13.1.el6.x86_64

    Using this version of .ctmrc

 2. ctwm v 3.8.1 on a 1 year old Viglen desktop PC running Fedora 16
 currently kernel 3.3.7-1.fc16.i686
 (My main machine at home)

    Using this version of .ctmrc

 3. ctwm v 3.6.1 on a 2 year old Dell Latitude E5410 running Fedora 16
 with kernel 3.4.4-4.fc16.i686

    Using this version of .ctmrc

The .ctwmrc files reference a directory "~/.ctwm-themes/glows:~/icons", which is
copied here, which extends the pixmap files:
    .ctwm-themes

Why I don't use things like Gnome and KDE
And prefer to use things like CTWM and Openbox

I have been using computers, originally for research in AI, Cognitive Science and
philosophy since about 1972 (on various research computers available in the UK), and
since about 1975 for teaching, initially at Sussex University using the cental
mainframe computer (ICL1904 running the George3 operating system), then using a DEC
PDP11/40, first using DEC's operating system RSX-11D, then from about 1976 Unix.

Around 1981 the university bought DEC Vax computers running VMS to replace the ICL
mainframe and for a while I used the local Vax service, first on VMS, then later on
Unix.

Since then I have mostly used variants of Unix, including first of all Sun
Microsystem's (Berkeley) Unix then Solaris (various versions) on workstations and
shared compute servers, of various kinds (including Sequent Symmetry and the GEC-63
disaster).

After coming to Birmingham in 1991 I mostly used Suns running Solaris, either on
desktop workstations or via X-terminals (also used for teaching for several years),
then, from about 1999 I started using linux (Redhat 6 I think) on a Dell Latitude
C400, then later on more powerful machines, both accessed remotely, or on desktop
PCs, or on laptops.

I have had a sequence of Dell latitude laptops, the C400, then D600, D610, and since
June 2010 E6410. The last three came with Microsoft windows, which I shrank to a
small partition before instlling linux. I occasionally use windows for testing
hardware or checking out how something works on windows (e.g. because I have to help
my wife manage her windows PC).

I truly hate using MS windows, including even the best version so far Win7, for reasons explained in :
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/windows-hates.html

Some of those reasons apply also to the linux DTEs that I dislike, e.g. Gnome and KDE.

Attempted using KDE4 on desktop PC after upgrading to F15, using preupgrade

I decided to upgrade my desktop PC to Fedora 15, so as not to have different versions
on the PC and Laptop. For the first time ever I used the fedora 'preupgrade' package
that analysed my installation and created information about requirements to upgrade.
It gave me the option to skip the upgrade to F14 and go straight to F15.

Once Fedora 15 was working on the PC, I tested gnome again and hated it as usual,
e.g. because it makes it so hard to specify the various forms of tailoring that I
wanted, and it did not allow me to to set a keyboard shortcut to a way of moving
through desktops that allows "wrapping" from the first or last desktop directly to
the other -- I flip through desktops several times a day, so it's important for me
that they form a "ring", not a chain.

I then tried KDE and hated it too. Like Gnome it was incredibly difficult to find
where to specify various preferences (linux designers seem to have become more and
more dictatorial about how everyone should work), and then it allowed only tedious
use of mouse and menus, instead of providing a file (or set of grouped files) that I
could edit to specify my requirements (as is easily done in CTWM or Openbox). But
KDE did eventually allow me to specify a keyboard shortcut to cycle forward or back
through virtual desktops, and it did allow me to "wrap" when cycling through
desktops. However it was very hard to find a way to add a command to the standard
root menu, e.g a command to launch 'xterm'.

But what finally killed my interest in KDE is that it fails to resume from hibernate.
It partially resumes but displays a corrupted screen and then freezes.
This is apparently a problem others have complained about: e.g. these two:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=704905
http://www.jlacroix.me/?p=1975

So I went back to using Openbox on my machines at home, and CTWM on my desktop PC
on campus. More recently I've reverted to CTWM on all three machines.

CTWM is no longer being actively maintained, though the mailing
list is used and occasionally there are updates, as explained above.

CTWM is very usable: small, very fast, very robust, and very tailorable -- also see this)