While many Linux users have a strong preference for a window manager of choice, for those just making their way over from Windows or Mac, it may be hard to understand what a window manager is, or that it’s even something you have a choice in. A window manager is the part of your system that dictates how individual application windows look, and how you can interact with, control, and arrange them.

• Cinnamon (Muffin)
• dwm
• Enlightenment
• GNOME (Mutter)
• i3
• KDE (KWin)
• Openbox
• Unity (Compiz)
• Xfce (Xfwm)