/twmg/ - Tiling Window Manager General

Low on precious screen real estate, or busy massaging your carpal tunnel
wrists damaged by waving a mouse around like an idiot? A tiling window manager
might be for you!

> Freedom from the mouse
With any decent twn, you're hand almost never has to leave the home row.

> High customizability
All well known twms are built with customizability in mind, either through a
config file, command line options, or in the case of dwm, editing the source
code directly.

> Efficient use of screen space
because each new window will split the screen one level further, the available
screen space is used optimally (yes, even when using gaps).

> L I G H T W E I G H T
using a tiling window manager forgoes the need for a bloated DE, simply
install any necessary software on top of the window manager to build exactly
the system you want with no cruft!

> Resources
i3wm - i3wm.org/
Babby's first twm, easily customizable from a central config file, has sane
defaults. Usable out of the box.

bspwm - github.com/baskerville/bspwm
Binary Space Partitioning Window Manager
bspwm is a tiling window manager that represents windows as the leaves of a full binary tree.

dwm - dwm.suckless.org/
Dynamic Window Manager written in C.
Slightly higher learning curve than most other twms, basic knowledge of C is
necessary for configuration as it takes place in the header file. Very
lightweight.

awesomewm - awesomewm.org/
Supports lots of features out of the box, less initial configuration necessary than some others.
Shares the concept of tags with dwm which can be more flexible than workspaces

herbsluftwm - herbstluftwm.org/
Manual twm with similar tiling system to i3
Can be reconfigured on the fly using herbstclient

> Brief introduction/ explanation
youtube.com/watch?v=Api6dFMlxAA

> Comparison of various twms
wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Comparison_of_tiling_window_managers

Other urls found in this thread:

theitcrow.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/the-ratpoison-tutorial-part-1/
linuxgoodies.com/review_rat.html
pastebin.com/mftYrEYZ
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

>configuration is done by modifying the source code and recompiling the app

i can approve
its not big deal, config file is easy to modify, even normalfags can do that

I tried i3 and thought it was interesting, but mostly useless for me.

Something like terminator and split itself, and I never have so many programs running that I need multiple windows in addition to the multiple workspaces that most distros already provide. A workspace with a small IRC window + browser, another with terminator and maybe nautilus or something, and one with word processor works fine for me.

Tiling wm's aren't really for having hundreds of programs open at once, they just make managing windows easier.

With a floating wm you're basically going to have one program open in the middle of your screen or a couple of programs open side by side anyway. A tiling wm makes this a lot easier to do.

Literally the only advantage of a floating wm over a tiling wm is that you can position programs wherever you want, but when has "I want this window at exactly this position, then this other one overlapping it by 2/3, then 5 other windows behind that one" ever been a valid use case?

The more you use a tiling wm, the more you wonder why anyone thought a floating wm was a beneficial idea in the first place.

what if a program runs at a fixed size? wouldn't that affect everything in your workspace?

Only in dwm.

It's still fucking retarded that a config change requires recompiling.

Does anyone know where I can find extra bumblebee-status modules that are more similar to the default i3-status ones so I don't have to waste time writing my own?

I want a wifi module that shows the connection strength and changes colour accordingly. Showing the upload / download speed would be nice too.
Also, is there a way to get multiple disk indicators? I'd like to be able to have separate ones for each partition.

Still faster than navigating GUI driven settings.

Hi Luke, pls do more windows manger videos.

I'm not him, maybe he'll find this thread though.

Actually, after some messing about bumblebee seems like a massive pain in the ass to configure how I want it, i3status is a lot more flexible and can do everything I want.

I still much prefer how bumblebee looks though.

Is there any way to pipe i3status into bumblebee and use its themes?

How often would you configure? I haven't touched mine in months

>Brief introduction
>2 hour video

Fuck off Luke! Stop using pepe on your videos to bait autistics.

Is this the new desktop thread?

How can I use xrandr and bind it to a key to automatically detect monitors I connect to my laptop?

Right now I use arandr and set up everything manually.

