X11: raise an existing window via command line

I think xdotool will do the job.

xdotool lets you programatically (or manually) simulate keyboard input and mouse activity, move and resize windows, etc. It does this using X11's XTEST extension and other Xlib functions.

E.g.

$ xdotool windowfocus 0x1a00ad2

will focus the window with id 0x1a00ad2. There's also a windowmove command which is probably the one you're looking for.

wmctrl is slighty more advanced. It is compatible with EWMH/NetWM X window managers as you can read on their website. I don't think you'll need it to be compatible with those though.

Although you don't want to use a window manager, you might need to use a window manager.

I haven't dug into the X server sources around this, so I can't definitively say X requires a window manager to run properly. But as somebody who writes X client code, and hacks the X server, on minimalist embedded devices with small screens, low CPU power and no GPU... let's just say, all the major players in that space use one, and have good reasons for it.

If you want to avoid chewing up a lot of disk space, RAM or CPU power doing window management, you should check out matchbox. It's a low-footprint window manager designed to meet those criteria, and it's what many folks in that minimalist embedded space are using. My employer uses it on cell phones, configured so that only one app at a time is visible to the user, and the foreground app takes up the whole screen with no window borders. But you can use it other ways, too - Nokia uses it for their Maemo-based network tablets.