Open Source Linux Window Managers
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Window Managers for Linux
View 9 business solutionsBrowse free open source Window Managers and projects for Linux below. Use the toggles on the left to filter open source Window Managers by OS, license, language, programming language, and project status.
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Bodhi Linux
A minimalist, enlightened Linux distribution
Bodhi is a minimalistic, enlightened, Linux desktop. Bodhi Linux is extremely lightweight and highly customizable. Bodhi is suitable for both Linux newcomers and experienced users. The Ubuntu LTS assures stability for years and the Bodhi Team is very open to all suggestions and requests from users and willing to help. -
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Archcraft
Yet another minimal Linux distribution, based on Arch Linux.
Archcraft is an arch-based rolling-release distribution aimed at users who cares more about minimalism and aesthetics of their desktop. It comes pre-configured with various lightweight applications which makes it super fast. It can run under 500Mb of memory. There's no desktop environment in (main) Archcraft, just two highly configured window managers - Openbox and Bspwm. The default username & password is 'liveuser' for live ISO. The installer can be found in the app launcher and in openbox menu under the Application > System category, namely 'Install Archcraft'. Archcraft uses two Installers, Calamares and ABIF -
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Mabox Linux
Lightweight ready to use OpenBox Desktop Rolling-release Manjaro based
Mabox is a Manjaro based, desktop Linux distribution. The project ships with Openbox as the default desktop with pinch of customistations and home-brewed tools, like improved menu, side-panels and Mabox Control Center. Works great even on weaker computers. -
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Enlightenment is a window manager for the X11 windowing system. Its design goal is to be as configurable as possible - in look AND in feel.
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Window Maker Live
Window Maker Live Linux Distribution
Window Maker Live is an installable Linux Live ISO based on the current Trixie branch of Debian. The system uses the Window Maker window manager as the default graphical user interface. Window Maker Live's components have been carefully preconfigured and the desktop environment has a consistent visual appearance. Window Maker Live integrates selected components from other desktop environments such as XFCE4, MATE, LXQT, with a particular focus on GNUstep. The main idea behind this project is to integrate the Window Maker window manager as default user interface on top of a standard Debian/Trixie base system. It also serves as an alternate installation medium for Debian/Trixie. The second main idea not directly visible on the surface level is the inclusion of many useful command line utilities and tools for system administration. This effectively turns wmlive into a UNIX administrator's workbench for rescue and repair operations. -
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CDE - Common Desktop Environment
The Common Desktop Environment, the classic UNIX desktop
The Common Desktop Environment was created by a collaboration of Sun, HP, IBM, DEC, SCO, Fujitsu and Hitachi. Used on a selection of commercial UNIXs, it is now available as open-source software for the first time. For support, see: https://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/Home/ -
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Fluxbox is a X11 windowmanager build for speed and flexibility.
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SwayFX
SwayFX: Sway, but with eye candy
Sway is an incredible window manager, and certainly one of the most well established wayland window managers. However, it is restricted to only include the functionality that existed in i3. This fork ditches the simple wlr_renderer, and replaces it with our fx_renderer, capable of rendering with fancy GLES2 effects. -
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Bismuth
KDE Plasma add-on, that tiles your windows automatically
KDE Plasma add-on, that tiles your windows automatically and lets you manage them via keyboard, similarly to i3, Sway or dwm. Arrange your windows in different grids to minimize mouse usage. Save your time by automatically managing windows on your screen. Power up your workflow using native Plasma features - Virtual Desktops and Activities. -
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LeftWM Layouts
Library providing fixed but parameterized window layout calculations
This library encapsulates layout calculations from external dependencies and displays servers, so that it can be used by window managers for X.Org, Wayland, or whatever else. It's all about splitting up rectangles, the library has no concept of "windows". Some default layouts are provided, but custom layouts can be defined. Custom layout definitions allow some flexibility but are still fairly limited by design, as the target audience of this library is list-based / dynamic-tiling window managers (the likes of leftwm, dwm, ...) as opposed to manual tilers like i3. -
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Rectangle
Move and resize windows on macOS with keyboard shortcuts
Rectangle is a window management app based on Spectacle, written in Swift. -
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Tiling Shell
Extend Gnome Shell with advanced tiling window management
Extend Gnome Shell with advanced tiling window management. Supports multiple monitors, Windows 11 Snap Assistant, Fancy Zones, customised tiling layouts and more. This is a Gnome Shell extension implementing modern windows tiling system by extending GNOME's default 2 columns to any layout you want! Can be installed on Gnome Shells from 40 to 46 on X11 and Wayland: the most recent GNOME Shell is supported, and older releases will include all the features and bug fixes. -
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wmfocus
Visually focus windows by label
This tool allows you to rapidly choose a specific window directly without having to use the mouse or directional keyboard navigation. Thanks to cairo, it should work on all kinds of screens and automatically display at the correct size according to your DPI. -
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Mac OS X Transformation Pack. Macbuntu is an open-source program, designed to transform Linux’s appearance and layout into a Mac OS X environment. Although Macbuntu is dedicated to Ubuntu Linux OS, it could be used in other OS based on Debian/GTK
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baru
A system monitor written in Rust and C
Baru gathers the information from /sys and /proc filesystems (filled by the kernel). Except for audio and network modules that use C libraries. There is no memory leak over time. All modules are threaded. Thanks to this design (as well as Rust and C), baru is lightweight and efficient. It can run at a high refresh rate with a minimal processor footprint. The audio module communicates with the PipeWire/PulseAudio server through client API to retrieve its data. Wireless and wired modules use the netlink interface with the help of libnl to talk directly to the kernel and retrieve their data. Baru is modular. This means that only the modules you want to see are instantiated and executed. -
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batalert
Battery notifications/alerts for your favorite WM!