If you're using a sensible distro it should be easy enough to run a gnome/unity/whatever-settings-daemon which will handle monitors, keyboard shortcuts, automounting and other comforts

>and other comforts
at the cost of bloat

whats the easiest tiling wm to learn and use? the most important thing is an easy to learn configuration file

i have a laptop i want to use a system monitor for my server. I would like to display some web interface and terminals on the display, and i basically want the laptop to boot straight into it. I want specific portions of the screen used for specific things, and for them to be specific sizes

say 1/4 screen used for web interface of router, 1/4 used for web interface of file server, 1/4 for htop, 1/4 for log output. So I need a tiling wm that is easy to setup like this to do this at each startup and display the same things on the same portion and position of the display

Watched the intro. I was wary, but I'm sold now. I'll install i3 and let you know how it went. Thanks, Sup Forums.

Ratpoison the best
guide nº1 theitcrow.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/the-ratpoison-tutorial-part-1/
guide nº2 linuxgoodies.com/review_rat.html

I'm having a problem with herbstluftwm and polybar.

The xworkspaces module marks every workspace except the focused one as empty. I couldn't find a fix for it. If anyone knows a solution I'd appreciate it.

Post tiling window managers in action. I've only seen pretty screenshots of tiling window managers but never any videos. I'd like to see the functionality and convenience you all brag about.

...

> Basic features are bloat
Those suckless people got you meme'd good

>1366x768
Your opinion is invalid.

>tiling wm general
>doesn't even mention ratpoison, spectrwm, frankenwm, qtile, exwm, or xmonad

Most of the vid is live demos of 6 tiling window managers, so don't be discouraged.

what's the lightest twm next to dwm?

so much wasted space
only a NEET can have an environment like that

Lukes colorscheme is comfy af

stumpwm

whi ratpoison hier

Is there any actual reason to use a tiling manager if your screen isn't tiny? It's not like simple, light window managers like Openbox don't exist. Many programs are meant to be used at a specific size and ratio like video players, and font-sized windows like Emacs look retarded at an uneven size, so automatically stretching the windows around is counter intuitive. There are manual tiling managers like Ratpoison but I found that using a keyboard to arrange things how I like is painful. It's like editing text with a mouse, clumsy and tedious.
The l33t hacker mentality is also really annoying. Not everyone wants a riced desktop. Even if you mostly work in a shell, tmux or screen will let you manage your workflow much more easily in a way that is more easily automated. I have never once needed a bunch of term windows open side by side like I see in screenshots.

Because I hate floating windows.

this is after just logging in to dwm. all I did was open st and run htop. isn't my ram usage quite high at 400mb? are any of these processes unessential? (I have it sorted by memory consumption)

I have made good progress (suspend on close, working volume keys, etc). now I just need to figure out how to apply patches to dwm and st, then configure st

that all looks like fluff besinds xorg and polkit. get rid of lightdm; start your wm with startx

why are you using a crippled terminal?

You still have a ton of superfluous GNOME garbage running in the background.

Why should I switch from i3, Sup Forums?

also, should I use feh or nitrogen for setting the wallpaper?

I also have gnome/lightdm installed and it looks like a whole bunch of gnome stuff starts up automatically

what's wrong with it? I just need to type stuff into it, the only crippled part is no scrollback by default

why does it start even when I don't run gnome?

>everything is meticulously riced down to the pixel
>still uses nano

m8

in a lot of window manager you can specify specific cases (so for example when you open a program that has a fixed size it will always open at a specific workspace or floating, etc.).

The two wm's that I used had this (i3 and bspwm).

It's probably distro defaults. I use Arch and Ubuntu minimal so I'm not sure how to unfuck it.

Running i3 atm but can't get Polybar to work at all. What do?

`sysctl status` to find whats starting at boot, then disable it. or install gentoo.

here's the output
pastebin.com/mftYrEYZ
not sure how to read it but goa stands for gnome-online-accounts

Can I post here if I'm using TWM?

