11mo ago

X11 tiling WMs

I am potentially going to be able to put Linux on my work PC soon, have been using it on my personal PC and laptop quite happily with hyprland ontop of NixOS

Thinking of using NixOS for my work machine as well, however I don't want to use hyprland or even Wayland as I need this machine to be stable and reliable (Nvidia GPU)

Is I3 still the best option for this or are there better alternatives? (leaning towards I3 ontop of KDE)

I'm also somewhat tempted to just go GNOME with the forge extension as it seems the most reliable, though the tiling on that extension is far from perfect

51 comments

There is no "best WM", only "best WM for you". If you're deep enough into this rabbit hole to install an alternative WM, at this point you're the best judge of what's the best, really.
- I love hyprland, the question was more asking if there's anything I'm likely to like that's more robust and on x11 given that I like hyprland
  
  Hyprland's Dwindle layout is based on bspwm, so why not try that?

As always there's no such thing as a global "best" application. Building your system is a very personal thing. It all depends on your needs and liking.
My personal journey in the tiling WM world has started 20 years ago with awesomewm. Then I moved to i3 because it feels lighter to me while offering a configuration approach I preferred. After some times, I felt ready to "really" build my tiling WM and I moved to dwm.
I couldn't be happier until I came across bspwm which is as suckless as dwm but EWMH compliant. I also love the nice approach of keybindings offered by sxhkd. What I appreciate the most is the no limit configuration power since you can integrate the very powerful program that writes messages on bspwm 's socket (bspc) in any scripts you can imagine. This let you create some crazy and very personal rules. For example, I designed one where bspwm is listening to my video player state and if not fullscreen it automatically resizes it to a given size and moves it to a specific position. I have another one that will apply borders only to 2 specific windows applications and use a different color for each one.
This is a very brief overview of what I've experimented. Your expectations and the time you want to deserve to your configuration may guide you on another path. Archwiki has a comparison of tiling WM may be a good starting point to help you in your decision.
- Interesting. As a dwm guy I was unaware of ewmh standards. Have you used dwm to be able to compare? I love dwm, but it does behave in some cagey ways at times.
  
  I used dwm for few years before moving to bspwm.

Try HerbstluftWM. It's quite simple but very flexible to configure.
- +1!

In a word - yes - i3 is incredibly productive and customizable, but it's not for everyone. I've been using i3 with no DE or DM for about a decade. Every time I try to use a full DE like KDE, Gnome, etc, it's just so slow and bloated, and gets in the way. And there's 100's of extra packages that get installed, and be updated, that I don't use. I don't need anything but terminals (of which I have about 40 open in 12 different virtual desktops), a browser, and an editor when vim isn't enough. So for me, it's perfect and simple. I don't know what will happen when Wayland finally wins, but that's 5-10 years away before it really wins.
- I imagine once Wayland finally wins i3 users will turn into Sway users and that's about it.
  
  When Wayland is eventually ready, I will personaly look into river. At least that's what I would do now but no doubts that by the time everybody move to Wayland there will be way more options to consider. Hopefully one will be a good replacement for bspwm.
- I definitely do feel i3 is the easiest to understand and get into. I remember when I first started using Linux I tried awesomewm and icewm but was so confused. i3 made sense tho
- Ehm, what would be a difference for you, if you install sway?
  
  Wayland
  
  It's a good question - I don't know, because I haven't used it. If it's 100% compatible with i3 down to its configuration and features, then sure, it's palatable.

You should check out XMonad. It’s the only formally verified tiling WM.
I got it working with NixOS and have my whole config online.
https://github.com/harryprayiv/nix-config/blob/intelTower/home/programs/xmonad/config.hs
I did some weird stuff with a custom Hue CLI Module for my lab. It’s a fun little, fairly kludgey example of something you could spin up super easily.
In Haskell (much of the time), they say if it compiles it ships! It’s a lazily-evaluated language which lends itself well to a config and it slots right into NixOS quite well since Nix is also a lazily evaluated purely functional language.
- Ooh that is amazing thank you for the config will help me get started with it
  Though I didn't end up getting on with qtile using python for config, I tend to prefer configs being dumb text files
  What do you mean by formally verified?
  
  https://infosec.pub/comment/5743487
  I linked a definition to that a few comments down.
  I also run a community on XMonad: https://infosec.pub/c/xmonad

Some of the X11 WMs are dwm, awesome, qtile, bspwm, etc.
Gonna leave here a link of a list of X11 WMs if you are interested.
Like some have said on this thread, there isn't really a better wm, it all comes down to your own needs.

