Linux.com: Blackbox: Not Your Daddy’s Window Manager

“Blackbox was begun as a side project by Brad Hughes, a member
of the Amarillo Linux Users’ Group. Brad started coding on Blackbox
while using WindowMaker as his window manager, deciding he wanted
something that took up less memory. The current version of Blackbox
available is 0.51.3.1.”

“Anthony Deaver, aka Bishop, project manager for bb.themes.org,
told me, “Blackbox has a small code base, speed, internal rendering
of graphics on the fly… instead of loading a pixmap or other
image to create title bar colorings, Brad wrote code into bb to do
it. It saves on memory and speed. BB usually has the smallest
memory footprint of any window manager.””

“I asked several people their reasons for using Blackbox. Bishop
said, “Mostly because my main machine is a laptop that only does
800×600… using any other window manager eats up too much screen
real estate. BB is minimalistic when it comes to on-screen
eye-candy.” Several members of #blackbox on irc.openprojects.net
cited stability as the main advantage. inferno77 said, “I have used
all the common window managers. I have been able to get them all to
crash… except Blackbox. Even the alpha versions. That is why
I use Blackbox now. It reflects the stability and integrity
originally intended in Linux.” cthulhain added, “Blackbox
works because it’s minimalistic… it’s not loaded with unneeded
features, it just manages windows and makes things look nice.””

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