Common Questions About Tiling Window Managers 

Turning on the Android 10 live captions was pretty funny this video. My favorite part was "you don't need to be a programmer to use Italian window managers"

0:55 Which TWM are you using right now? 3:03 Which TWM is the best? 4:12 Which TWM is the best for beginners? Which is the easiest? 6:08 Is a TWM worth it, specially to a non-programmer? 8:08 What is the most customizable TWM? 9:00 I Heard that Python is slow and sucky. So why do you like Qtile? It must be slow, right? 11:15 Does using a TWM make a terminal multiplexer obsolete? 12:15 Are there any other TWMs that have tabbed layout? 14:28 All TWMs look the same. So what's the differences between them? 16:00 Can I get a prencofigured TWM? 18:18 Thanks Patreons

I accepted your challenge. I switched from Windows (over 20 years of Windows desktop experience) to my first Linux PC and my window environment is Xmonad & Xmobar. :) It works fine. Xmobar consumes more RAM than Xmonad. :)

Qtile is built on top of Qt, so it's at it's core just a bunch of C++ calls. It's true that python itself is slow, but it's interoperability with C/C++ makes it about as fast as you want it to be (given you want to take the time to write the underlying C/C++ which can be tricky at times). Numpy is a perfect example of this.

The question about " being slow" is funny. Comes up in a lot context/topics. From a programmer, (runtime) speed of languages rarely actually matters for a few reasons: 1 - Few programs really run your process at high CPU % for any length of time. Or more precisely, few programs actually need to run a high # of operations in the context. Things like I/O doesn't matter (because your OS/harddrive is going to be the limiting factor for i/o, or the change of context if you do a high # of i/o ops for small files). 2 - how the thing if program will matter much more as a 1st approximation than actual runtime performance of the language. Things like using caching or not, minimizing or batching calls to external contexts and just generally using a more efficient algo (e.g. something that runs in O(1) vs O(n)) will matter much more.

This is Beauty of open source software it allows to create your OWN config with some sense of simplicity. It respects everyone choice which makes questions like "which is best" redundant. You make your system yours. On contrast it might not be easy for up and running but once done it is easy to reproduce.

Don't be too harsh on people. I think, most of the time when someone asks "What's the best blank?". They're asking what's the simplest, most powerful, flexible,etc ... Blank. Like, someone says I use blank to do this. Then, someone says if you use blank, instead of doing 10 things to do that, you only have to do 5. Stuff like that. You ARE correct, most of the time, it IS just personal preference. Guess, easiest way we can respond is "For a noob, I might recommend blank and for everyone else it's personal preference.". Then, if we wanted, we could recommend a small list for them to RU-vid.

This is a very useful video with a great approach to this topic. Thank you. People often have this mindset of looking for "the best" in most large changes they have to make, but what they are really looking for is validation that the choice they would like to make is good value, worth the time investment and respected (or at least doesn't bring shame to the user) among other users. This is true for starting to learn programming (people will often reject for instance Java for this purpose because it's "bad"), making a large purchase like a car or a house and sometimes even when choosing a profession.

I wish that someday, I get a notification about DT's new video and when I click to watch it, I see him looking at the camera :D. Man, please do it

Derek, I sometimes have no idea on something linux and lately it's DistroTube video's I go to since unlike other video's Derek speaks proper english super clearly and you explain why and what about what you recommend and even in an distro installation you give the step by step like when you did an Arch install so I not only saw Arch installed by an explaination on the steps that you did not "just do this" and that's it. Your channel educated the users that need real answers to common stuff no one gives a clear answer to or you find a site with code and not discription of what is happening or how the code works together. You look intimidating at first sight but after listening to you we realize you might be the most helpful person out there for taking the mystery out of basic and not so basic functions of linux and making them simpler for a person that is not an expert to actually use and become a more functional user and expand our skill sets. Keep up the great work, I always look for the distrotube video's since I actually get my questions answered and likely will learn more by the end of your video's.

