As for window manager, Openbox proven itself as enough small to not stay in the way (and hog the machine) but at the same time enough standards compliant to be completely controllable from scripts (wmctrl will be our good friend later in this tutorial). Also, it has great support for virtual desktops, feature that we'll need desperately as every component (TV, video and audio playback, picture viewer etc.) will be sandboxed in its own virtual desktop.
When experimenting with other window managers, consider these basic principles:
- it should be lightweight to consume as less system resources as possible - after all, we won't be using it for nothing more besides sandboxing applications in virtual desktops and bringing them to fullscreen immediately after start
- it should support "real" virtual desktops without "flipping" windows when they are dragged around desktop egdes
- it should be very standards compliant and completly controllable via wmctrl utility
There are few tiling window managers that support only fullscreen windows like Ratpoison or xmonad that should theoretically simplify our configuration, but I still didn't catch some time to play with them.
