Why I Use Tiling Window Managers - And Why You Should Too

[@TheLinuxCast]

I release an exclujsive podcast for my patrons! This week I talked about pywal. Check it out patreon.com/thelinuxcast

[@Shywizz]

s/jsive/sive

[@pradnyeshmate1317]

i would love it if you would tell your pc specs in a video because using 19 workspaces i think would require a really really beefy computer and a real good processor to handle process working behind i might be wrong correct me if i'm

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@pradnyeshmate1317 I have a Ryzen 3800 and a 6750xt with 64GB of ram

[@peppe540]

I moved partially to WM's but I also love the ootb of a bare bone Plasma. Having said that: keybinds? Yes, absolutely! For applications and basic window actions I use the same keybinds across any environment (KDE, dk, OpenBox, bspwm, Cinnamon whatever). Workspaces? Love it. For me 5 are enough, and I have always the same (type of) application on the same workspace anywhere (browser on 1, terminal on 2 etc, torrent on 5, you get it). All that has improved my workflow tremendously and indeed kept me out of RSI in the pandemic. Every now and then I do need my floaters though ;-)

[@ssvjahnforever9424]

I use hyprland as a tilling window manager. Hyprland is really awesome and have very cool animations. For rounded corners you must only set this in the config and you get this. The only thing that be a problem is screen sharing in Arch.

[@afroceltduck]

I'm now a TWM user mostly thanks to you (your i3wm videos especially). When I used Windows, I was always searching for an easier way to resize and rearrange windows on the screen. Well, this is it. This is the easier way. All I had to do was switch to Linux and have an open mind.

[@chesshooligan1282]

Autohotkey.

[@nomadic_shadow]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Matt. I’m using arch and I’m in the process of really figuring out my ideal workflow so it’s helpful to hear your perspective.

[@zizlog_sound]

I realized that we spend so much time moving app windows around and arrange them to our liking before the actual work begins. That’s where TWM come in. I only spend a couple hours on Qtile for now and quite like it. What I don’t appreciate is that, key bindings are pretty much the opposite to NTWM.

[@raiden3058]

I think many productivity junkies or people who just need more spaces for work would really not mind the transition to a tilingWM. Studying in uni I have markdown apps open, file managers, documents, notes, textbook pdfs, music, and even a pomodoro timer open. On windows I would constantly snap edges together and mouse around like a pleb trying to get the perfect ratios of stuff on one window. On mac OS I would constantly open up new spaces and trackpad between them when all my stuff was open. The most similar work experience is probably IpadOS lol, since all you can do on there is open apps and split them between each other. Thus, when I switched to hyprland on a laptop I was using to run linux on I got the hang of it once I got to familiarize myself with all the keybinds. Productivity rose tenfold since I was working on a smoother wm, along with the typical benefits of linux such as power efficiency, speed, and lack of bloat.

[@zenbrandon]

Dude, you're super well-spoken and your video quality is excellent! I'm glad I found your channel

[@lqlarry]

Very good video! Probably one of the best videos explaining tiling window managers I've seen.

[@anon_y_mousse]

I may be the only one that uses 12 workspaces with KDE, and I've got a lot of shortcut keys setup. I use the numpad with the modifier key to push windows around, [1379] for corners, [8462] for [top left right bottom] and of course 5 to full screen, which is the only one I duplicated to the number row. I can open an app on any desktop and shift it immediately to any other. When I'm writing code I usually have at least 2, sometimes 4 terminals open on whichever desktop I'm on, and whichever ones have vim usually have multiple tabs. Although I'll admit my most common usage pattern is two terminals side by side, one has all the headers opened in a series of tabs, the other all the implementations.

[@neilpatrickhairless]

Nice

[@f.d.6675]

Absolutely the best video on tiling WM. You are the only one that tells why you prefer it, that's exactly what I was wondering on all the other videos.

