I’m currently using Fedora KDE Plasma, but I’d like to try out a tiling window manager. What would you all reccomend? I use my computer for school, so I would like it to be stable.

  • Telorand
    180·
    1 month ago

    The word you’re looking for is Desktop Environment (DE). KDE Plasma is one such DE. Distro is the underlying system.

    • i3 has been around forever and has lots of guides on how to customize it. Only downside is it’s X11-only, so as everyone moves to Wayland, X11 support will decrease.
    • Sway is i3+Wayland, though it’s newer, so I dunno how much customization content is out there or whether the i3 tutorials are forward compatible.
    • Hyprland is another popular choice, and it is Wayland-based. Only downside is the project lead is a toxic asshole, despite being a gifted dev.
    • Cosmic is an upcoming DE, so if you’re in no hurry, keep an eye on that one.

    To install any of them, search for the project and see if they have an installation guide for your distro. If not look up “how to install <DE> in Fedora.”

    • boredsquirrel
      71·
      1 month ago1 month ago

      Cosmic is already more usable than most Window managers, that literally just manage Windows.

      I mean, it has apps… and GUI settings…

      There is a guy called Ryan Brue that packages all the COSMIC apps. He created a SIG and in the channel there are some COSMIC Devs helping out.

      There is a uBlue variant with COSMIC, working pretty great.

      COSMIC just breaks KDE Apps a bit. Will have to see if some package may fix them, as they are so themable that missing packages make them use aome shitty fallback theme.

      • Telorand
        60·
        1 month ago

        I know Cosmic is there, but it’s not even in beta. I can’t yet recommend it in good conscience, especially for OP, who is new enough not to know the difference between a distro and a DE.

        (And if you’re reading this, OP, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.)

        • boredsquirrel
          20·
          1 month ago

          Hm, the compositor stuff just works

          The packages also dont interfere with others, probably? So on Fedora, just add the COPR and try them

          COSMIC is extremely stable. I had a single crash or something, and that was a while ago. It is mainly just lacking features, but that is likely already at least as good as most Window Managers like Sway, that are extremely barebones.

          • Telorand
            20·
            1 month ago

            I see someone every now and again on !pop_os@lemmy.world asking about random Cosmic bugs, which is why I’m hesitant to recommend it to someone green.

            • boredsquirrel
              20·
              1 month ago

              Thats very understandable. Meanwhile I think no beginners use Sway etc.

    • NateSwiftEnglish
      40·
      1 month ago

      IIRC Sway is 100% compatible with i3 configs

      • Telorand
        10·
        1 month ago

        Oh, nice! Might give it a try myself!