alternative window managers

[Phil Dybvig]

>i'd like to fool around with another wm. Which one would you recommend?

I like windowmaker a lot.  lean, great look and feel, works well, no little 
cartoon trash can or home icons (i'm old-fashioned), easy to configure the way I 
like it.  This is based on the much-praised next interface.  

  http://www.windowmaker.org/

The only problem is that when I run some gnome applications, nautilus hijacks 
the desktop, changes the background, etc.  To stop this, I did chown root:root 
and chmod 000 for Desktop and .gconfd.  I am sure someone here knows a less 
brutal way of keeping gnome at bay...