[@widenbtw892]

Really appreciate the continued enthusiasm for, and evangelization of qtile. It really is that good

[@handboy123456789]

Been using i3 for about a week now, been loving it so far. Customized a whole bunch of stuff and polybar

[@gregcampwriter]

The desktop environment feels like shuffling among open books stacked on a physical surface, which is how I grew up doing research in school. But all but one class for me was in the last century. As you say, one great thing about Linux is that we're not all obliged to adopt the same setup, and given all the things I have to do--and will have to learn at some point--tiling window managers are something that I'll keep for the mythical future when I have some free time.

[@RenderingUser]

That's interesting. I had the polar opposite experience. The main reason I started using tiling window mangers is specially because of my studies. I use a separate desktop for each subject and have each windows setup in specific ways so I'm ready any time

[@ultravioletiris6241]

@@RenderingUser very optimized 🤓

[@RenderingUser]

@@ultravioletiris6241 indeed it is

[@ultravioletiris6241]

@@RenderingUser Personally i have a dedicated VM set up for each subject of study on my server, each with OS and DE and apps dedicated to their subject. And I use a thin client with multiple monitors to connect to the server via guacamole, kasm and proxmox, which allows each VM to be remote-controlled from inside of browser windows/tabs. And of course my IDE is a Gentoo VM with Neovim with Lunarvim, and tmux, and a waifu themed tiling manager with matching waifu oh-my-zsh shell theme. What do you think?

[@RenderingUser]

@@ultravioletiris6241 defiantly a certified r/masterhacker moment

[@Wulfsbane74]

I been using linux since 1995. I mostly used plasma on my main work station. On my laptop that have low resources I used sway on it. Sway was first wm I did not hate at start so I took time to learn it more.

[@Prophet6000]

I gave tiling window managers a shot with a KDE plugin and then tried AWESOME. But I couldn't get Awesome looking that nice. I gave BSPWM a shot and I've been happy ever since. I love having monitors have their own workspaces and keyboard shortcuts just feel great.

[@toranshaw4029]

Could be a good summer project to get used to a WM by the time the next academic year comes around. 🤔

[@mylinuxforwork]

Qtile is really great. My favorite window manager too. Stable, expandable and fast. Even better with polybar. Just hide the Qtile bar and start polybar in the autostart script.

[@OcteractSG]

Laptop touchpads partially get rid of the break in workflow that comes from reaching for a mouse. Also, the use of workspaces in a tiler creates a paradox. On one hand, the tiling window manager is lightweight, but the user’s habits with it make heavy use of system resources. On the other hand, the floating window manager (and accompanying desktop encryption) are heavier, but the user won’t have as many things open, which makes lighter use if resources.

[@JoseMartinez-iq3xq]

I understand perfectly your reflection, for example, most of my time is spent modeling in 3D in Blender and I upload them to blenderkit, and in my experience the best performance I get modeling is through keyboard shortcuts. By the way, since you are a historian, I made a model of an antique telephone from the late 1800's, but the bell I put in was a model of the liberty bell in Philadelphia, since I found the story about its founding fascinating.

[@corrie1688]

i have never used tiling managers, i have spent the last week getting hyprland configured and i can honestly say xfce has always been my fave DE but now i am a tiling window manager enthusiast :)

[@rhwinner]

As a longtime Fluxbox and Openbox user (floating WMs) I appreciate you making this video.

[@kylewillett9817]

Fluxbox doesn't get near enough love, it is a great WM. I can live in it almost as easily as Xfce4 series desktops. In fact, I keep some old computers around for I tell myself an emergency use that have gentoo custom compiled down to the hardware, they are i686 machines with 2GB of RAM, and fluxbox preinstalled on them.

[@k.b.tidwell]

I like multi-monitor setups over this because I like to see literally everything at once. But, of course, you can only have so many monitors. So I use multiple laptops with multiple laptops lol. My biggest challenge with Linux is to keep my focus on my actual work instead of my operating systems adjustments. All this said, I really want to get into Openbox because I have a secret love of Mabox, the most beautiful distro I've ever seen.

[@TheEycer1995]

As always great information in your videos, I've been using i3wm for a few months now (after following some of your guides) and is awesome, I really like the workflow. Thanks for sharing.