For X11, BSPWM was my daily driver. (before I switched to Sway, then Hyprland)

Try qtile, imo it's the best and simple option for tiling wms

My personal favourite is qtile and it’s been my main WM for a long time. I3 is another good option. Wayland experience looks to vary from the other comments, but if you do use qtile and wanted to try wayland, you can get it to run using it (although I’ve never tried it myself).
- I explicitly don't want to use Wayland for my work machine because on both my laptop and PC (both Nvidia) and it's not very stable/reliable
  The work PC has Nvidia too so x11 seems like the better choice for that for the "it just works" factor
  
  That’s fair, especially if you’re using it for work as well. Just wanted to point out the option!

I tried I3 but it seems the new window always appears in a vertical slice, maybe some people like that so windows are set manually. I prefer automatic tiling, I use Bspwm for that. It needs two config files but they are simple, no programming is required. Its way to split screen is almost always good. In the rare exceptions I add a rule in the main config file so the app appears in a floating window.
- I3 is a hybrid wm, there's a shortcut to change between vertical and horizontal splits.
  I find that approach much better than having to cycle through a bunch of presets to get a configuration I want.
  On top of that tabbing/stacking tiles is amazing for keeping everything organised in more complex configurations.
- Yes, i3 is not automatic, but you can arrange things however you want - it's definitely something where you need to read the docs first.

I really liked awesomewm back in the day. Though everything was configured by arco Linux (arch fork), so have to idea how easy it is to get your configs up and running like in hyprland.

Upopular opinion: Herbstluftwm.
- I am curious about this as I've never heard of it however for this use case I'm looking for as mainstream as possible so it's least likely to break in a way nobody's seen before

Qtile is really good. I also recommend XMonad if you know Haskell, it is my main WM.
- I have tried qtile before, never really got on with it myself, don't really like using python for config personally

Try out LeftWM ! It's a dynamic tiling window manager, and it's a reamly cool project with a very nice community. It's still a bit rough around the edges but it's worth trying considering how much options it offers.
- Unfortunately for this use case rough around the edges won't do. If something doesn't work instantly I get blamed for using nonstandard software so the most reliable is what I'm looking for really
  For personal use I have no problem with rough around the edges (evidenced by my using hyprland on Nvidia lol)

Wayland on nvidia is perfectly stable. Been using Hyrpland without issues for the past year or so.
- Wayland on Nvidia is not stable.
  I'm using hyprland which adds another layer of instability as hyprland itsself can be ropey with Nvidia
  Even with gnome Wayland I have had a number of issues though, electron stuff is dodgy at best, hibernation doesn't work (might not be Wayland specific)
  Applications don't resize properly sometimes and crash more often
  I think it entirely depends on your setup, I've had separate issues with Nvidia Wayland across my PC and laptop
- Wayland on Nvidia gives me a black screen with mouse trails so your mileage may vary
  
  Oh my god, this. Especially on the external monitor.
- I'm running Hyprland on my Intel laptop without any issues (but I'm doing not much multimedia on it). But on my Nvidia desktop, oh no. Screen recording is flakey (especially with multiple sources and audio recording to different channels) in OBS, video editing impossible due to heavy UI flickering, gaming has worse performance, watching YouTube has noticable lag.
  For just opening your browser and doing non-multimedia stuff it's fine I guess.
  
  I have no issues with OBS, although I only use it for screen recording. It is my work machine (I’m a dev) but also game on it regularly without any problems. What kind of card do you have?
- Maybe for you. Kernel 6.6, Nvidia driver 545 (also tried 535), RTX 3080, GNOME or KDE Plasma, two WQHD 165 Hz monitors. Got flickers in certain applications (for example Steam or some Electron apps), apparently related to how long they need to draw.
  Along with Baldur's Gate Vulkan API halving FPS compared to Windows/AMD on Linux, or getting black models in DX11 (DXVK), certain games straight up flickering or showing other glitches.
  YMMV of course, but I find it hard to believe people have literally zero issues unless they have a very limited use case for their system.
  I switched to AMD for Linux and while it's not perfect either, it's so much better.
- quit fucking saying that! I still get random flickering on the desktop and flickering in games on a 1080. X11 is the only thing that lets me actually play games onmhe thing

51 comments