Best tiling window manager for two monitors

gazj · 2010-02-13 21:03:39

I am looking for a window manager, that will work thus, my main window on my main left monitor, and my stack (my unfocused windows) on my right monitor. Is there a WM that can do this or anyone know one that comes close.

Thanks

skottish · 2010-02-13 22:12:53

xmonad can. I'll bet that awesome can too.

renato_garcia · 2010-02-13 22:21:59

Well, you can look at Awesome WM. The configure file of Awesome is a lua script, and is really very configurable.

Erathor · 2010-02-13 23:42:18

u can with awsome. I used it during a year and this is possible.

Now I use my kdemod in the awesome mode: shortcuts, tiling, ... ...

gazj · 2010-02-14 09:28:40

I find the awesome config file a huge headache, it was ok on version 1 or so, but now it is way over complex, is configuring xmonad any easier?

Last edited by gazj (2010-02-14 09:28:59)

raf_kig · 2010-02-14 11:05:34

No, but it doesn't regularly break your config :-)

barzam · 2010-02-14 11:22:03

Awesome doesn't regularly break your config if that's what you mean. Unless you consider changing a few lines now and then a breakage.

gazj · 2010-02-14 11:51:16

Yes the problem with awesome is the regular breaks in config more than it's complexity, If xmonad is more of a static target thats cool. I can deal with a complex config that once set it set.

JPEC · 2010-02-14 12:07:55

If you know C, you can do what you want with DWM. It support multihead. You just have to write a patch which provide this layout.

gazj · 2010-02-14 12:46:39

Unfortunately I do not know C. The dependencies for xmonad are HUGE, plus it is not really doiing what I want.

I usually use ratpoison but the problem with that is window tiling is manual, plus moving windows between screens is non existant as far as I know.

Gigamo · 2010-02-14 12:54:47

Awesome is what you want, and configuring it is not at all hard.

jelly · 2010-02-14 12:58:09

gazj wrote:

Unfortunately I do not know C. The dependencies for xmonad are HUGE, plus it is not really doiing what I want.
I usually use ratpoison but the problem with that is window tiling is manual, plus moving windows between screens is non existant as far as I know.

XMonad is pretty easy to setup once, the deps aren't that huge just ghc is 665 Mb. Why care about that diskspace isn't a problem today and they are stripping down ghc already.
But if it doesn't "do" what you want, consider choosing another wm

skottish · 2010-02-14 15:30:19

If it helps at all, this is a useful way to look at awesome vs. xmonad:

awesome is pretty much a complete WM/DE (it's close to being a full DE) with a task bar, system tray, run dialog, something like nine preconfigured window management algorithms, right-click menus, etc. Through lua scripting it can be fully extended. There's a lot to awesome by default and more often than not users are going to start to tear it down because there's just so much of it.

xmonad out of the box is about 5% WM and 95% toolkit to build your own. It has no DE features upon first start and few layouts. If your objective is to build up your WM and not to tear it down, this is a good place to start. The GHC dependency is irrelevant if this is your goal (assuming you can afford the hard drive space) in my opinion.

One thing that's pretty cool about xmonad that a lot people may not realize is that some of it's developers are involved with Arch. Arch-haskell (the bazillion packages in AUR), Real World Haskell (the book), and GHC are all tied nicely together by some of these people.

barzam · 2010-02-14 15:37:46

Very well put skottish! I found that Awesome was working almost like I wanted right from the start as everything worked once I figured it out by reading through the settings file. Later on I started tearing things down like you say, and it's a constant work-in-progress.

I can see why some people prefer something else though.

litemotiv · 2010-02-14 16:56:59

Since i use it myself, i recommend giving i3 a try. It's really minimal but quite powerful, and it comes with sane defaults which can't be said for all tiling WM's. Dual-monitor works out of the box, a second monitor gets a workspace assigned automatically when you plug it in.

gazj · 2010-02-14 20:53:35

litemotiv wrote:

Since i use it myself, i recommend giving i3 a try. It's really minimal but quite powerful, and it comes with sane defaults which can't be said for all tiling WM's. Dual-monitor works out of the box, a second monitor gets a workspace assigned automatically when you plug it in.

Spot on. Thats exactly what I'm looking for. Purrrfect

jelly · 2010-02-14 21:21:10

skottish wrote:

If it helps at all, this is a useful way to look at awesome vs. xmonad:
awesome is pretty much a complete WM/DE (it's close to being a full DE) with a task bar, system tray, run dialog, something like nine preconfigured window management algorithms, right-click menus, etc. Through lua scripting it can be fully extended. There's a lot to awesome by default and more often than not users are going to start to tear it down because there's just so much of it.
xmonad out of the box is about 5% WM and 95% toolkit to build your own. It has no DE features upon first start and few layouts. If your objective is to build up your WM and not to tear it down, this is a good place to start. The GHC dependency is irrelevant if this is your goal (assuming you can afford the hard drive space) in my opinion.
One thing that's pretty cool about xmonad that a lot people may not realize is that some of it's developers are involved with Arch. Arch-haskell (the bazillion packages in AUR), Real World Haskell (the book), and GHC are all tied nicely together by some of these people.

What is cool about XMonad too that you can integrate Gnome and KDE easily in XMonad and bluetile is really cool for starters

Berticus · 2010-02-14 23:13:42

I believe pretty much all tiling wm support dual head setup, sans official ion3. If you want ion3, you need to compile it yourself from aur (the author doesn't like dual head).

jarda-wien · 2010-05-09 20:38:31

gazj wrote:

litemotiv wrote:
Since i use it myself, i recommend giving i3 a try. It's really minimal but quite powerful, and it comes with sane defaults which can't be said for all tiling WM's. Dual-monitor works out of the box, a second monitor gets a workspace assigned automatically when you plug it in.
Spot on. Thats exactly what I'm looking for. Purrrfect

Well, actually i3 isn't really finished in this aspect yet.
Workspaces get assigned automatically, but there is no way to switch a workspace to another monitor - a big showstopper for me.

But otherwise I've been using it quite some time and like it very much!

splittercode · 2010-05-10 13:22:45

You might also want to try scrotwm. It worked with my xrandr setup straight away, and it's config file is the simplest out of any tiling wm that I've used. All I really had to do was set ALT+TAB to switch between monitors, everything else just worked right away. It might not have all the functionality you want though, as it's very minimalistic.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-02-13 21:03:39

Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#2 2010-02-13 22:12:53

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#3 2010-02-13 22:21:59

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#4 2010-02-13 23:42:18

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#5 2010-02-14 09:28:40

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#6 2010-02-14 11:05:34

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#7 2010-02-14 11:22:03

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#8 2010-02-14 11:51:16

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#9 2010-02-14 12:07:55

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#10 2010-02-14 12:46:39

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#11 2010-02-14 12:54:47

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#12 2010-02-14 12:58:09

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#13 2010-02-14 15:30:19

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#14 2010-02-14 15:37:46

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#15 2010-02-14 16:56:59

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#16 2010-02-14 20:53:35

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#17 2010-02-14 21:21:10

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#18 2010-02-14 23:13:42

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#19 2010-05-09 20:38:31

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

#20 2010-05-10 13:22:45

Re: Best tiling window manager for two monitors

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