[@thomaslytje8656]

You got it all backward. Awesome is a tiling Windows Manager. Jokes aside - I agree! Tiling VM is my number one reason to drop Win and use Linux. There are quite a lot of other reasons, but Tiling VM is just way more effective and natural.

[@debiprasaddas9699]

I have switched to tiling window manager yesterday, now this😺

[@YrmiZ]

For me biggest wow-moment in Linux was to discover worksspaces and that lead me to Window managers and I never looked back to regular DE:s.

[@martinmedrano6449]

I just got back into Linux and your videos on i3 were very helpful. Thanks Matt!

[@andyyiu3987]

I switched over to TWMs a few months ago, and it has been a lot of fun. This said, it is a very DIY experience, and if I were to be honest with myself, TWMs are probably not suitable for the vast majority of computer users. While window managers are great for keyboard oriented workflows, and for learning Linux in general, it lacks the intuitiveness of conventional DEs, and can very much be a time sink as pointed out.

[@samuelitooooo]

I'm on KDE Plasma right now (which has many more options for keybindings than GNOME, might I add) and some of what you're saying is true for me. I have three workspaces and don't like having more than three windows in a single workspace. I *do* close apps, but that's because I'm on old hardware, to say the least; otherwise I'd love to leave my browser up all the time.

[@Doomsdayparade]

There's a part of me that wants to deep dive making the perfect Linux setup with a TWM. Then there's the other part of me that barely has a couple hours a day to do so, and I'm still working on learning C lol

[@kdato774]

My answer to clutter is two things. 1) three monitors. 2) mouse hover on widow title, then mouse wheel to shade and unshade. Easy, quick, no tiling fuzz.

[@onred_]

We’ll see if I can get used to a keyboard-centric OS with a 60% keyboard. Most of the default binds don’t work for me, but it will take a lot of effort to figure out binds that work. For now I’ve enjoyed using super + z/x to go left and right between workspaces. Nice one-handed switching.

[@nizzuta2611]

In most desktop environments you can change almost all the key bindings. And in tiling wm's defining your key binds is an essential part of using them

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

I agree with you, I also came to similar setup, 99% of the time you work in a single window, and most of the time you want it to open in the center of your vision/monitor.

[@benjy288]

That's not me, very often I'll have at least 2 windows open, sometimes I'll have more than 4 windows open.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

@@benjy288 I always have 5+ windows open, but I *work* in only one of them at a time, very rarely I need to compare something between two windows, I also don't use drag and drop technique.

[@lucasvillani5484]

The key bindings is what gets me. It's so easy to do everything with key bindings, it always feels like you're gaining time not having to look for the right thing to click.

[@MattRBX]

I basically only use KDE at this moment in time but I just tried hyprland for the first time and after some practice I found tiling to have a way better workflow and I basically didn't have to use my mouse at all. I think the better workflow is mostly down to users not having to struggle to aim their mouse at tiny icons to click them and drag and all that hassle they can just press a few buttons on their keyboard and have their desktop looking exactly how they want it to.

[@A_G420]

I was scared of them for a long time then I actually put the effort in to learn & installed i3 on my 2 systems like 1.5 years ago & got hooked. Fast forward & I have been using Hyprland on both systems for the last 6 months & don't think I can ever go back to a general DE again. At work I have to use Windows & can see why there are people out there that shake babies.

[@denizkendirci]

once you go Ratpoison, you never go back. 08:08 you don't need gazillion workspaces Matt, you need ratpoison. or at least use your tiling wm on monocle layout. i don't split the screen for applications, though. i use everything fullscreen. i don't have much programs to switch between anyways. there are only 3 programs (terminal emulator, firefox and mpv) that might be opened at the same time. that's why i don't need tags or workspaces, all i need one workspace. and i very rarely touch the mouse while i'm on linux. all i need from my linux installition is below: minimal arch or void installation + ratpoison + alacritty + rofi + vim + firefox + mpv + feh + picom + ranger + zsh. i don't install more packages than that.

[@209_Violate]

i'm a huge fan of zero mouse OS interaction. i love using hotkeys, but linux is quite a daunting OS. but i think because of you Matt, i'm sticking to Linux, after being a slave to windows for so long haha. you make the experience of switching to a new system relaxing :)

[@JackWill.]

