Best Free Window Managers

Magpie – X11 window manager and compositor library

Magpie is a X11 window manager and compositor library.

It contains functionality related to, among other things, window management, window compositing, focus tracking, workspace management, keybindings and monitor configuration.

Internally it uses a fork of Cogl, a hardware acceleration abstraction library used to simplify usage of OpenGL pipelines, as well as a fork of Clutter, a scene graph and user interface toolkit.

Magpie is a soft-fork of GNOME’s Mutter at version 43 tailored to the requirements of the Budgie Desktop 10 series (from v10.8 and later). Magpie allows mutter based desktops such as GNOME Shell to co-exist since the key-components such as libmagpie are separated by both name and file-system install location. Magpie shares some Mutter shared files; therefore these need to be delivered/installed as part of the distribution from its mutter package. Alternatively these files can be delivered using the meson option “with_shared_components” where budgie-desktop is not required to co-exist with any mutter based desktops.

Magpie is used by the Budgie Desktop as its window manager. It can also be run standalone, using the command “magpie”, but just running plain magpie is only intended for debugging purposes.

This is free and open source software.

Website: github.com/BuddiesOfBudgie/magpie
Support:
Developer: Buddies of Budgie
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

Magpie is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.


Related Software

Stacking Window Managers
OpenboxStandards compliant, fast, light-weight, extensible window manager
KWinWindow manager for the KDE Plasma Desktop
MutterWayland display server and X11 window manager and compositor library
FVWMPowerful ICCCM-compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager
berryHealthy, bite-sized window manager
xfwmPart of the Xfce desktop environment
Window MakerNeXTSTEP-like window manager
JWMJoe’s Window Manager
GalaDesigned by elementary for use with Pantheon
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evilwmMaximises screen real estate and provides good keyboard control
WormTiny, dynamic, tag-based window manager
BlackboxSimilar to the NeXT interface and Window Maker
EnlightenmentFocuses on pushing the limits of existing technologies
PekWMOriginally based on the aewm++ window manager
MarcoMATE default window manager
2bwmOffers 2 borders, and written over the XCB library
cwmOpenBSD fork of calmwn, a clean and lightweight window manager
IceWMWin95-OS/2-Motif-like window manager
SawfishExtensible window manager using an Emacs Lisp-like scripting language
MokshaModern iteration of the Enlightenment window manager
MagpieX11 window manager and compositor library
sowmItsy bitsy floating window manager
CompizOpenGL window and compositing manager

Read our verdict in the software roundup.

Compositing Window Managers
swayi3-compatible tiling Wayland compositor and a replacement for i3
KWinWindow manager for the KDE Plasma Desktop
MutterWayland display server and X11 window manager and compositor library
MokshaModern iteration of the Enlightenment window manager
xfwmPart of the Xfce desktop environment
CompizOpenGL window and compositing manager
GalaDesigned by elementary for use with Pantheon
EnlightenmentFocuses on pushing the limits of existing technologies
MagpieX11 window manager and compositor library

Read our verdict in the software roundup.

Stacking Wayland Compositors
KWinWindow manager for the KDE Plasma Desktop
Wayfire3D Wayland compositor, inspired by Compiz
labwcLab Wayland Compositor
WayboxMinimalist Wayland compositor
EnlightenmentWindow manager and desktop environment
wlmakerWayland compositor inspired by Window Maker
WestonLightweight and functional Wayland compositor
MiriwayMir based Wayland compositor
Woodlandwlroots-based window-stacking compositor for Wayland
hikariActively developed on FreeBSD but also supports Linux
croissantWritten in C
OttoVisually focused desktop system and Wayland compositor
HopalongSimple Wayland compositor with a feature set that’s comparable to XFWM

Read our verdict in the software roundup.


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