What does a window manager do? If I have two overlapping windows and I click on the window behind, the window behind will appear on the front. What is the window manager doing in this scenario?

Question

As a Microsoft Windows user who has no idea about Linux at all, what is a window manager? If I have two overlapping windows and I click on the window behind, the window behind will appear on the front. What is the window manager doing in this scenario?

In: 2

Answer 1

Window manager is a program, that controls windows on screen. In your example, the window manager noticed that you’ve clicked on background window and decided to move it to front. Every time you minimize, maximize, resize windows, you are interacting with a window manager. When you press Alt+Tab, it is the window manager who switches the windows.

You may say: “but isn’t that just Windows doing?” Yes, in Windows, window manager is an integral part of an operating system, so you can have only one window manager – the one Microsoft have decided upon. So you don’t usually need to worry about it – until Microsoft suddenly decides that you like Metro, or something similar.

But in Linux this is not so. Window manager is just another program, that you can install and delete. So if you don’t like it, you can scrap it and install another. There are different WMs available: some are classic Windows-like, some are better designed for touchscreen, some can work without mouse, etc.