I'm in the phase of slowly trying to learn Linux, and it's fun. But it also quickly becomes clear that there is no reward at the end. The endless different config file formats, man pages, shell mantras etc. don't really make computing any better in the end. They don't help one run CAD software, do CFD, write software, edit videos, make music, or any of the other things that are really what computing is about. Perhaps Ubuntu is the forever-distro after all.
I used to use ST, but I got real bored of suckless
Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it's pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though.
I use Sway.
The main reason is because I'm used to tilling WM, I've tried to switch back to stacking ones a few time but I really don't like it.
The second reason is that it's light.
The third reason is that I have less issues with Wayland (I know some people would say the opposite, but I never found a way to have no graphical glitch with X11)
Now, if there would be a mature dynamic tilling manager like DWM or AwesomeWM under wayland I would switch to it (I'm gonna play with RiverWM soon I think).
Sway is surprisingly nice to use. My first run in with it is the Manjaro+Sway images for the Pinebook Pro. I have to keep the shortcut documentation saved on my phone for referencing but I'm beginning to understand the draw of Tiling finally.
I'm fucking around with it on my ancient Surface Pro 3, and it's been a wonderful experience so far. I haven't even got XWayland. Helps that I'm only using it to use Firefox and write some code in vim.
I have been running either sway or i3 (both tiling window managers) for the last couple years. I used KDE for a couple years before that. One day I tried a tiling WM plugin for KDE and decided to give it a shot and learn it how it worked. Using the KDE plugin preserved the ability to float windows and do everything the way I had in the past if I couldn't figure out how tiling worked. It was a nice easy transition and I'm really glad I gave it a chance! I quickly grew to love the ability to use all my screen space efficiently and the organization of workspaces.
The lightweight footprint that something like sway or i3 gives is really nice too. Now I like to start with a fedora minimal install, install sway & just pick and choose all the applications I want to use. It really feels like my OS stays out of the way and is just the way I want it. If/when I reinstall I just backup my .config folder.... everything is back to how I like it once restored. Very easy.
Currently: LXQT/Mate on most machines. Mostly just because they are some of the lightest DE's that have the bare minimum features I want. I was a GTK-leaning user for decades now but the LXDE -> LXQT transition has begun to convert me. Fedora's LXQT respin is among my favorite prebuilt distros with LXQT.
I sometimes try to set up cinnamon, gnome, xfce, i3 or similar using the same keyboard shortcuts I use in my bspwm setup, but I always return to bspwm.
I've started to use the new version 3 on desktop. But it still has got some problems when connecting/disconnecting monitors, so I use version 2 on the laptop where I need to do that.
No DE, unless you count LXQt as a basic session manager. I don't know why, but it seems things works more smoothly with a session manager instead of just starting fvwm from .xsession.
Plain old Gnome (41.1) on Arch. Simple and gets out of the way. There are some annoyances, but it works well enough. I’ve used KDE Plasma (on Neon) and XFCE (Xubuntu) in the past.
Cinnamon. Every once in a while I try again Gnome and KDE but quickly go back to Cinnamon. It's the only DE where I'm mostly fine with the defaults. Everything else has to be tuned to death to be even remotely decent. Or they just crash because I have one monitor that requires HiDPI scaling and the other doesn't. I'm sad, nothing we have today is as good as Gnome 2 was.
Why? It just feels more like what I'm comfortable with and works closer to the way I expect things to work. I'm one of those people who thinks that Win95 era Windows defined a desktop UI that needs little improvement, and KDE gives me that experience plus pretty much exactly the improvements I would want - virtual desktops being foremost on that list. The "Activities" stuff is neat, although I don't really use that facility a lot, but it complements the rest of the system nicely IMO.
What I explicitly don't want is any of these desktop environments that try to do what I consider "weird" stuff like blocking you from putting anything on the desktop, or forcing use of a Mac style menubar at the top of the screen.
I’ve been using elementary OS (Pantheon) and I like so much about it, yet still often find it feeling a bit limited as a daily driver for software development work.