batalert (aka Battery Alert) is a tool, written in Ruby, to notify the users when their battery is either under-charged or over-charged. Just consider installing it and put it on cron so that you never have to worry about running out of battery in midst of your work! This is originally intended for WM users who don't get battery notifications by default, but can be used by everyone who sees its worth! Batlalert upon being set up, shall notify you when to put your battery on charging and when to unplug it too. Whilst notifying so, it also numerically mentions your battery percentage at that particular moment. -
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penrose
A library for writing an X11 tiling window manager
Penrose is a modular library for configuring your own X11 window manager in Rust. This means that, unlike most other tiling window managers, Penrose is not a binary that you install on your system. Instead, you use it like a normal dependency in your own crate for writing your own window manager. Don't worry, the top-level API is well documented and a lot of things will work out of the box, and if you fancy digging deeper you'll find lots of opportunities to customize things to your liking. Penrose was born out of my failed attempts to refactor the dwm codebase into something that I could more easily understand and hack on. While I very much admire and aim for minimalism in code, I personally feel that it becomes a problem when your code base starts playing code golf to keep things short for the sake of it. -
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xwm
A tiny XCB floating window manager
A minimal viable solution developed with single-monitor workflows in mind. Despite the small footprint, xwm maintains extensibility and can be customized to enhance the user experience. -
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A circular, oval, and spiral dock for Windows implemented in .Net using C#. It is based on the idea of pie menus but in a dock form. Official Hompage: http://circledock.wikidot.com
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LeftWM
A tiling window manager for Adventurers
Left is a tiling window manager written in rust for stability and performance. The core of left is designed to do one thing and one thing well. Be a window manager. Because you probably want more than just a black screen LeftWM is built around the concept of theming. With themes, you can choose between different bars/compositors/backgrounds/colors, whatever makes you happy. LeftWM has been built from the very beginning to support multiple screens and has been built around ultrawide monitors. You will see this with the default key bindings. -
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LinuxMint 22.3 XFCE RU/EN
Linux Mint 22.3 "Zara" XFCE (RU/EN) by KDE_MintyFlow
Custom build of Linux Mint 22.3 "Zara" featuring lightweight XFCE desktop environments. Optimized for performance and stability. Includes Russian and English languages out of the box. Pre-installed essential software and codecs. Perfect for low-end hardware and older PCs. Fast, clean, and ready to use. Авторская сборка Linux Mint 22.3 "Zara" с легкими рабочими окружениями XFCE . Оптимизирована для скорости и стабильности. Полная поддержка русского и английского языков. Предустановлен необходимый набор программ и кодеков. Идеально подходит для слабого железа и старых компьютеров. Быстрая, чистая и готова к работе сразу после установки. Протестирован на Acer Extensa 5630EZ (2Ghz 2RAM) -
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TaskbarX
TaskbarX: Customize taskbar icons with animations for a sleek Windows.
TaskbarX offers precise control over taskbar icon placement, providing a Windows dock-like ambiance. Enjoy customizable animations, speeds, and positioning options. Easily tailor your taskbar to your preferences, with support for vertical taskbars and multiple instances. Developed since May 6, 2018, under the aliases FalconX and Falcon10, TaskbarX ensures a seamless user experience. -
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Rofi
A window switcher, application launcher and dmenu replacement
Rofi started as a clone of the simple switcher, written by Sean Pringle - a popup window switcher roughly based on a super switcher. Simpleswitcher laid the foundations, and therefore Sean Pringle deserves most of the credit for this tool. Rofi (renamed, as it lost the simple property) has been extended with extra features, like an application launcher and ssh-launcher, and can act as a drop-in menu replacement, making it a very versatile tool. Rofi, like dmenu, will provide the user with a textual list of options where one or more can be selected. This can either be running an application, selecting a window, or options provided by an external script. It's not an application that can support every possible use case. It tries to be generic enough to be usable by everybody. Rofi has several built-in modes implementing common use cases and can be extended by scripts (either called from Rofi or calling Rofi) or plugins. -
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screenrotate
Small script used to automatically change the various screen rotation
This program was originally written for the Lenovo flex 5. But if your laptop has iio-sensor-proxy installed and supports it, automatic rotation should work on any laptop. Since version 1.7 I use an ASUS ROG Flow. Therefore new features and patches will be available first on the asus_rog_flow branch.