I’m new to window tiling managers and linux in general, what’s a good distro and wm to start off with? I wanna give Linux my all

[@devbites77]

Great to hear about your experience using them. I just started exploring them myself, starting with i3 because that is the one I've heard most about. Curious about xmonad and how it compares to Qtile.

[@Skelterbane69]

That's a beautiful wallpaper.

[@chrisMuc1966]

"One of the symptoms of late stage linux autism is using a window manager." Mental Outlaw in his video "How to Get a Window Manager on ANY Distro" from 19th October 2020, time code: 0:09

[@lucasvillani5484]

MentalOutlaw is way too based 🔥

[@nymusicman]

If you are worried about going whole hog into a TWM, Plasma + Bismuth is wonderful.

[@bzedude4]

I switched to Gnome recently because I had trouble with window managers in Wayland. It actually feels and looks great with a mix libadwaita and terminal apps. All the scripts I used in dwm are still useful in Gnome too (using wofi). I miss the tiling of course haha

[@MyAmazingUsername]

You don't have to miss Tiling. Tiling Assistant solves it. Be sure to set it to "Dynamic Keybinds: Window Focus" so it lets you change focus between tiles easily.

[@forrestorange]

Hmm, isn't Gnome workspace oriented? At least for me it feels like it is, it made me start using them, usually 3-4 as you say. Made the whole Gnome experience so much more enjoyable.

[@lucas7061]

It's indeed workspace oriented too.

[@HikingFeral]

I'm the same, I like to have several apps open across 2 monitors, I don't use a tiling manager yet but will deffo have a look. Part of the reason I got 32GB of RAM was so I could have Firefox open with 5 tabs, file manager, system monitor etc whist gaming. Has 0 effect on my fps.

[@AM-yk5yd]

I've switched to tiling window manager because 1) I realized I use KDE in tile mode: firefox on left, skype on right. I need to see both at the same time due to work 2) KDE is resource intensive according to my btop and fan noise.

[@whiskeylinux]

Ok I like the scratchpad too, gonna have to try qtile. Thanks.

[@lolimgamaya1983]

Could you share your custom terminal and wallpaper please? I really loved them

[@Mantikal]

A cosmetic question - I like to watch videos with video player apps that allow switching to "minimalist view" - where the all the controls disappear and all that's left is just the video frame.. Does the titling window manager allow one to create a separate window that can custom conform to the aspect ratio of the video player app, in minimalist view, or is one stuck having to use a floating window for that?

[@ahsanhabib3193]

Really cool rice Matt. Do you mind making a video on ricing your version of qtile.... Or just going through your config ?? Cause you are probably one of few youtubers who explains things in a sensible way...

[@oneilmw]

13:04 eleven months later: Oh, my muffins are done, thanks for the timer! Muffin be my fave

[@kdato774]

I gave tiling a serious try in the past. Fo the love of it, I could not get used to Full Screen All The Time and then windows changing size the more windows there are. Also, staying with the keyboard all the time doesn't work well if you use GUI applications a lot. Tiling is over-hyped because it looks cool.

[@slvcontentfwd]

I think they're only over-hyped in a general context. They certainly aren't the ONLY good solution, but I personally prefer using BSPWM over a regular DE because it makes my desktop cleaner and easier to manage. Rather than having a messy stack of windows that I have to move around, things just adjust on their own. Too little space? I switch to another desktop. I personally have removed a lot of features from the keybind manager though, such as manual sizing and pre-selection. I didn't use them anyway and they make the WM more confusing.

[@lucasvillani5484]

Tiling does not invalidate GUI applications! Windows has tiling now and, although it's messy and buggy, I see my friends that don't use Linux going with Windows tiling all the time. Tiling makes working with multiple windows for a project easier, but it has some cons like, if your screen is not that big, like a laptop screen, tiling does not make that much of a difference. But you gotta believe me after you get used to it, it's infuriating using windows again and having to deal with the time waste of looking for the stuff you need to click all the time.