Tiling WMs are a blessing. I truly am not sure if I can really go back to a floating wm, this is just perfect for me. And the best thing is that it is incredibly easy to port to other PCs if you want (oh sorry, there is no best thing😂😂).

My progression for TWM's was i3 (disliked it) to dwm (❤️) i have tried other wm's and the second contender is qtile since i like python and i can use different bars with it I found it actually pretty ok to set up! idk why, maybe i just know how to google well XD

In qtile, if you use the tasklist widget you can see the names of the opened windows while in max layout and can switch between them using your mouse.

My first TWM was DWM, I had no problems at all. I find the config files actually easier to use than most other configs. Currently I'm using SpectreWM, because it's the only TWM, I could find that handles my six monitors in the way I want, and the config is so bad, everytime I change something, I want a config.c file...

My first twm was i3, probably like 95% of people, and then switched to xmonad, it's harder to configure but it works better with scratchpad, layouts and floating windows for me, although I miss a little bit the binding modes of i3. It can be done in xmonad but my skills are not good yet. I stole dt's xmonad configuration, it saved my weeks of trial and error, it just works.

I was an i3 user for years and I never used the tabbed layout.

omg i genuinely though you are a programmer of some sort, at least dealing with computer for job. It was mind-blowing and keep up the great content!

I am running pop_os and using kde and trying to configure an i3 install. Having a full DE is so helpful in trying to configure a WM for a beginner like myself. Just a recommendation :3

Normal hopper: hopps distros DistroTube: hopps window manager

I actually prefer tmux. Since it runs in a background as a service I think only once it crashed on me but had multiple instances of desktop environment crashing and once it happened all terminals and work on them closed... Besides I like that I can connect via ssh from any machine attach tmux and all my work is just where I left it. The only thing that bothers me with tmux is copying to and from it.

I actually use KDE Plasma as a twm, because I always use the keyboard shortcuts to arrange the windows in a tiling fashion. So I do not need a "real twm" :D

I am xfce power user, mono screen all my life, I became intrigued, came about a second screen, vanilla xfce is not good at multihead, can't make second screen a worskpace, I installed awesome, now I will rice it, down the drain goes my productivity, TY.. :p

I love your channel man, I've learned a lot with this video

Small correction, xmonad has tabbed layout in contrib: XMonad.Layout.Tabbed. If I remember, xmonad tabbed works better with compton than i3. With tabbed i3, the transparency shows another window and tabbed xmonad transparency shows the desktop background.

Right there is no best. But we all have preferences, like we can list of the top 3 favorites or top 5 favorites from our experience with a few of these programs. My top three favorite Tiling Window Managers are i3, bspwm and herbstluftwm. Other Window Managers that I like are pekwm, openbox, fluxbox, and JWM.(Stacking)

Bspwm is the best at sticking to the Unix philosophy. (on non-tiling side, xfce is also good at it)

I couldn't get i3 function buttons working right on my X1Carbon. I installed Regolith-Linux and it got me jump-started and now I feel like I'm ready to build my own config.

I'd like to see the instructional video about how to combine all those (most common) components into a whole thing. Like how do I change login manager? How do I configure a specific window manager in the (?) login manager ? How do I switch desktop environment? How do I take something from one DE and something else from another and use it -- like use Nautilus in GNOME just for example?

My first X Window, window manager was twm, in early 1990's. Then I 'switched' to fullscreen GNU Emacs.. :) and stucked in it. :)

I really like Awesome wm. I3 was nice too. But awesome works well out of the box and is easier to config.

The tabbed layout in i3 does not force you to be fullscreen like the monocole layout, so I don't see how they're the same. You could have a set of tabs take up just one corner of the screen, which is super helpful for multiple vim instances, opening multiple PDFs, etc. Not saying xmonad can't do that because I don't know, that's just not what you showed.

