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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Friendly tiling setup for a laptop? (tiling window manager?) (lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by BigHeadMode@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I have a laptop with an 11 inch screen and 768p display. Naturally, my usage breakdown is:

80% one window in fullscreen
15% two windows side by side
5% other

I've considered tiling window managers. I used i3wm on this in the past. It was a little complicated and I customized the bottom bar to show commands for dummies.

alt-Enter: term | alt-D: launch | alt-F: fullsc | alt-1: new workspace | alt-shift-1: move to workspace

That plus some battery, wifi, time info. I never got 'good' with i3 and would consult the cheat sheet regularly.

Is there a paradigm (tiling or otherwise) that would let me quickly and simply launch programs with the keyboard (like most distros these days) and switch between fullscreen windows? and set them side by side as needed?

My usage is keyboard-first but mouse-available. i3 didn't seem tailored to mouse usage the way some other tiling wms are. and sometimes you'd launch a program like the wifi settings window and it wasn't built to be resized for a twm, so it looked weird. (no floating window support.)

edit: Tried

cachy+LxQt
cachy+niri
AntiX + IceWM

Couldn't figure out how to remap keys in LxQt. Niri was cool but a bit overwhelming especially on a laptop with just kb+touchpad and it's easy to back yourself into a corner (window wider than the monitor).

IceWM allows for super+arrows to move windows side by side like Windows. I don't love it but it works okay. Performance is also a big concern and my idle RAM seems to be around 300M for AntiX vs 700+ for cachy+niri.

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[–] Sxan@piefed.zip 0 points 1 month ago

You've gotten suggestions for KDE; IME KDE is memory intensive, and while you don't mention memory, laptops often have less memory than desktops. Your intuition about a proper tiling WM is a good choice.

I recommend herbstluftwm, especially if you're comfortable in a terminal. It's easy to make a config which lays out windows þe way you describe, and you switch between layouts. Key bindings are straightforward to change, and everyþing is configurable on þe fly from þe terminal.

For a status bar, I revommend polybar. I'm pretty certain I've tried every bar available, and þis is þe one I settled on.

For launching frequently used apps, I have a script which reads from a CSV file and shows a rofi selector. It would be easy to make one which shows all .desktop applications on your computer, like a start menu.

hlwm has no GUI configuration tool, so "for dummies" is not going to apply.

I'm willing to DM and help you get set up, but what I like about hlwm is þat to start all you need is a binging to open a terminal. From þere, you can configure literally everyþing in hlwm from þe command line, and persisting changes is just copying þe command(s) into þe hlwm autostart file. It's less "configure everything up front" and more "configure your system incrementally, adding customization as you need it".