I’ve always used regular DEs and always loved KDE, never really liked Gnome, and DEs like XFCE etc are great but I saw no reason to use them over Plasma.
Then I started reading about window managers and how they enhance productivity due to a keyboard centric flow. Not too sure about that, but wm’s like Hyprland are popular and seem to have lots of features. I know KDE has tons of features built in but I also wonder if having a simpler setup will consume less resources, and using the keybaord more will make me faster?
the other WM I discovered is scrolling ones like Niri and it seems to be even easier.
anyone made the switch and what do you like/dislike? did it consume less resources?
I have used pretty much everything. I could live in HyprLand, but i see no good reason to. The convenience of a full DE is hard to beat.
It’s mainly (in my opinion) for people that like to tinker with their setup more than perform work (aka productivity). It could be used for productivity, but seems to mainly not be
Resource consumption, it could be lighter…if you leave it basic. If you start pumping it up toward a full-featured DE, then it’s going to be somewhat similar.
Final comment: HyprLand is basically still unstable (see version # less than 1.0?), and all major changes are config breaking (or so it seems).
thanks, that seems to echo my views. I’ve found that KDE, Windows etc all now have some way to dock windows to sides of screen with easy shortcuts, this seems to take care of 90% of the issues window manager is supposed to solve which people claim.
I think the real problem is Linux has simply too many options for everything, and tinkering, and then posting their customized setup, seems to be a bug part of it all.
what do you like best and what do you use now since you said you’ve tried it all? I’m sort of partial to KDE apps.
eg I tried the fancy new terminals like kitty, alacritty etc and then found out Konsole supports all those features already but nobody talks about it. so why should I spend time installing and learning something else? same thing with Dolphin, and Okular and other apps. are their other options that are better?
I’m currently in a crisis (lol) precipitated by trying to evaluate the best thing to recommend to a friend/new to Linux user.
KDE is my preferred environment. GNOME gives me cobblywobbles (I wish I could remember where I picked up that expression). But…I’m almost sold on running Cosmic (see above about crisis), because tiling IS very nice…it really is.
As far as terminals, yeah, Konsole is (imo) as good or better than anything else.
I don’t think having too many options is a problem, they’ll mostly sort themselves out in best-of-breed actions. And different strokes for different folks,etc. Though, I’m a tinkerer, and not a newbie to tech issues…and I realize your point, and that’s why I’m spending time guiding the newbie into a targeted environment. Cosmic offers normal/floating windows and the option of tiling.
I switched to Sway from KDE recently, but only on my old Macbook pro 2013. My main desktop still has KDE.
It started as a curiosity. After working full time with i3 years ago, I wanted to check how far Sway progressed. I went down the rabbit hole of customization and tuning, and stayed mostly for the noticeable performance gains given the old hardware.
I run plasma & mainly Hyprland, I like scripting, so Hyprland is well suited to this. I was running sway, but it lacked a monocle style feature, that I really use a lot.
If I switch between hyprland and plasma, it does have the annoying effect of logging me out of every website in my browser. I have worked out it is caused by swapping from xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland to xdg-desktop-portal-kde - but never found a solution.
In the past I didn’t start liking Gnome4 until I tried it again after having used tiling window managers, I only liked Gnome2 before that. I still love Gnome but I’m currently using Hyprland because I really like that as well and have gotten a setup that works nicely for me. The only downside of a tiling window manager is that you have to pick all the parts you want to use and configure it, so depending on how much you want to customize will depend on the parts you pick, talking about panel, dock, etc. Easiest just to use example configs or find someone else’s dotfiles you like and then edit them to your liking.
Cosmic is the new Rust based DE from the PopOS guys right? I never used PopOs but IIRC they had a very popular tiling extension (probably one of the first ones outside a wm) and they are probably bringing those ideas? I seem to have been reading about Cosmic alphas and betas for years.
Well it’s complicated …. desktops/windowmanagers are changing like underwear these days. And I’m not talking about once in a decade ….
I’m switching between Plasma (home server and notebook) and Hyprland (gaming pc / workstation). But most likely that will change again, soon.