[@TheUncannyObserver]

I would love to use a TWM. I really like Hyprland. It's just a pity none of the newer TWMs work with NVIDIA and Electron apps like VSCode, Obsidian, or Steam, three apps which I can't do without. And since nobody can figure out what the issue is to fix it, until they do I'm sticking with KDE so I can actually use my laptop.

[@max_masterius]

Thanks for sharing Krusader thing ❤ I should try that

[@TheGroundScore]

i really enjoy your channel keep it up

[@Kwijibob]

Corner snapping in KDE gives easy instant tile-ability on demand. I don't see the need for a workspace that is limited only to that.

[@ultravioletiris6241]

@Darth Vader Some people spend hours clicking around a GUI, and some people spend hours learning the keybinds on Vim. I wouldnt say either is superior sheerly on the basis of being “faster”

[@ultravioletiris6241]

@@akashp01 Yea I wouldn’t be surprised at all if all of the features of a tiling manager can soon be added to existing distros+DEs with a single app or config. People mostly like the ability to work with keybindings and have granular control of the workflow layout, and these features actually exist in many OS/distros already. For example MS powertoys has a utility that lets you fully customize the behavior of window snapping and tiled layout. MS powertoys also lets you control even more with hotkey only. I would be most likely to use a tiling manager for a system where i want a minimal GUI without the higher resource consumption that DEs usually have. People who say tiling managers are ubiquitously good for all situations have the same energy as people who say *”I use Arch btw”*

[@ultravioletiris6241]

@Darth Vader lol yea , in theory. In practice a dead open source app is a huge risk for creating vulnerabilities in your system. Many of the best open source apps are way too complicated to be properly forked and kept up with after the original project dies. Its cool to be optimistic about FOSS but the reality is that many of the projects just die, and many of the projects become threat vectors if installed too long after the software stops being updated.

[@MyAmazingUsername]

​​​@@akashp01 I will never understand the forced Tiling weirdos. Why would anyone want every window to stretch to the entire screen size? I use Tiling Assistant, which lets me tile via corners or keyboard shortcuts when I actually need it, which is basically never. And Matt talks about switching workspaces with a keyboard shortcut. I guess he has never heard about Alt-Tab to switch between layered/overlapping apps instead. Literally zero reason to use forced tiling. If I have a lot of work stuff, I might place some on another workspace just to make it easy to context switch between the related tasks. That's it. No reason to stretch everything to fullscreen.

[@mthalter]

​@@akashp01 You do realise that Wayland is a display server protocol, and that it has very little practical to do with the great tiling vs floating window manager debate, right? Wayland also has tiling compositors like Sway, riverwm and Hyprland and one could say Wayland is more suited for tiling wm than xorg. Tiling wm provide a very specific workflow that many people do like. I find it ironic that you give vim a pass but not tiling wm when vim is an ancient piece of software that's supposed to be replaced by the likes of VS Code and yet it still remains a popular text editor. If you like floating window managers, that's fine. But you don't get to ignorantly dunk on an entire paradigm just because you're not using it.

[@RenderingUser]

Eyyy Fellow Qtile user here

[@liyangau]

The first time I tried i3, I could not even figure out how to set up hidip (4k display, 200% scale) properly so I switched back to gnome...

[@greninjagreg6245]

I have some questions about tiling window managers. So does this run efficiently... Also couldn't you implement a way to quote "pause' the tiling window manager while not in use? If it not already doing that. Wouldn't that boost performance??

[@bhavyakukkar]

the tiling window manager replaces your average desktop environment, not sit on top of it. so yes it constantly has to run in memory

[@daixso]

Do you have a video of or dot files for that rice? It looks absolutely stunning

[@2u263]

What is your base distro? What about ANTI-X with ICE to learn about tiling? What do you do in Discord? thank you for your video

[@ThecatThecat-hq1op]

I remember when they first added workspace to windows and I used them all of the time. Sadly, after an update they made it very slow and I completely stopped using them all together.

[@oalfodr]

Last time I used KDE, workspaces were tied to all monitors. Meaning when you switch workspace on one monitor, all of monitors switched. That was terrible. I do not keep a lot of stuff open. No need to keep open programs that start instantly or you won't use for a while.

