Arch Linux

playdafunkimuzic

Member

Registered: 2008-10-25

Posts: 220

Tiling Window Managers; where to start?

I'm looking for a wm for my laptop. It is relatively fast, 4gb of ram, dual core processor, etc. I don't like dealing with some of the bloat that is gnome/kde. On my desktop I've used openbox for quite some time, but what I really miss on my laptop is the expose function to quickly view all open windows, since a laptop monitor can get a bit cramped. I tried to work with skippy and the xautolock but it wasn't nearly the same. It seems like the only solutions are either going back to gnome/xfce + compiz, or compiz standalone (how is this?), or to try out a tiling window manager. What would you recommend? Where does one start? Will this solve my problem?

orschiro

Member

Registered: 2009-06-04

Posts: 2,136

Website

Re: Tiling Window Managers; where to start?

I started right with Musca. Due to the great tutorial there's no way to fail with that awesome wm.

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@orschiro

SpeedVin

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2009-04-29

Posts: 955

Re: Tiling Window Managers; where to start?

Hello first tiling WM's are lighter and faster than float WM's.
Second you can start from Musca/Dwm with dmenu just like me it's simple and user friendly

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Shell Scripter | C/C++/Python/Java Coder | ZSH

arkham

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2008-10-26

Posts: 516

Website

Re: Tiling Window Managers; where to start?

Compiz standalone is nice.
I use awesome WM though (Exposè in awesome -> http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Revelation )

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"I'm Winston Wolfe. I solve problems."

~ Need moar games? [arch-games] ~ [aurcheck] AUR haz updates? ~

geo909

Member

Registered: 2008-09-07

Posts: 309

Re: Tiling Window Managers; where to start?

Give a look at awesome, it's based on dwm but has many futures incl a built in system tray.

geo909

Member

Registered: 2008-09-07

Posts: 309

Re: Tiling Window Managers; where to start?

Warning: If you get used to a tiling WM there's no way back! And if your mom or gf are using your pc every now and then, they are going to get somewhat frustrated

Everybody has their favourite tiling WM, I guess the best way to start is use a couple of them, just google around but popular choices include awesome, xmonad, ion, dwm..

Also I've heard about this thing called pytyle, apparently it can make WMs "tiling". Never tried it, but you can give it a shot if you are already configured openbox and are used to it.

Knute

Member

From: Minot, ND

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 604

Re: Tiling Window Managers; where to start?

When it comes to a wm, people can get rabid about them;  almost as bad as when it comes to distro of choice!

Anyway, I have used a few tiling window managers myself, and liked every one that I have used, which includes awesome and xmonad.

I'm not plugging any of them, just wanting to let you know that there is a wiki page comparing the different tiling window managers, that should give you a good start on which one(s) you want to try.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … w_Managers

If there are certain things that you find useful in a window manager, the table can be helpful.

HTH

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Knute

Inxsible

Forum Fellow

From: Chicago

Registered: 2008-06-09

Posts: 9,183

Re: Tiling Window Managers; where to start?

geo909, please dont necrobump old threads, especially in the technical forums. Please have a read of the forum rules.

Closing...

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