I really like the performance of hyprland and the keyboard centric approach (really comfortable and fast as soon as you get used to the shortcuts), but there are also use-cases where I prefer a classic DE.
see this to me sounds like a perfect example of how Linux ‘invent your own’ philosophy is bad. Instead of using a standard interface for these things. of course there’s a xdg-desktop-portal-gnome as well, because they use qt/gtk/whatever hyprland uses/wlroots its all over the place.
I don’t mind picking out a dock, notification daemon, tray etc, thats one part of a DE. but I don’t really understand how tiling itself is efficient. sure the window doesn’t overlap and you have a shortcut.
but why would I want my browser and terminal and any other app to constantly resize to fit whatever screen space is left? I want terminal to be a standard size, same for my editor, video player etc. The solution for this seems to be workspaces in a wm, like virtual desktops (which everyone forgets already exist in a DE). so now you have each app in its own desktop.
the most common example I see in all the Linux showcase posts is multiple terminals, with htop, matrix screensaver and neotech all at the same time. and for that, why not use tmus which is meant for this?
no one needs to have Firefox and libreoffice and vscode in tiny windows on a laptop screen !!! that’s what tiling does.
Cosmic (In my opinion) is just a Gnome clone in rust. I really wanted to like Gnome, used previous versions, but I truly dislike the direction they have taken, and the “It’s our way or the highway” ethos.
Ubuntu, Miint, Solus and so many others have all forked Gnome because none of them liked the direction it was going in.
IMO Gnome would be nothing without Redhat’s money and influence and pushing it on every distro. Their devs have a massive chip and their philosophy is to actively insult their users, remove config options and force their ideas.
the exact opposite of KDE. I can’t think of a single Gnome app that is better than the KDE version. Its ridiculous how RH forced all the major distros to go Gnome default and abandon KDE.
The “occupy all space available” part is what I don’t get either. It’s particularly problematic on wide monitors, where I need to add “side padding” for compensation. Although - admittedly - having wide tables not wrap is neat
I suppose it was a great advantage when the resolution was 1024x1080.
Where tiling WMs shine is in switching between side-by-side work (say terminal + documentation in browser, or editor + terminal) and rapid transfer of a window between viewports, monitors, etc.
It’s not the tiling alone, imho, but the sum of tiling + keyboard centric + switching between stacking/accordion/fullscreen + lightweight.
It’s definitely not for everyone. I see it works so much for me I’m using Sway on linux and Aerogap on MacOS.
but this exact scenario is supported in KDE, windows (and I’m sure Gnome). you can hover over the max/min buttons, using super + l/r etc. you can do this on one desktop for the windows u need, switch them easily between fullscreen/docked etc.
there are also tiling scripts for kwin etc.
this usage seems to be limited to certain types of windows, not everything, no? there must be something I’m missing as using a tiling wm is almost universally praised as more efficient.
It’s most likely a combination of factors. They feel more efficient because they are “leaner”, although with modern hardware the difference is most likely imperceptible.
Let’s not rule out some elitism either
”I use Arch AND -tiling wm of choice- btw”
I lived in the command line in the early 90’s, because that’s all there was back in the comp sci lab. And there’s a certain functionality to doing it. But KDE has been my go-to since KDE3. Could I use Hyprland? Probably? But Plasma is so keyboard-friendly now that you can effectively use most GUI tools without the mouse.
Dolphin in particular has seen some really sweet improvements now, - like having Ctrl+P shifting to the Places window, allowing you to jump to key areas without even touching the mouse. Konsole is equally kb-friendly. Plasma tends to get out of the way once you have it configured to do so.
I ran a bunch of different hyprland setups and liked this one the best and stayed with it for about a year.
If you are going to run this after being on plasma you will probably have to start apps with --password-store=kwallet6 such as chromium based browsers, signal-desktop, discord, etc.
Currently giving Cosmic a try. You can flip the flag to have it tile windows. I’m kind of spoiled with Hyprland as I have the hotkey’s memorized just like my TMUX and NeoVim commands so I will probably go back to it again. I really get annoyed using a mouse for everything.
desktops/windowmanagers are changing like underwear these days. And I’m not talking about once in a decade …. 
