Tiling Distro Suggestions
Tiling Distro Suggestions
I'm currently using Fedora KDE Plasma, but I'd like to try out a tiling window manager. What would you all reccomend? I use my computer for school, so I would like it to be stable.
Distro isn’t important for tiling, just the window manager. I’d start with i3 personally, it’s been around a long time, which means the documentation is fairly plentiful.
can I get that on plasma?
Possibly? Though I wouldn’t recommend it. I tried that with xfce once, and it technically worked, but tiling window manager and desktop environments tend to have different aims. A desktop environment like plasma will have everything bundled together and playing well as a whole, while a window manager like i3 will be barebones and expect you to pick out the pieces yourself. DE’s are much more beginner friendly, while WM’s are great if you want to get as much customization as possible. Which will better suit you depends on your needs.
The word you're looking for is Desktop Environment (DE). KDE Plasma is one such DE. Distro is the underlying system.
- i3 has been around forever and has lots of guides on how to customize it. Only downside is it's X11-only, so as everyone moves to Wayland, X11 support will decrease.
- Sway is i3+Wayland, though it's newer, so I dunno how much customization content is out there or whether the i3 tutorials are forward compatible.
- Hyprland is another popular choice, and it is Wayland-based. Only downside is the project lead is a toxic asshole, despite being a gifted dev.
- Cosmic is an upcoming DE, so if you're in no hurry, keep an eye on that one.
To install any of them, search for the project and see if they have an installation guide for your distro. If not look up "how to install <DE> in Fedora."
Cosmic is already more usable than most Window managers, that literally just manage Windows.
I mean, it has apps... and GUI settings...
There is a guy called Ryan Brue that packages all the COSMIC apps. He created a SIG and in the channel there are some COSMIC Devs helping out.
There is a uBlue variant with COSMIC, working pretty great.
COSMIC just breaks KDE Apps a bit. Will have to see if some package may fix them, as they are so themable that missing packages make them use aome shitty fallback theme.
IIRC Sway is 100% compatible with i3 configs
Oh, nice! Might give it a try myself!
Where is dwm?
I would try a few Plasma based tiling scripts before switching to anything like Sway or i3. You'll get a good idea of whether it's for you. Later on if you find you need more control over the tiling you could switch to a dedicated tiling window manager.
I'm using Karousel in Plasma which is scrollable tiling. You can install and enable it like so:
Go to System Settings > Apps & Windows > Window Management > KWin Scripts > select Get New... > In search enter Karousel and wait for it to show up > select Install > select the latest version (as of now karousel-0-9-4.tar.gz).
There is a companion desktop effect that also needs to be installed like so:
Go to System Settings > Apps & Windows > Window Management > Desktop Effects > select Get New... > enter Geometry Change in search > select Install > select the latest version (as of now kwin4-effect-geometry-change-1.3.tar.gz).
Karousel and Geometry Change have configuration options and Karousel also has keyboard shortcuts (view here) which you may need to update to your liking. I don't have a need to configure anything in Geometry Change as the default animation settings are fine. For Karousel I tend to adjust the various spacing and gaps options along with making sure the shortcuts I want are configured. That link above has a short video of what Karousel looks like in action.
Krohnkite
https://github.com/anametologin/krohnkite
https://store.kde.org/p/2144146/
I would try a few Plasma based tiling scripts before switching to anything like Sway or i3.
Agreed. I used tiling window managers for years before coming back to Plasma. Right now on Wayland I highly recommend giving Krohnkite a shot, its stable without any problems and has even multiple layouts to choose (and switch) from. I used Polonum before, but that one is not stable and was problematic. Krohnkite plugin (can be found in KWin Scripts > Get New... > then search for "krohnkite", by anametologin) is pretty good in my opinion.
The only problem with these plugins is, that they are not well documented as a standalone tiling window manager and cannot be configured as deeply. And they might interfere with other plugins or shortcut setups and so on. I knew what I wanted and I knew how to configure stuff, that's why its easy for me. At least it can be easily disabled without replacing entire desktop environment.
Little tip: One thing to mention, unlike Polonium, with Krohnkite one does not need to logout and login from current user session whenever settings are changed. It's enough to disable Krohnkite in KWin Scripts, Apply, then enable and Apply again. This is basically a reload of the plugin to take any changed settings in effect.
I've got issues with both of them, but polonium is closer to what I want. In krohnkite I can't use btree while also keeping the tiling part. If I drag a tile while in btree in krohnkite they just snap back to their previous position. Overall krohnkite is more polished though because it doesn't rely on kwin for the most part to determine positioning. Whereas polonium uses only the api's provided by kwin.
Lastly I have noticed that you don't actually need to log out and back in for polinium. Closing all windows and relaunching them has been enough for me.
Thanks for the suggestions! I have tried tiling scripts on plasma before, but I don't think I've tried this one, so I'll see how it goes!
Absolutely.
You should try Fedora Sway in a Virtual Machine to see if you'd like it
You can easily install and configure a tiling window manager on any distro, so you should not switch an entire distribution and your base because of that. Unless off course you want to, but its not difficult. If you install a tiling window manager from your repository, then read the documentation how to set it up correctly and log out your current user session. Then in the login screen, you should be able to select what window manager or desktop environment you want to use.
But be careful, lot of window managers are still not supported in Wayland and the other way, some of the new window managers are Wayland only. The usual suspects would be probably Sway or Hyprland on Wayland? There is also Qtile, but that is for people who want to configure and write Python source code, as the configuration is in Python language (BTW my favorite tiling window manager, but not for everyone). EndeavourOS used to have a Qtile spin, but they stopped that not long ago.
But if you really must switch the distribution, then there might be a few preconfigured tiling window manager distributions:
- Fedora with Sway (on Wayland): https://fedoraproject.org/spins/sway/
- Fedora with i3 (on Legacy X11):
I'm surprised no one mentioned this if you are already using kde
It seems to be no longer updated, but I'll try it out, it looks cool.
As a fan of both Fedora and KDE, I'd say there are better alternatives than Fedora KDE Spin.
I don't see how this is relevant
No idea what distro you're currently using but generally you can install whatever window manager/desktop (gui) you want
For a tiling wm I'd recommend hyprland. It's not the most stable but I've had minimal issues with it and it's really easy to get started with. You can install it alongside gnome/kde I believe and switch between the two on login so if you break one you've still got the other
Cool, I'll check out out.
Bear in mind most tiling wms don't come with much installed by default, you'll need a bar and a launcher at least
When using KDE, press meta-T to activate the equivalent of Windows Power Toys' Fancy Zones.
You can then set tiling zones and when you drag a window, hold shift at the same time to lock it in one of the zones.
Little bit of a thread hijack. But maaaaaybe a recommendation for OP as well.
I’ve never tried a tiling wm before. What does it do that’s so much better than say, a gnome extension? For example, I’m running a gnome extension called grid and I LOVE it. I can tell it to break my screen up into rows and columns with a simple 5X8 or 4X4 command. Then set as many hot keys as I want to move things around and scale the size. It auto tiles and does intelligent window things. Basically I spend all my time with my entire screen tiled with random stuff, but I can move it around easily, not have to write scripts, and still have all the gnome interface stuff as well. What am I missing? If not much, maybe OP, you’re just looking for something like the extension I’m using?
I'm mostly looking for the layouts for different things, but a kwin script that someone else suggested might suffice.
If you like fedora as a base, you can install the Gnome version of fedora and install the Pop Shell. It has autotiling that you can turn on and off while you get used to it if you want. Its what I run on Nobara and it works perfectly fine for me.