I started using tiling window managers. What tips do you have? What packages do you use to make yours fully functional? Lost noob needs some guidance...

I decided to dive heads first into window managers and need your input for your guidance. I’m absolutely not a Linux-pro. I basically never use the terminal, just started using Github, and only used Gnome (+ KDE for 1/8th the time) for now.

I already informed myself in the last months a bit in what mess I will jump into, but that didn’t prepare me at all… Or at least not as much as I would have liked.
I find it a bit hard to get content for this topic. For Gnome or KDE for example exist trillions of videos and guides, and all TWM-content is only from and for hardcore enthusiasts who are already neck deep into that topic for decades.

One thing I already noticed is that everything is very technical. Everything is in a text file and accessed via terminal. I like that, but it’s just different.
Also, there’s no way to just learn one thing, no. You have to work yourself into many tools all at once, which is super frightening, but interesting.

First off all, I need your choice of packages to make it a fully functional desktop.

Right now, I use Niri, for now in a VM, which comes with a few basic things out of the box, like portals, and additional stuff, like some packages from Sway.
But basically everything else, like bars, decoration, and more, is not preinstalled.
When you use it the first time, it’s very barebones and no eye candy by default.

I would like to hear what “essential” stuff, and what “Because I like it”-stuff you suggest.
Maybe differentiate it with “I personally use it” and "You and everyone else should use that, it should be a default."

Personally, I would like to have:

^(£ = nice to have; ¥ = basic functionality)

  • ¥ A bar, like waybar
  • £ KDE-Connect: does that work on TWMs? Is there a good implementation? Can I use GSConnect elsewhere too?
  • ¥ A good global search tool like KRunner or the one from Gnome
  • ¥ Clipboard manager
  • £ Wallpaper switcher
  • £ Eye candy in general, e.g. dotfiles (those are the settings for each element, like the bar, right?)
  • More things will be added later :)

Also, do you have any tips for a total noob in that topic? Any things you regretted when you started and now wish others to avoid?
General usage tips for someone who only used full fletched DEs until now?

And, most importantly, do you have any resources where I can read/ watch more into for the future?
Sure, the readme.md on the projects’ page is the best information for that specifically, especially technical stuff, but I don’t know where to get more general information, like discussions, comparisons, and more. The only example I can think of is !unixporn for inspiration, but not much more. Do you have any blogs or threads you can recommend?

Thanks in advance for your help!

I plan to post a “My Linux week”-report very soon, since there has been a lot happening in the last days. I literally just “discovered” Github for example 🫠

Pantherina,

Some thoughts, never used a TWM

  • I would love to try, but never got used to workspaces and on a 14in laptop you never tile more than once horizontally, everything else is unusable with apps that have menus etc.
  • also forced tiling breaks many apps that open in their perfect size. A mix between tiling and floating is needed.
  • learning a nice minimal UI editor is key, I am still using Kate and suppose I should switch
  • there are really little Terminals with tabs outside of DEs. Alacritty is damn fast but will never get tabs. Using tmux is strange and feels overcomplicated for that, also has no tab bar.
  • I prefer many KDE apps, use all GNOME apps as Flatpaks, but Dolphin & Kate would pull in tons of dependencies. TWM users have shitty file managers in my experience, pcmanfm-qt was the second best after Dolphin but also not really great.
  • you need app systray icons, and I would also not want to live without the basic KDE systray features like volume, bluetooth, wifi. Those will just have way less features on TWMs I think.

Fedora has some Hyprland packages packaged, many more in a COPR. There is [github.com/secureblue/secureblue](secureblue with some TWMs) or the regular base github.com/wayblueorg/wayblue which has River, Hyprland, Sway and Wayfire images.

Here people can work together to create a good experience out of the box.

Regular Fedora Sway too of course, but my experience with it was very broken, and aestetically bad.

Guenther_Amanita,

Thanks for your comment!

I would love to try, but never got used to workspaces and on a 14in laptop you never tile more than once horizontally, everything else is unusable with apps that have menus etc.

Same for me. It’s supposed to be on my ultra wide screen desktop PC, on my laptop I will stay on Gnome due to the clutter free UI and the ability to change workspaces. On the other hand, you switch workspaces with keyboard shortcuts and then utilize the small screen estate better.
^but those glorious gestures on Gnome tho…

A mix between tiling and floating is needed.

There’s a mockup/ plans somewhere for Gnome for dynamic tiling. The apps then tile and arrange themselves on their prefered sizes. That’s a reason why most core apps in Libadwaita need dynamic sidebars and stuff like that, that’s their preparation :)

I prefer many KDE apps, use all GNOME apps as Flatpaks, but Dolphin & Kate would pull in tons of dependencies.

I’m a bit torn apart. Dolphin for example feels more powerful, but I usually don’t need this much functionality and prefer simplicity. But, at least for my desktop PC, where I edit photos for example, and do more stuff in general, those previews of RAW images or plugins with installed apps are just god send. You can use Distrobox for that use case tho, here’s a link to a post I made a while ago: feddit.de/post/8018330
You can install Dolphin for example in that container, but keep your host minimal.

you need app systray icons, and I would also not want to live without the basic KDE systray features like volume, bluetooth, wifi. Those will just have way less features on TWMs I think.

You can still get very powerful setups on TWMs. There are a dozen of bars with all features you need.

Fedora has some Hyprland packages packaged, many more in a COPR. There is [github.com/secureblue/secureblue](secureblue with some TWMs) or the regular base github.com/wayblueorg/wayblue which has River, Hyprland, Sway and Wayfire images. Here people can work together to create a good experience out of the box.

I am already trying to incorporate my setup with Niri (the TWM) into said uBlue images to provide a fully functional TWM-DE. I’m just currently learning how to do that, and my past tries have failed for now in the last days. But I’m onto it.

Pantherina,

Tbh I dont think Distrobox is a senseful way to run GUI apps. It works well as a workaround (firefox, qgis, rstudio, even the Ubuntu PPA VLC) but its slow and bloated.

Mixing GNOME and KDE is a bad idea, no idea what iconset many TWMs use though.

Cosmic by System76 is a tiling-optimized GNOME desktop. And they also have Epoch, which is very pre alpha but will be even better

flashgnash,

Swaybg works pretty well for me. I just configured it load ~/wallpaper.jpg and have never touched it since (if I want to change I just swap out the bg file)

Waybar is awesome, being able to use CSS for it is great and it’s pretty easy to make your own modules for it if you know your way around a shell script

As far as I’m aware for clipboard management I only installed wl-copy and wl-paste, though that’s because I use them in scripts and some software depends on them

Search tool I’m using rofi but might switch soon because a hyprland update broke the theme I was using

For most of the tiling WMs out there they are by nature very technical because the only people willing to completely change the way they use their computer are people who are already very comfortable with them

That said, I think there are all in one tilers out there that do a lot for you by default, and I believe you can install a tiling WM over KDE as well and just use its stuff

pr06lefs,

Personally I use xmonad with xfce in no-desktop mode. And I configure almost nothing.

Xfce gives me multi monitor setup/positioning, a shutdown dialog, and other niceties like mouse config. I have dmenu for starting GUI programs. Only thing that bothers me is nextcloud sync demands a taskbar in which to put its icon. Since there isn’t one, I have to cope with its login BS each time I boot up.

For pretty much anything else I go to the terminal. What time is it? type ‘date’ and press enter. Wireless? ‘sudo nmtui’. Etc. I started doing this as a way to brush up on terminal knowledge, and now I see no reason to change.

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