[@max_masterius]

Tiling manager using python? ❤ Wow! I've mainly been using i3, awesome and different gui and I can say Python inside is amazing! I should have try this thing.

[@anima94]

I use gnome and constantly switch via keybindings, I still don't really see any advantage with tiling window managers as they seem to just do the same but less of it

[@edrodgers1258]

I think we could be very productive through optimizing workflows in most environments, but let’s just admit that it’s not about productivity. It’s about tinkering with cool things.

[@for.you.tube.]

@@edrodgers1258 it's about being superior to your coworkers

[@OpenSingularity]

Thank so much for the content, do you have any new thought thought about AwesomeWM love to hear you notes man (I know lua can't stop you).

[@justcalres]

do you have any experience of using tiling window manager with multiple monitors ?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Every single day,

[@johanb.7869]

No need for a tiling window manager because Thunderbird and Firefox are the only two I always have opened and besides I like using the mouse.

[@sweetbabyalaska]

Using a tiling window manager at first is very awkward, you dont know the keybinds, the windows seem "stuck" and it feels weird. I highly recommend that everyone who uses one set up their own key binds, that way you know what to do and you don't get stuck and frustrated. Just keep it simple and set the few that you know you will use/need. After that its awesome, every application has its own place to sit. AwesomeWM is amazing because every workspace is independent of the monitor so you basically can have one monitor playing youtube and switch around to Firefox on 1 Krita on 2, discord on 3 and terminal on your 2nd monitor...

[@Timm2003]

gnome is great for using multiple workspaces, had between 8 and a lot workspaces, now i use 9, 5 are always used [ferdium, keepassxc, firefox, sleek, nautilus]. But yea, tried out bspwm on my notebook (with openBSD) and i really saw that u NEED workspaces.

[@ronslayton5270]

I switch between cinnamon and windowmaker. Used to use windowmaker at work in the early 2000's.

[@chuckmuckamuck8001]

Not 18, not 20 but 19. Prime number for the win!

[@TheLinuxCast]

You know, there was a reason why I went with 19, I think it's because 0 would be workspace 10, so there wouldn't be a good binding for workspace 20. But I don't really remember

[@michaelwrest6145]

Some tasks such as photo editing would surely be difficult if not impossible without a mouse.

[@Linuxdirk]

A few years ago I used wmii for some time. But since I got a 4K 28" screen and I don’t want to have windows covering all that space. I usually have 1-2 windows open at max, and having a browser constantly in fullscreen is just not the right thing for me. So I ended up adding “padding windows” or have most windows in floating mode. For small screens and low resolutions (1080p and under) tiling is great in my opinion, but for larger screens absolutely not.

[@heroe1486]

Tiling actually shines when you have a big screen since you can use all that space in an efficient way and have tons of windows at the same time while still being usable. Tiling is actually less useful on a small screen since you'd rarely have more than 1 window open on a workspace, but you can still use tiling wm like i3 on tabbed mode, tiling wm aren't just good at tiling but also managing workspaces and giving a keyboard driven experience (both KDE and Gnome are shitty at that and don't have independent workspaces per monitor), and most also have a floating mode when needed. I once git an LG wide screen and tiling was even better there. Actually most people using tiling wm probably have big screens and multiple monitors The correct way to put it is maybe that you don't have complex needs and thus few windows opened, thus the not that usefulness of a tiling wm.

[@sumirandahal76]

used Pop!_OS for over few years and switched to vanilla i3 and now using bspwm, next one I will be hooking up with qtile. At the same time , I will be writing some code with python.

[@tambuchalinux]

Maybe I will challenge myself to use i3 for 1 week..thanks for the great video!

[@DenisNjagi-r7w]

Bro how got in Linux still cant tell 17 workspaces is crazyy

[@mustafababdullah2485]

How long is your and jacks challenge?

[@esra_erimez]

Matt, would you consider doing a video about KDE 5.27 tiling support?

[@TheLinuxCast]

If it weren't so buggy, probably. I had one planned when it first came out, but it was too buggy. I may look again.