Nice 06, but no -funroll-loops. get out. :^)

how do you apply patches you've downloaded to dwm and st?

`man patch`

What are you using here? Attractive bar.

And I made a purposely stupid clip of me trying rtile

how do you webms?

I think people use simple screen recorder or just ffmpeg.

I made that using byzan as a gif then convered to webm, though.

Comfy. What window manager are you using? And is that wallpaper generated or just an image?

-O6 doesn't unroll loops?

patch -p1 < patch.diff
?

>What window manager are you using?
Joke or not? It's TWM.

Ignore that. Post literally says. Brilliant...

It's just KDE. Thanks for posting a webm. I don't think I've ever seen a tiling window manager in action before.

does it? if so, well done. oh and nice ram usage, my dude.

>does it?
It's too late for me to look at generated asm.
>nice ram usage
It's just basic OpenBSD.

what's the best bar/terminal font and system font?
right now I'm using terminus for the former and cantarell for the latter but I'm not sure how i like it

Oh okay. Is that bar KDE or something like dmenu?

bls respond

Terminus & Noto Sans.

It's KDE's Krunner and it's amazing.

>lets take the windows UI, and remove the ability to resize and move windows!

>and replace it with something superior

What did you try?
Just place
exec --no-startup-id polybar name_of_your_bar
in your i3 config file

Ah ok. Was invoking the start.sh script but I guess that work too. Will try it.

the dwm patching page says
cd program-directory
patch -p1 < path/to/patch.diff


i tried it and it didn't seem to do anything, it just hung indefinitely until i control-C'd it

how do you guys close windows quickly with these? like what if someone walks in on you watching porn?

i3 for me all the way, i am using it at home and at work.
btw sway (basically i3 for wayland) works awesome as well

You should consider using urxvtc and urxvtd instead of always spawning single terminals

Super + Shift + q

or simply switch to a different workspace

super + $NUMBER

I use Alt-Shift-Q to close windows. It fits kinda naturally with my thumb, pinky and ring finger

>should I use feh or nitrogen for setting the wallpaper?

I use nitrogen, personally.

tiling window managers work better with multiple screens imo

I have 4 displays at work and the ability to control each individually with the ability to have more workspaces on one monitor is really nice.

>and remove the ability to resize and move windows
that's wrong though you fucking retard

you're very right, i just haven't decided whether to use vim or try emacs. i usually use sublime text, but Sup Forums doesn't seem to like non-terminal based text editors

i3 can do this easily, something like
exec first
switch to vertical
exec second
(second window is still in horizontal mode)
exec third
switch to vertical
exec fourth

Look up the exact commands in the config, should be pretty much copy and paste.

How's that work? Does the wm know to extend across screens by default? So two applications will have the first full screen on the left and then the second full screen in the right?

Terminus & Terminus

no, but e.g
Workspace 1 on screen 1: Slack and Skype
Workspace 2 on screen 2: Main display with browser and terminals
Workspace 3 on screen 3: Email, Musicplayer other terminals
Workspace 4 on screen 4 on top: Icinga

Now if I would e.g. work on a macserver i would spawn workspace 5 on screen 2, since it is my main focus point

Ah okay. That's pretty neat, and the wm auto displays workspace 1 on your first screen, 2 on your second, etc unless you spawn them differently?

yes, the screens and the workspaces start that way and static stuff email, monitoring and slack also spawn on the correct workspaces

That's awesome. I was debating not using a tiling wm on my desktop when I switch it to Linux, because of my uncertainty on how it works with multiple screens. But the way you say it it works even better than I'd thought. Thanks user

i3 has really good documentation regarding these things

it is probably the most functinoal twm for linux

Yeah, I was going to get around to reading it when my desktop is actually running Linux.

damn nigga, is that you on my goodreads friendlist?

what are essential dwm/st/dmenu patches? right now I only use cfacts for dwm to resize the stack

Rofi and krunner
Both should run fine in any WM. At least in mine does...

t-thanks but those aren't patches and I already use dmenu

This

r u l.s?

>voidlinux on x220
>luke@void

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