Blog Entry: LXDE - to replace IceWM
Last 9 years I am using IceWM as my main window manager. We even support it by providing free DNS hosting for icewm.org domain. From time to time I am checking if there is something similar available. IceWM is good, well tested and finalized thing, but I am trying to watch tendencies in a WM world. KDE, Gnome are slow and unresponsive, so I don't use them as a whole, only some programs.
Why ICEWM:
- Lightweight: fast to load, fast program execution, fast desktop switching, etc
- Easy to configure keyboard layouts
- A lot of keyboard bindinds for window movement, resizing, etc
Now, after some tests today I've found that LXDE (which is partly based on IceWM code) provides all of the above but adds more:
- Lightweight file manager
- Desktop items and settings
- Taskbar settings
- WM settings program
- Network settings
- Integration with Screenlets
So, I am putting this under heavy testing, but at my opinion right now, it looks to be very good replacement to the IceWM.
Update 2009.02.16: After a week of evaluation I have to say that LXDE is around twice slow as icewm.This is worsest showstopper - the thing which supposed to work out-of-box is not working well. Another things to notice: icewm have nice key combinations for window movement, reisize and hide which LXDE does not have.