Lightweight X11 Window Managers (X Window System)

[2009/09]
This excludes twm/fvwm which are far too primitive and LXDE which despite its name depends on GNOME.

Intro

Ubuntu Linux is great, but once installed, your system will be burdened with 200+ processes from with GNOME and other bloatware. FreeBSD has only 20..30 processes running after a pristine install. I want a UNIX that is sleek and fast. The FreeBSD ports listed here were selected for having moderately-sized dependencies.

IceWM

IceWM is the most light-weight manager (that is decent). IceWM has an easy-to-configure taskbar, themes, and virtual desktops -- and nothing else. If you want a lightweight file manager, consider XFE.

make -C /usr/ports/x11-wm/icewm install &&  # optionally edit Makefile BEASTIE = on
make -C /usr/ports/x11-fm/xfe install &&
make -C /usr/ports/x11/xscreensaver install &&
make -C /usr/ports/graphics/epdfview install

Xfce

Xfce is the lightest-weight window manager that has a "messy desktop".

Xfce will require some system-wide configuration for its menu. For example, on FreeBSD, some essential programs such as xcalc won't be included in the Xfce menu. Though, configuring Xfce using tools specified by freedesktop.org is easy.

xdg-desktop-menu install --novendor xcalc.desktop

xcalc.desktop:
[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Office
Comment=Calculator
Exec=xcalc
Icon=gnome-calculator
Name=Calculator
Terminal=false
Type=Application

make -C /usr/ports/x11/xfce4 install &&
make -C /usr/ports/graphics/ristretto install &&
make -C /usr/ports/x11/xfce4-taskmanager install &&
make -C /usr/ports/textproc/xfce4-dict-plugin install &&
make -C /usr/ports/misc/xfce4-weather-plugin install &&
make -C /usr/ports/deskutils/xfce4-notes-plugin install &&
make -C /usr/ports/misc/xfce4-artwork install &&
make -C /usr/ports/multimedia/xfce4-media install &&
make -C /usr/ports/sysutils/xfce4-minicmd-plugin install &&
make -C /usr/ports/x11/xfce4-screenshooter-plugin install &&
make -C /usr/ports/devel/xdg-utils install