xfwm4

[Diego Jacobi]

2008/7/13 Olivier Fourdan <fourdan at gmail.com>:

> Hi,
>
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 6:39 AM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I just wonder why xfwm4 is different of Metacity.
> >
> > I have found that both takes mostly the same amount of RAM, and does
> seems
> > to be really faster.
>
> Well, speed of a window manager is definitely the hardest thing to
> measure, so I am not sure how you came to that conclusions (please
> don't tell me about torture-wm which is one of the most stupid
> benchmark I have ever seen).
>
> I believe xfwm4 is faster than metacity because of the way it's coded
> and how redraws are done. That may not show depending on the hardware
> you use though.
>

I dont know about torture-wm, but i agree that is difficult to messure. By
my side, i "messure" the speed with the feeling that i can get from it.
Months ago i was using ubuntu with compiz with mostly all efects shoted
down, and with quick minimizing/maximizing/moving effects.
The i disabled compiz i found in gnome an option with effects but without
compiz, that was pritty enought to me. I guess that that was handled by
metacity.
Now i moved to a debian distro with xfce by default, i happy with the
ammount of resources taken, this distro with the same theme have 90 Mb for
XFCE and 120 Mb for gnome, which is not MUCH more than xfce, but i beliebe
that xfce programers are better in resources management, than the gnome
ones. I great example is thunar.
But often some applications of xfce seems to be just a duplicate from the
ones already developed for gnome, and i dont like to see duplicated efforts
in linux just because there are lots of beautiful projects that are not even
started.
Now i am on xfce, i see that when minimizing windows i have no effect, so it
requires more focus from the user, to know what button corresponds to what
window. Of course that is not a big issue, but if openbox haves it, i guess
that is not a big resources hole.
Also i have an nvidia GF7025 card, and when moving windows around with xfwm4
or resizing, i can see the slow refresh of the content, which is an
indicator to me of being slow.
So instead of developing a entire new WM as all the people does, what is the
reason for what the xfce developers didnt choose to use metacity and
optimice it.



>
> > They both have mostly the same theme functionalities but are not
> compatible
> > due to language conventions.
>
> Well, I really don't understand what you mean here...


Recently i was trying to use a cool gnome theme in xfce, so i started a new
one, and i am not an artist, but i made it to work by just renaming the
files. But gtk theme are more complicated to me and i abandoned it.
Also having 999 themming scheme, one for each program in the linux word, is
duplicated efforts for the artists, and differences are not too big.

> xfwm4 doesnt have any minimizing animation or any other.
>
> Well, it's a waste of time and resources, I think, especially if you
> are refering to the ugly box  animation, reminds me of window 3. YMMV
> though and you're perfectly entitled to you opinion ;)
>

It allows me to focus in my tasks instead of finding what button correspond
to the window that i have minimiced.


> > I am using openbox now, because it is much faster than xfwm4, more easy
> to
> > configure with obconf, and have a great number of themes which integrates
> > well, and also it haves some minimum animation when minimizing apps.
>
> I do not know about openbox (i am not interested in the numerous
> blackbox derivatives anyway), but xfwm4 ships with 96 themes by
> default, not counting the themes from www.xfce-look.org. But is that
> really a point? I don't think so, I am somehow dubious about the goals
> of your post here anyway.
>

I did have downloaded some themes from that page, but i found that some
themes increases the memory consumption, so i goed back to my distro
default, also it seems like my distro have remove 90 default theme, because
it only comes with a few. :(
Also some themes requires to get an xfwm4 theme, an icon theme, a gtk2
theme, etc.etc. and founding them, installing them, and with a litle of
magic it will work nicely with xfce, because most icon themes and gtk themes
are made for gnome applications.
Maybe a theme tracker for xfce will be a nice new application.

So, you prefer metacity over xfwm4 and you are using openbox, fine.


I DIDN'T say that.
If i would i wouldn't send this mail.
But i do believe that openbox-WM is better than xfwm4 when i dont require
themes with images in the title bar for the buttons.


It's your choice and free software is all about choice, so what is
> point of your post on this list, really?
>

My point is clear.
I havent found any page about why xfwm4 is different of others and who
better to ask than the xfwm4 developers?
I preffer xfce over gnome, but often i find that i need gnome applications
and i cant find any goals of xfce showing me that thoose applications will
be some day developed.
So if a DE have no defined goals, will it grow or evolve?

I didnt write this mail as an offensive. But i think that i dont really have
to clear that. Hope you understand that.

Cheers.
Diego
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