There are a lot of contenders in the ring when it comes to open source desktop environments. The most well known would probably be Gnome and KDE in the heavyweight class, XFCE for middleweight, and any number of small, fast desktop environments and window managers in the lightweight ring. When it comes to the lightweight options, it’s no secret I’m a Window Maker fanboy. Recently, I’d been hearing more and more about a new challenger for the lightweight crown, LXDE. Can it stack up against the likes of Window Maker, Enlightenment, and Openbox? I decided to find out.

Gnome, KDE and XFCE users will have no problem changing the wallpaper on their desktop. However, if you are using a lightweight desktop manager such Openbox or Fluxbox, you will find that there is no way that you can set the wallpaper for your desktop. In this case, Nitrogen will come in handy.

Nitrogen is a simple, lightweight application that allows you to change the background of your desktop. Some of its key features include support for Multihead and Xinerama, a recall mode that can remember the last wallpaper set and command line mode for script use.