Window Managers

From MythTV Official Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search

Although it is possible to run the stand-alone Mythfrontend without a window manager, it is not a supported configuration. It is also generally not recommended if you need or want to start external programs, like Xine or MPlayer from MythVideo, as you will need a window manager to get the new window visible. In addition, certain other system support activities require a window manager.

Your choice of window manager should take into account whether this is a multi-purpose workstation that just happens to run the MythTV frontend, or whether this is a decided MythTV frontend, and what, if any, support is provided by your chosen distribution.

If your system is severely resource constrained one should strongly consider use of one of the light weight windows managers documented in the following section.

Window managers in use

The first three are strictly speaking Desktop Environments, but that includes a window manager.

  • KDE, a recommended desktop environment for Linux workstation use.
  • Gnome, a recommended desktop environment for Linux workstation use.
  • XFCE and XFCE4, lighter weight, though 4.0.4 and 4.0.5 have been reported to have problems with focus of MPlayer, Xine and Ogle.

Lightweight window managers for dedicated MythTV frontend boxes

A dedicated MythTV frontend system has no need of the CPU and memory utilization of a full Desktop Environment and a smaller lightweight window manager such as these can result in a lower resource usage.

  • IceWM A very small and configurable window manager
  • Fluxbox, a BlackBox based window manager that is much lighter than KDE but with a good feature set
  • Ratpoison extremely light weight windowmanager, works fine with external programs.
  • EvilWM, no borders, window decorations or icons. Small binary size.