Tiling window managers aren’t precisely a brand new idea. They’ve been right here for fairly a while now, with i3 and bspwm being among the older ones on the market (however nonetheless very a lot a favourite!).
Each tiling window supervisor appears to do its personal factor, be it customized layouts or a user-defined configuration file to regulate every a part of the window supervisor.
This makes it actually laborious to leap into it as a newbie, and whereas some choices are quite a bit simpler, a tiling window supervisor is on no account near being as accessible as a conventional desktop interface, like KDE Plasma.
With so many choices, holding monitor of all of it might be exhausting. I felt the identical method too, again in my early days of distro-hopping and desktop swapping. After going by way of the most well-liked picks on the market, I really feel like I lastly have a winner.
i3
Previous however gold
Likelihood is you’ve in all probability heard of i3. It’s been one of many oldest tiling window managers, and nonetheless stays a well-liked option to today. It additionally makes use of a guide tiling system, splitting your show into equally-sized home windows (that’s, except you utilize a script like autotiling).
That is additionally one of many simpler ones to configure choices inside this record. The i3 configuration file makes use of a fairly fundamental syntax that has barely seen any modifications, and in some way nonetheless manages to really feel function full all these years later.
In my expertise, i3 was lifeless easy to arrange, however the truth that it was based mostly on Xorg as a substitute of Wayland made me change out virtually instantly. Not that Xorg is horrible, there are literally nonetheless just a few issues that Xorg does higher than Wayland. Nonetheless, multi-monitor help is one thing that may be a heck of quite a bit higher on Wayland compositors, so I needed to reluctantly transfer on from i3.
Sway
i3 however Wayland
Enter Sway, the subsequent logical selection for i3 customers. Sway actually is a Wayland-centric drop-in alternative for i3, proper all the way down to its core design philosophy. It’s lifeless easy in each its config and implementation, and goes for that really minimal really feel.
There’s not quite a bit to see in Sway, and also you gained’t go discovering many built-in options and even animations for that matter. Regardless of this, Sway is a rock-solid window supervisor that manages to get the necessities proper, and this stability is good for lots of people.
Coincidentally, Sway additionally occurs to be my most used tiling window supervisor, and a part of it’s due to its simplicity. Sway is extremely simple to arrange and combine providers (comparable to quantity OSD and media controls) into. Though I did find yourself transferring away, experimenting with the extra unique choices on the market.
Hyprland
Possibly a bit too complicated
We transfer on to Hyprland subsequent, which is much more opinionated, like Gnome. Leaping ship from Sway was an actual eye-opener, and Hyprland does have an unlimited quantity of customization choices, together with a number of tiling presets, eye sweet (blur and fade results, to call just a few) and each function set you may consider.
Hyprland additionally comes with its personal set of dependencies and packages, which function alternate options to current Wayland purposes.
Sadly for me, Hyprland simply wasn’t price it. It’s esoteric nature and sort of convoluted configuration syntax had me scratching my head at occasions, which in the end precipitated me to desert it.
Sure, it’s attainable to simplify the complete course of through the use of a Quickshell-based answer, however it isn’t indicative of the vanilla expertise. Hyprland can also be bleeding edge, and never an excellent choose for stability.
Niri
Good
Niri is a quite attention-grabbing tiling window supervisor. As an alternative of going for the normal tiling structure, it goes for a scrolling one. In different phrases, offered home windows scroll previous in an infinite strip, which makes for a really attention-grabbing workflow.
This turned out to be good for my specific setup, and I’ve been rocking Niri since, and up to now I haven’t had a cause to change out. Even when xwayland-satellite is just not an ideal answer for xwayland apps.
It’s additionally fairly current, and has nearly sufficient options to not really feel as stripped down as Sway or i3. The configuration file can also be fairly simple to arrange (and doesn’t see a whole lot of modifications). Niri can also be solely suitable with Quickshell, which may present a desktop-like expertise.
What made me follow Niri
Now, I gained’t deny that tiling window managers are extra of a private selection — in spite of everything, not each workflow will attraction to everybody. That being stated, Niri fulfills all three of my wants — a rock stable, principally unchanged config over updates, excellent multi-monitor and docking help (with out using one thing like kanshi!) and eventually, a minimal look that doesn’t compromise solely on eye sweet.
It’s just about good for my laptop computer and displays, and the scrolling structure simply appears to make a complete lot extra sense for an ultrawide show.
