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Can someone explain in simple words what is xmonad? Is it used together with X? Instead of gnome or xfce? Or instead of X?

• tikhonj 14y ago
  It's a window manager. That is, all it does is draw and position windows for your programs. It serves the same role as KWin in KDE or Metacity in Gnome. There are some important differences between XMonad and normal window managers. In XMonad, you cannot drag windows around and they cannot overlap. Instead, the windows are positioned automatically and can be controlled with some simple keyboard commands. Additionally, XMonad lets you configure its behavior--how it lays its windows out--with Haskell, a very nice functional programming language. You can use XMonad with an existing environment like Gnome; you would then have tiling windows that do not overlap with all of the normal Gnome features you're used to. However, XMonad can also run alone for a more minimal environment where you do not have extra panels and menus and use the keyboard much more often than the mouse. Everybody I know that has used XMonad really likes it. It really makes you more productive by managing windows for you--you don't have to drag them yourself. If you have some spare time, you should try it out and learn the basics. It's also a good excuse to learn Haskell, which is an insanely awesome language and great fun.