[@ytbone9430]

I see people switch between the same two windows by using the mouse a lot, the Alt-Tab solution, which is around for 25+ years has still not made it into many users habits. I think just using Alt-Tab generates a dynamic workspace, because the last applications you used, are always at the top of the Alt-Tab stack. Unfortunately many modern Alt-Tab implementations bring up huge application thumbnails to switch between. I think this is a bad idea and I always revert to the Win2000 style of the Alt-Tab switcher. Just using simple Icons to identify the applications to switch to is way more efficient than trying to decide on huge "thumbnails" of application instances, because the thumbnails basically look the same anyway most of the time because of dark mode and application layout being quite similar in general. Application Icons on the other hand are not similar and very easy to tell apart in a small window in the centre of the screen. If you use 90% of the applications maximized anyway, you don't really need a window manager, do you? Some terminal windows might still be floating, but that's ok. Setting up dedicated desktops / workspaces never worked for me, since I always need a browser, a file manager, an editor, a remote desktop session and the terminal. Just using Alt-Tab to mix in another application here and there is perfect I think as it creates a fluid transition between the applications you are using the most in the current work step. I recently watched a video on how to "switch applications on a Mac laptop efficiently", the guy in the video used two and three and whatnot amount of finger gestures on the touch pad to bring up multiple window / task switchers and I thought "man, you're really making it harder than it is"! o) A bit of that feeling came up when watching this video. It was nevertheless interesting, as I like to find out how people are using Linux and how their workflow looks like. Thank you! o)

[@gintokisakata7490]

Tiling window managers are not good if you are using a huge screen/monitor. Opening a window in fullscreen results in a very huge window, where you type in the upper left corner of your screen and for that you have to move your head in that direction and let it stay like that. Thats pretty nasty. Therefore it is way better to not let your application open at fullscreen by default. It is better to let it open in the middle and let some minor important windows circle/float around them. Same goes for more futuristic methods like VR/AR. Its also nice to see some of your background (or the real world in case of AR) between your windows. ^^ But that does not mean that tiling is bad. Its great on small screens and also on big screens if you need alot of somehow evenly important windows at the same time where you have to switch between them alot. But for this kind of work you can just go to another workspace and enable/disable tiling to your needs. So I think tiling window managers are not the best. The best window manager is one that can do both very good. I personally would like to have a great combination of wayfire and hyprland. ;)

[@smorrow]

If tiling is good for small screens, why didn't it take off when we all had 1024x768? If my screen is that small, I definitely don't want a non-overlapping constraint forcing all of my windows to be smaller than otherwise.

[@Bruces-Eclectic-World]

Hahaha... I use 12 work spaces and no more than 2 per work space. I do use a DE but I find it way to slow... Lol Thanks Matt! LLAP 🖖

[@anon_y_mousse]

Cool, so do I. I use the function keys with my main modifier to do instant switches from one to another. Do you also have shortcut keys to push windows into tiled positions?

[@Bruces-Eclectic-World]

@@anon_y_mousse If I understand, the answer is no, LeftWm tiles the window as I open then on the workspace. I do have keybindings to rotate the tiles in the workspace. Did the answer your question? LLAP 🖖

[@anon_y_mousse]

@@Bruces-Eclectic-World Yep. I suppose I could write a script to do the same with KDE, but just pushing windows where I want is generally good enough since I want things where I put them and never change that.

[@HybridShad0w]

@11:31 is cracking me up because i feel the same way 😅

[@andreseduardochavezojeda737]

I have made an ansible script to deploy my personal i3wm setup with gnome on the background and I loved

[@Zeft64]

What do you mean by gnome in the background?

[@andreseduardochavezojeda737]

@@Zeft64 execute i3wm inside a gnome-flash-back session which allow me to left all the underlying desktop administration to gnome instead relying on scripts and enjoy my wm like you will see in regolith for example

[@NoahWatkins-p4z]

say i want to start learning window managers, I'm very new to linux. I'm on fedora, which would be easier for me to start with?

