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@lemmy.ml 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 🫠

  • pathief@lemmy.world
    1·
    9 months ago

    From my personal experience, Tiling WM managers are a lot of work to setup. It’s not difficult to configure them, but they just come with REALLY barebones and honestly unusable defaults. There’s a lot to configure, which means a lot of documentation to learn. It doesn’t “just works”, you have to spend several hours to find out what works for you and figure how to make it work. That said, I had never tried a tiling WM before and managed to make it work just fine. It’s not hard, it’s just work.

    The easiest and fastest way to do this is start with someone else’s configuration. I started with Zaney’s dotfiles as they provided some good and USABLE defaults.

    Packages that I’m using:

    • Hyprland - my WM of choice, mostly because it’s pretty and very easy to configure

    • Waybar - You mentioned “like waybar”, I’m not sure you have anything against it or not. I really like waybar because configuration is a basic json file and styling is a basic CSS file. It’s very easy to work with, very easy to create your own customization. A few waybar “modules” that I recommend

      • nm_applet - A “system tray” network applet which integrates very easily and nicely to waybar. It allows you to configure your wi-fi/network without the command line.

      • swaync - Hyprland does not have a notification system, you need to install one. swaync is very nice and integrates perfectly into waybar

    • For a KRunner like tool, I use Tofi. Zaney recommended it, I don’t know many alternatives. Like many of these applications, the default aesthetics are really bad. Tofi in particular has atrocious defaults. Absolutely awful. The software itself runs quite well, it’s fast and can have a lot more useful applications than just running tools. Not sure why they don’t have a decent theme out of the box, it’s not that hard.

    • I have wl-clipboard installed. Not really a clipboard manager but sometimes I have troubles where some xwayland apps don’t have access to my clipboard. It’s weird. wl-paste | xclip -selection clipboard solves it.

    • For managing wallpapers I use swww. I don’t look at my wallpaper all that much, so I don’t have anything too fancy. I don’t change them often, this tool is more than enough for me. An overkill for my use-case.

    • I suggest you use nerd-fonts, whatever one you like. Personally I really like the JetBrains Mono Nerd Font.

  • z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml
    1·
    9 months ago

    TWMs can give you an extremely customized setup and potentially increase the speed of your workflow once you get into the groove of using them.

    A couple suggestions:

    • Get familiar with the command line if you aren’t already. Know how to adjust volume settings, connect to local wifi, etc. All from command line tools. You can of course use GUI tools that do the same, but knowing how to launch essential necessities from the CLI comes in handy if something in your configs break.

    • Create keyboard shortcuts for your most commonly used applications. The workflows of TWMs are usually similar to Vim in that mouse use is discouraged. On that note:

    • Consider purchasing an Ortholinear Keyboard if you can afford one. This was a gamechanger for me. As I no longer had to reach across an 80 key keyboard to reach for certain keys. Every key instead is solely a matter of moving my fingertips instead. A good beginner one is the Preonic, or the Planck.

    • Install and learn to use the Vimium browser extension. I’ll not try and convert you to using Vim, but Vimium allows easy browsing of the web without use of the mouse (or excessively tabbing through a web page’s links). This comes in handy when using a TWM. Obviously this works incredibly well with Vim/Neovim as well, but again, that’s for you to decide.

    • Install an application launcher. I personally like dmenu, but rofi, wofi, etc. all work just as well as the others for the most part. They especially become useful when you start scripting custom features for them. Eventually you’ll want to run an application neither from a terminal nor a keyboard shortcut. An application launcher is a must when working with a TWM.

    • I recommend using a window swallower for applications where you have a “useless terminal output” window. I have used devour and gulp on X11. I have yet to find one that works on Wayland (if anyone knows of any, please let me know). This is particularly nice when viewing videos using mpv.

    Obviously this is all my humble opinion, but I have a love of Tiling Window Managers and this is what has worked for me. Lastly, I do apologize for no recommendations on bars, I simply don’t use one, and instead rely on a constantly running btop for system monitoring. So can’t speak to that subject.

      • Certainity45@lemmy.ml
        1·
        9 months ago

        Try Manjaro Sway. It is preconfigured and has many superior features built-in. The wallpaper contains the keybinds. When you learn to use that preconfigured Sway, you can try to build your own setup in a virtual machine and when you’re satisfied, take the dotfiles into a usb stick or make the vm guest as your real Linux install.

          • Certainity45@lemmy.ml
            1·
            9 months ago

            So what? For newbies it isn’t as bad rant Youtubers tend to claim, but yeah I guess the problems are real. However, my brother has daily driven Manjaro KDE for 4 years and hasn’t have bigger or more issues what you would have with Ubuntu.

            I also recommended to try it out, not to daily drive it. Manjaro’s Sway configuration is much more fine-tuned than in the Fedora Sway.

  • Ramenator@lemmy.world
    1·
    9 months ago

    This might sound a bit heretical, but you could carefully pick and match a variety of software and configuration to your individual needs, turning your tiling wm into a fully functional desktop environment, or you could just install a tiling wm into an existing desktop environment and get something useful with like ten percent of the work.
    I know that I have done the former multiple times, only to fall back to existing desktop environments again because it’s just a lot less work and often works better, since you don’t have to take care of getting things like screen sharing or media buttons to function.
    Especially LXQt and Xfce make it very easy to run a tiling window manager, but you can also find extensions/plugins for KDE or Gnome to make them tile. I’m personally running Gnome with the Pop Shell extension right now

    • Lung@lemmy.world
      1·
      9 months ago

      I used to be a tiling wm arch purist, even worked on a tiling wm called Awesome. Until one day my boss pointed out that all any dev wants is a terminal with splits and a full screen web browser. It was this moment I became enlightened

    • dino@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      You don’t really need to use a tiling window. You can still use a floating window manager and learn Linux stuff.On my Guix system, I had River setup with Waybar, Rofi and Rivertile, with other utilities like WirePlumber, brightnessctl, etc and I didnt really enjoy the experience. Sure, I could have spent some more time on improving that, but I thought that it was pointless having dotfiles next to my scheme config, so I went back to GNOME Shell.

      Interesting point, so because Guix “forces” you to declare you OS you rather skipped on the option of having dotfiles? Not sure I can fully follow that train of thought. Esp. when it comes to GNOME being used instead. Can you shed more light on what made you switch?