Tiling Window Managers Are Just A Waste Of Time

When first getting started with a tiling window manager they can seem like a weird way of using you're system leading to a lot of confusion however if you approach them with the correct mindset you may find someting you like.

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#Linux #LinuxDesktop #OpenSource #FOSS #WindowManager

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[Neucher]

That post should be titled "Why I don't like i3"

[nichtgestalt]

I think it is kinda important to communicate to newbies the fact, that rejecting the usage of the mouse is not a necessity to be in the WM-Club. For me it was a welcoming challenge at first, but after a few months I got frustrated and forced my own workflow to my computer. And this, not the absent of the mouse, was what sold me to the whole "Tiling WM are efficient and worth the work" thing. Using my system the way I wanted. Screw what others are saying. I'm the one in charge. I can do whatever the hell I want.

Everybody is saying, that Linux is all about choice. This argument weights the heaviest when it comes to workflows (imho).

[iodreamify]

lol.. I liked the quote "you're not participating in a cult, you're just using a computer", more people should realize this.

Coming from the Windows world myself, i will fully admit i'm more used to the floating paradigm but i'll also admit maybe i haven't spent enough time in tiling WMs to fully appreciate the idea. I also use mostly graphical applications and have heard other creators(e.g. Wolfgang) saying it's not worth it then.

[lemon__snicker]

Somehow, somewhere along the way, users of all kinds forgot the part where PC stands for _personal_ computer. -_-

[tonycosta]

Note that most/all your windows are filled with text based content. It doesn’t work if you are using a visually oriented app - MS Office, Photoshop, video editors, etc. often each with multiple documents that require more screen real estate. And switching between them using alt-tab or a zoom out view.

[PoeLemic]

Thanks for giving us one of the best explanations of what a Titling Manager does and showing it to us. No one has done this as well as you. Lot of us are new to Linux and just learning. It's good that you give us overviews, because it helps us gain some experience and lowers the level of intimidation for new things in Linux.

[AnalyticMinded]

I agree with most of what you said, except for these two points: a manual tiler like i3 is neither unproductive nor inefficient. It is the user who is productive/efficient. Furthermore, efficiency is how much work you get done, not how fast you can move windows. You can be incredibly inefficient with an auto-tiler, and you can be incredibly efficient using a floating window environment. It all depends on the user. Personally, I find it more convenient to choose the layout every time, which is why I use i3. I doubt the fraction of a second it takes to make that decision is making me less productive. Just my 2 cents.

[tordjarv]

I used to use tiling window managers for years. However, I found that there are a large number of programs, that I need, that expects a floating environment and will behave horrible in a tiling environment. For example, I started to do some Android development a couple of years ago and at the time at least I had the problem that every popup and every special UI element in Android studio where treated as their own windowses with unique window id:s that where not always associated with the program. Each of these windows where tiled in completely strange ways. Setting up window rules for each one was not an option since there where so many of them. I want to point out that this was just one example of the types of problems I had and where not unique to Android studio. So I decided that it was more of a waste of time using a tiling window manager given that there where several programs I needed that simple didn't work well in them.

[thingsiplay]

It also depends on the applications. If you never worked with a tiling window manager before, then you didn't choose applications that work well with it. Some programs just don't well with tiling for various reasons, because they require minimum size or look bad when suddenly tiling. You can also write exceptions and such. And Qtile in example can have different tiling modes or even fullscreen mode depending on what group/workspace you are. I in example use different tiling logics and switch between them. And my workspace 9 is always fullscreen, for in example games.

[bruderdasisteinschwerermangel]

my biggest grief with tiling WMs is that they often don't give you the option of customization, they force you to.
Like that's the biggest reason I'm still on KDE: I don't wanna customize things that don't matter much. Why the hell would I go out of my way and invest time in writing a custom small network or audio volume widget for the task bar?
I want a usable system that organizes my windows in tiles, not another hobby to invest every second weekend into...

[sillyness]

How dare you be a Linux Youtuber, while not being a hyper-dogmatic zealot?

Honestly it's refreshing.

[mario]

I've been using dwm for about two years now. I love it. But you need to have a DIY attitude. You basically have to build your own "desktop environment". Or at least emulate some of the functionality through scripts.
That's not for everyone. But if most of your work can be done in a terminal, it's the best thing ever. There is nothing more satisfying than navigating 4+ terminal programs on my 34 inch ultra wide without ever touching the mouse

[rlativ]

I've been using the autotiling in Pop OS on a 14' laptop for more than a year now. It is indeed a massive productivity boost, but at first I had the same reaction as that person. The thing is, people don't actually use floating windows in the chaotic way you showed -- they keep almost all the windows maximized, with a few exceptions (like calculator or text editor), and they switch between the maximized programs. To me the usefulness of autotiling clicked when I realized you're supposed to use it in conjunction with workspaces. Before that, I thought workspaces were also kind of useless, because when you switch between maximized programs you can just keep all of them on the same workspace.

[GoodVolition]

I tried using a few tiling window managers, but I've always come back to just usong a floating one. I think to me a desktop is exactly that. Just like in real life I'm kind of disordered and have my files and papers and such overlapping. For me a floating windowing system captures that. Most of them feel like using tmux for everything. While that's not the worst I've yet to find a compelling reason to switch.

[itildude]

I have come to really love tiling WMs because it is so easy to get around and move around quickly. Running three monitors for me is the killer use case for a tiler. Moving windows between screens a matter of super, shift, screen #, No dragging things all over the place which feel like a mile of mouse travel. Same for focus change, etc.

[NijiDash]

I've tried a tiling window manager sometime ago, it was a pretty refreshing experience but still went with the GNOME desktop environment in the end. I got so used to trackpad gestures and it's hard for me to go without that. That said, I do often have multiple workspaces with one window in full screen, I do like the distraction free aspect of that a lot. In the end, it's comes down to what you're used to.

[ainur.rakhmanov]

Wouldn't say manual tilers are "horribly" inefficient. I use i3 and situations where you would need to do this are very rare. I would either have 1 window on workspace, 2 splitted horizontally (the default layout), or multiple windows in a tabbed mode.
Flooding your workspaces with windows is horribly inefficient in any case, leave this for unixporn.

[swizzler]

I struggled with tiling WMs for a long time. I liked them in concept, but their unnecessary and stubborn reliance on keyboard shortcuts just knocked me off them every time.

Then I learned about the gnome extension "pop-shell" an extension maintained by the pop-os team, but it'll run anywhere with gnome. Basically gives you a button that turns gnome into a tiling window manager on click. no mandatory keyboard shortcuts, no screwing around with config files. It even does things that I haven't seen in other tiling window managers, like letting you layer windows on top of each other and tab between them. Then when the work is done and productivity isn't as necessary, you can click the button to go back to floating windows.

[zackglenn]

I think there are some small ways where using a tiler on a laptop is more work. Things like figuring out how to set up hotkeys for the backlight and managing power states without the utilities that a DE would give you. It's still not that big of a deal though.

edit: getting a WM to properly handle a dynamic monitor setup can also be a pain.

[buriedstpatrick]

Been using KDE with Bismuth at work for about 6 months now. I'd say it's even simpler to set up than i3 since it's integrated into the system settings. The tiler in PopOS is also pretty decent, although less integrated.