The Ubuntu Linux distribution has come a long way with the development of the Unity desktop interface that is built on top of the Gnome Shell desktop interface and looks just like the Apple Macintosh interface. The awesome window manager is a better choice for dual monitors, that is what I am using at the moment instead of Xfce4. Awesome WM, being a tiling window manager, is a very fast and sleek desktop interface that is another option for someone that wants a desktop window manager that is faster than Ubuntu and Xubuntu-desktop. Type sudo apt-get install awesome awesome-extra to install this very fast and usable desktop window manager. The Larswm window manager is another option for a very fast and ultra-reliable window manager for your Linux or UNIX desktop. I have been thinking of installing FreeBSD on my Netbook to replace the Linux Mint Debian edition that I currently running, but I am thinking that Debian Squeeze or Debian Testing might be a better choice. Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Chrunchbang are based on the Debian distribution and use the apt package management system for installing packages onto your system. Fedora uses the Red Hat Package Management system or RPM. I prefer the apt system over the RPM system. The YUM system that Fedora offers is very annoying, it wants to load updates every time you wish to install a package.
But if you are using apt; you only need to check for updates when you are running the sudo apt-get update command. That makes it less painful to use. It is a good idea to install all updates as often as possible; this makes sure that all security updates are installed and your system will be up to date. Another good tiling window manager that is very simple is dwm, this is a very simplistic window manager that provides a very fast and sleek desktop. There is a screenshot of the dwm window manager to the right.
While it is not strictly a tiling window manager; the 9wm window manager still deserves a mention. This is an implementation of the Plan 9 window manager for Linux that attempts to emulate as closely as possible the original Plan 9 desktop interface.
There are others out there. Larswm is one that is very fast and configurable; but there is another good tiling window manager; euclid-wm; this provides a keyboard only interface to control the tiling window manager.
Ion. This is a tabbed tiling window manager that is another very fast and configurable option if you want to run a fast and smooth desktop.
Wmii. This is another option for a tiling window manager. This was developed by the same author of the dwm window manager.
Yet another tiling window manager for Xorg. Lunchbox is a dynamic tiling window manager that you could try.
Also there is Ratpoison; a keyboard driven tiling window manager for Xorg. This is similar to the GNU Screen application for the virtual consoles. Here is the Usenet post that inspired the name Ratpoison.