Window Maker Live

Reader supplied reviews for Window Maker Live Average rating 9.3 from 6 review(s) What are your thoughts on Window Maker Live? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- 13.512.120.96.0-00.95.7-40.95.6-22013.06.05 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 12.12 Rating: 10 Date: 2026-07-05 Country: United Kingdom Votes: 0 WmLive was the only way I could get my 27 inch screen iMac working again following an internal HD fail. Any attempt to even use an external SSD to boot the Mac into MacOS only worked until the internal HD got a prod from the MacOS and it all fell over again. I've been a long term user of Linux and love the look and simplicity of Windowmaker, add that to Debian 13 and it's a winning package. I was able to test the install off the external thumb drive then install onto my external SSD which takes a while to boot until it bypasses the failed internal drive. After that it's speedy all the way. very stable and I get the full 4k resolution sharply rendered on the excellent iMac screen. One of the main reasons for wanting to restore this iMac. If there was one criticism it's that for some reason Debian isn't supporting external USB hard drives which is one of the things I needed it to do. WMLive, installed really is an elegant desktop and cuts out most of the bloat of many FOSS desktops and ugly graphics. I really do wonder sometimes just why they manage to make them so chunky, ugly and lacking finesse. Chromium and Firefox Developer edition run fine on this as does Obsidian and all the other Linux'y things you'd expect to find. It's my best Linux install I have by far. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 12.12 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-09-25 Votes: 5 I have always enjoyed WindowMaker and have tried WM Live in the past, but I have rarely stuck with it for very long. I installed this on a Panasonic Let's Note CF-MX5, thinking it would be fun to try for a bit, and then move on. To my surprise it has been perfect for this little laptop, and I find myself wanting to continue to use it. Everything works wonderfully, including the touchscreen. Installation was standard Debian, and boot times and usage are blazing fast. WindowMaker is highly configurable, and I have set keyboard shortcuts such that I rarely use the touchpad. Stability is fantastic and I have encountered no freezes or crashes. The only thing negative I will say is that the included Pale Moon and Otter browsers are subpar, but that was easily remedied by installing Firefox. There is also the WebSurf browser (I believe part of the GNUStep environment), which is nice for basic, non-Javascript browsing. This version of WM Live is based on Debian 12 (bookworm), but it sounds like a Debian 13 (trixie) version will be forthcoming. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 0.96.0-0 Rating: 10 Date: 2024-01-18 Votes: 9 I installed it expecting to experience some nostalgia. I used to use "Window Maker" when I was young. To my surprise, the experience was not just nostalgia but a complete desktop experience. This software has evolved to provide every comfort of a today's wordkflow. There is a system tray, a task manager, a handy dock panel, the mouse wheel works everywhere, easy and customizable. The memory footprint is extremely small for what it provides. I like that it includes the vintage WMapplications but they aren't as useful today.Maybe I'll keep some of them for some basic tasks because they're so fast and small that I can run thousands of them spending almost zero system recourses. As a system, it is a Debian Bookworm, it works, plenty of sofware, plenty of documentation, standard and solid GNU/Linux Distro, very good support everywhere. Kudos to the developers!!!! Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 6 reader reviews of Window Maker Live...