[_pra]

He probably means he's using a simple window manager (twm, fvwm, etc) instead of the fancy everything-managers that include desktop functionality.

X alone doesn't provide that -- think back to Windows 3.1 days. You had a background, but not a desktop.

[nailer]

I figured something like that. I generally avoid using the term 'Window Manager' because none of twm, fvwm, blackbox, enlightenment, etc. only provide window management - there's almost always some included app launcher.