Updated 14-Jul-2024
Beneath every window-based Desktop Environment (DE) there is a windows manager. And beneath the windows manager, is a display server protocol such as X.org, Mir, and Wayland. When choosing a Desktop Environment, one can simply choose a windows manager and then add various other utilities such as menus, panels, search interfaces, configuration interfaces, etc. This is the case with Openbox in particular.
Openbox-based Desktop Environments
Openbox is a highly stable and functional window manager used in LXDE, LXQT, and other distributions, which bundle source repositories, applications, a windows manager (or not), and a full-fledged desktop environment (or not).
What Window Managers are used with which Desktop Environments?
- Cinnamon uses Muffin, a fork of Mutter (but rebased with X11, no Wayland components)
- XFCE uses xfwm4, but can use other window managers, xfwm4 has not implemented Wayland support (yet)
- Gnome uses Mutter, a Wayland compositor
- KDE Plasma 5 uses KWin, a Wayland compositor