[@TheLinuxCast]

i3wm, for sure. It has awesome, non-techy documentation and the config is user readable not in a programming or scripting language. Herbstluftwm is similar, but more complicated.

[@NoahWatkins-p4z]

@@TheLinuxCast thank you, I watch alot of your video's, they are very helpful, I have one but not under this name. I will be helping yo in Patreon as soon as I can. Thanks again, your content is really helpful.

[@dod_ytent9984]

How is the workflow different from just minimising full screen windows? There also u can have from quad tiling. 1+2 tiling or dual tiling. Moving apps to a workspace that is not in ur primary display or minimise it, how are effectively different? Edit1: I would also like to know what happens if you have 5 windows of the same application, say firefox, how do u kno which workspace to put em on?

[@nizzuta2611]

The main difference is that you don't have to organize the windows by yourself, when you open them they automatically tile. You are free to open as many windows in a workspace as you want, but for organizing some people prefer to use certain workspaces for particular apps. The main advantage is that you always know where your apps are and you don't waste time minimizing and maximizing them

[@slvcontentfwd]

Late to replying, but for your edit question, windows open in your current workspace by default. In my WM (and assumedly others), rules can be defined which change this, such as ensuring a music player stays on workspace 1.

[@benjy288]

I ran qtile for a while a couple of years ago, but tiling window managers just aren't for me, they're ok if you have no more than 3 windows open, but if you have a single monitor and more than 3 windows open they basically become useless, your windows will get so small they become unusable, unless you switch to a different desktop and open more, but that's basically just another way of showing the desktop or minimizing all your windows, I much prefer stacking window managers like openbox, no problem with having multiple windows open, and if it gets too busy then just minimize some, and with the tint2 panel just hover the mouse over a window on the taskbar and you'll get a window preview, plus you can even set keybinds to tile windows in half, or even quarter tile windows.

[@bhavyakukkar]

you can deal with that issue by toggling a workspace to be in "monocle" mode which most twm's provide. it maximises all the windows on that workspace but only 1 window is visible at a time and others can be navigated to

[@benjy288]

@@bhavyakukkar Thanks but I often need to have at least 2 windows visible at a time.

[@bhavyakukkar]

@@benjy288 fair enough. just to get it out there though, this is achievable in herbstluftwm where you can have 2 frames open, both in monocle layout (called 'max') where every new window will open fully occupying one of the two frames

[@Zeft64]

I want to try it but thing is I’d rather just install it on my existing arch install after making a snapshot. Is there a way by chance you could make a video of installing this window manager on an existing setup?

[@heroe1486]

Most tiling wm are just a matter of sudo pacman -S your_tiling_wm and then select it from your login manager

[@gabrvalete]

How did you customize your arch to look like that in the terminal?

[@TheLinuxCast]

ohmyzsh and powerlevel10k

[@gabrvalete]

@@TheLinuxCast thx

[@shinigamiryoutaro]

The thing about tiling manager is that it's like vim, it seems pointless at first, hard to get in, but once you get in, you can't switch back cuz it's just so damn good

[@avsbq]

tiling window managers are a meme

[@shinigamiryoutaro]

@@avsbq just like your life itself. A huge meme

[@avsbq]

@@shinigamiryoutaro tiling moment

[@avsbq]

@@shinigamiryoutaro vim is also a meme

[@avsbq]

learn acme or emacs with xah-fly keys, mouse hover to raise window and use floating, tiling is a pestilence

[@Zeft64]

Just looked at that video too.

[@nothiiiiiiiing]

What qtile layout do you mainly use?

[@TheLinuxCast]

MonadTall

[@andremagalhaes664]

I really like IceWM !!!

[@techtude]

4:35 Why your uptime is 3 days 8 hours 😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️ Do you left your computer turned on always even while you are sleeping 😴😴

[@Horesmi]

It doesn't seem like you actually need a tiler for this? I can spam workspaces in KDE all day long

[@chrisrgutierrez]

What panel do you use?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Qtile bar

[@burpsan]

Yes!!

[@donpeer4477]

How do you have an application (ie Crusader) open automatically into a Workspace?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Depends on the window manager. Look up rules in the documentation