Naive window/desktop mgr semantics question

[NoahsMyBro]

OK, I've been reading the Gnome FAQ and I just realized that I've been ignorant about a fundamental issue.

As you can see in my earlier post ( titled: Suggestion to help newbies like me ), I wrote that my window manager was IceWM, and I had changed it to Gnome.

Well, to quote the Gnome FAQ:
GNOME doesn't require you to use any one particular window manager and has no one "official" window manager.

So, what window manager am I in fact using now?

(Background - user account .desktop file specified to use KDE as the desktop. KDE wasn't installed, so Mdk9.0 had me use IceWM as default. I altered the .desktop file to point to GNOME instead.)

And, what exactly is the relationship between a window manager and something like KDE or GNOME, which I guess would more accurately be called 'desktops', right?

Thanks,
Steve

[hop-frog]

You are probably using the Metacity window manager along with GNOME 2. You can change the window manager if you want, but Metacity is a good one.

A window manager creates the window's border decorations and it manages window placement.

Desktops typically provide the icons and other methods for launching programs, a panel and taskbar, and some common utilities (such as a file manager). When using GNOME, KDE, XFce, or ROX desktops you must use a window manager along with them in order for them to work properly.

Some window managers are more like desktops which can be confusing. IceWM and Window Maker provide configuration utilities, root menus, taskbars, support for applets, etc.