I’d like to try Gnome 40+ with one more distro hop, but if that doesn’t stick, then I’m likely to head back to KDE Plasma (Manjaro) since that’s been the best Linux experience I’ve had so far. Sane defaults, yet still easily customizable wherever I felt the need to.
Arch, i3wm. Love having a personalized keyboard-first setup that I can say I've built over time.
A tip for those who may just be starting out: switch your LEFT-ALT and WIN keys. Also make caps lock act like ESC on tap and CTRL on long press. See xmodmap, setxkbmap and xcape for this.
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[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadLately AwesomeWM[1] with Lain[2] seem to provide the flexibility and easy configurability I like with the minimal overhead I love.
[1] https://awesomewm.org/
[2] https://github.com/lcpz/lain
Kitty, VS Code, Chromium (Ublock, Bitwarden), Firefox, Typora, Logseq, Ohmyzsh
https://imgur.com/a/u1f0ZO6
But I have to admit, lately - I run KDE
1) https://www.enlightenment.org/
I've used a ton of minimal WMs and almost every DE. But I find Plasma much easier to get started with. Minimal tinkering and I can get going.
I'm tired of fiddling with OS bits. I just want to get work done. Pop!_OS is close enough to Ubuntu.
And their window tiling extension is fantastic.
I'm in the phase of slowly trying to learn Linux, and it's fun. But it also quickly becomes clear that there is no reward at the end. The endless different config file formats, man pages, shell mantras etc. don't really make computing any better in the end. They don't help one run CAD software, do CFD, write software, edit videos, make music, or any of the other things that are really what computing is about. Perhaps Ubuntu is the forever-distro after all.
- Tap Super key and type to open apps or select emoji
- Super+Left or Super+Right for simple side-by-side tiling.
- Workspaces on the primary monitor.
Now, if there would be a mature dynamic tilling manager like DWM or AwesomeWM under wayland I would switch to it (I'm gonna play with RiverWM soon I think).
I'm fucking around with it on my ancient Surface Pro 3, and it's been a wonderful experience so far. I haven't even got XWayland. Helps that I'm only using it to use Firefox and write some code in vim.
The lightweight footprint that something like sway or i3 gives is really nice too. Now I like to start with a fedora minimal install, install sway & just pick and choose all the applications I want to use. It really feels like my OS stays out of the way and is just the way I want it. If/when I reinstall I just backup my .config folder.... everything is back to how I like it once restored. Very easy.
I sometimes try to set up cinnamon, gnome, xfce, i3 or similar using the same keyboard shortcuts I use in my bspwm setup, but I always return to bspwm.
Been using it for like 5 years now.
I've started to use the new version 3 on desktop. But it still has got some problems when connecting/disconnecting monitors, so I use version 2 on the laptop where I need to do that.
No DE, unless you count LXQt as a basic session manager. I don't know why, but it seems things works more smoothly with a session manager instead of just starting fvwm from .xsession.
Why? It just feels more like what I'm comfortable with and works closer to the way I expect things to work. I'm one of those people who thinks that Win95 era Windows defined a desktop UI that needs little improvement, and KDE gives me that experience plus pretty much exactly the improvements I would want - virtual desktops being foremost on that list. The "Activities" stuff is neat, although I don't really use that facility a lot, but it complements the rest of the system nicely IMO.
What I explicitly don't want is any of these desktop environments that try to do what I consider "weird" stuff like blocking you from putting anything on the desktop, or forcing use of a Mac style menubar at the top of the screen.
I’d like to try Gnome 40+ with one more distro hop, but if that doesn’t stick, then I’m likely to head back to KDE Plasma (Manjaro) since that’s been the best Linux experience I’ve had so far. Sane defaults, yet still easily customizable wherever I felt the need to.
A tip for those who may just be starting out: switch your LEFT-ALT and WIN keys. Also make caps lock act like ESC on tap and CTRL on long press. See xmodmap, setxkbmap and xcape for this.