Hyprland has become pretty popular, maybe in part due to DHH promoting it a bit. But in my opinion, Niri is where it's at. If you're into this sort of thing and haven't tried Niri, I'd highly recommend it. The scrolling approach to window management is incredibly nice for my workflow.
Try PewDiePie. around 6.7M people now know something like Linux and Hyprland exists, and that in 2025 it might even work better than MacOS or Windows and whatever desktop environments on Linux came before.
Slightly off-topic rant: Demos with apps/terminals that use translucent backgrounds befuddle me. In this demo at one point he is showing some code that is syntax highlighted. Some text is grey with background that is also grey/white. Good luck reading that!
I'm still waiting for killer demo for switching from x.org/i3 to wayland/whatever next tiling. At least there are options now in Wayland other than sway, but hyprland currently is not motivating enough when demos mostly focus on eyecandy. Transitions especially are excess.
That being said I'm glad that Hyprland exists and shows people that there is power in minimalism. Fluxbox was my first love..
I have been having some issues with X/i3 (using i3 as a WM for Plasma), mostly with multiple screen setups (windows getting all screwy when connecting/disconnecting, lots of flickering, etc.), and also with my trackpoint's middle button scrolling randomly going away, and needing to use xinput incantations to fix it. I tried Hyprland with QuickShell, and after some QS-related pains, I just dropped to plain Hyprland. It's been working quite nicely so far. There was a lot of trial and error, and there's still some bits that could use improvement, but overall things just work nicely. The main sticking point for me now is that the screen-sharing and using Flameshot is a bit convoluted, and that the workspaces configuration does not support multiple external monitors (as in, the one in my office, and the one home, it needs some resetting each time I change those, or at least I haven't found the way to configure it properly as I had on i3).
I switched to it beginning of this year and haven't looked back. Initially I ran JaKoolIt's dotfiles which had a bit too many anime waifus, then some custom dotfiles I made myself, and finally Omarchy which really checks all the boxes for me.
My single gripe I have with it is multi-monitor behavior is pretty bizarre, as workspaces are a per-monitor deal.
My other complaint was with how it dealt with ultrawide monitors, but I managed to get a PR in that fixed that and let you configure an aspect ratio for windows that are the only window on screen so that they aren't always stretched a kilometer wide.
As a long-time Linux full time user, I begrudgingly switched to a mac for company reasons around a decade ago. I've lost a little bit of light in my life ever since, and was constantly fighting macOS to just let me work the way I want to.
I've switched back full time to Omarchy, and couldn't be happier. I'll likely eventually land back on NixOS with hyprland and my custom configs, but for now, Omarchy is wonderful.
DHH is just the salesman a Linux distro like this needs, and the combination of smart decisions (most menu'd commands just call out to shell scripts behind the scenes) and text-based config make Omarchy a techie's dream.
Add something like claude code in your ~/.config directory and you have almost instant and infinite ability to customize.
9 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 30.8 ms ] threadTry PewDiePie. around 6.7M people now know something like Linux and Hyprland exists, and that in 2025 it might even work better than MacOS or Windows and whatever desktop environments on Linux came before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVI_smLgTY0
Why do people do this?
That being said I'm glad that Hyprland exists and shows people that there is power in minimalism. Fluxbox was my first love..
So far, it has been a moderately positive change.
I switched to it beginning of this year and haven't looked back. Initially I ran JaKoolIt's dotfiles which had a bit too many anime waifus, then some custom dotfiles I made myself, and finally Omarchy which really checks all the boxes for me.
My single gripe I have with it is multi-monitor behavior is pretty bizarre, as workspaces are a per-monitor deal.
My other complaint was with how it dealt with ultrawide monitors, but I managed to get a PR in that fixed that and let you configure an aspect ratio for windows that are the only window on screen so that they aren't always stretched a kilometer wide.
I've switched back full time to Omarchy, and couldn't be happier. I'll likely eventually land back on NixOS with hyprland and my custom configs, but for now, Omarchy is wonderful.
DHH is just the salesman a Linux distro like this needs, and the combination of smart decisions (most menu'd commands just call out to shell scripts behind the scenes) and text-based config make Omarchy a techie's dream.
Add something like claude code in your ~/.config directory and you have almost instant and infinite ability to customize.
It's so much fun.
For any former i3 users, I've found https://github.com/outfoxxed/hy3 to be a very acceptable replacement.