"Are you opening programs and then forgetting what's open? I think not." You underestimate those of us with ADHD.

I would've like to know about tiling window managers that operate using Wayland, instead of Xorg. Been thinking about switching to Sway, but don't know yet if it is worth it.

Great work 🥳🥳🥳 Thank you 💜💜💜

I moved from i3 to qtile a while back and I"ll be honest, I kinda miss the tabbed layout. You know the columns layout that qtile offers? That's closer to how I used the tabbed layout than the max layout demonstrated here. What that person was talking about has more to do with the tree-like structure i3 uses to contain its windows within containers and subcontainers, and then apply the tabbed layout to a subcontainer for a cleaner look while also keeping everything you immediately need in one workspace.

@ 03:08 Hey DT! there is no stupid question !

@DistroTube When editing /etc/pacman.conf and adding the line ILoveCandy we get a Pacman (represented by C and c) eating dots. My ? is: Can Pacman (C and c) be changed into real Pacman icon? Thanks and thanks for the videos. All the best!

Thank you, Derek. I have yet to try Qtile but will in a few months.

How do I get those cool looking terminal banners?

I've been using i3 for half a year. Although it's completely next-level experience from floating window managers, I can see its flaws. I'm looking to switch to either DWM or Awesome. I've tried st from suckless, and actually used it for a while, but switched to kitty, because it was either buggy and "fix it yourself" approach wasn't really for me. Therefore I'm afraid of using DWM. Is it still worth tring DWM before Awesome?

Really enjoying you content please keep it up. Could you do an episode about making youtube videos on linux? Easiest screen capture, audio, editing, etc software? Or maybe your process for your videos?

Very nice video! Thanks DT!

This is a wild offtopic, but I absolutely love his accent. Where is DistroTube from?

What do you mean by dwm is not usable out of the box? Pretty much the only thing that has to be changed is in the key bindings, changing Alt to Meta. After that, dwm is perfectly usable, no need to patch it at all (unlike st).

I tried many window managers, and I prefers eveilwm; tiny stacking window manager. Bery small, fast and versatile. Not need to use mouse to operates. Thank you.

Drink every time he throws shade at luke smith hahahah

I wish I had a use case for a tiling WM. Sitting in front of a 28" 4K screen and not liking pretty much all windows in fullscreen ... I would end up configuring all windows to float or use dozens of "padding windows" to resize other windows.

Does anyone finds weird he is not a programmer and does not even work with computers?

Hey DT. I use i3 and often use tabbed layout in split layout. You said "tabbed layout is just a monocle layout with tabs on top". Can I split and tabbed in other window manager?

hey DT how you create the skull i see in the thumbnail of this video ?

Hey DT what is the best chocolate? I prefer DarkChocolate.

I've been using Arco Linux to try out different environments/managers because it has such an easy way to install them with it's tweak tool. It's a bit too rolling for my taste so I'm fine with using it for exploration.

"Qtile is just as fast" Ah, the "just as good" meme from gun RU-vid.

I usually suggest i3 as the most suitable tiling wm to start...

I actually used DWM as my first tiling window manager. And from just laziness I didn't change it to anything else. I tried i3 but didn't like the tree structure.

i started with dwm and it was fine it was my first wm comming from gnome now i use sowm and it is crazy fast

Well DT, as you said you are RU-vid personality so you need to accept that a lot of people want to copy you, that comes with fame. I get your point, but it is what it is.

When you say Qtile appears to be just as fast as other wms, is it because it is configured minimally? I have a feeling the Python backend may not scale well when a lot of stuff is added to Qtile's config as compared to adding the same amount of customization to other wms.

Whenever I see TWM, I think "Tom's Window Manager" running on X Windows back in the early 90s on Sun/Solaris.

I am trying to find a right way to configure Awesome WM on Manjaro KDE. While I read that KDE plasma is integrated extensively on vanilla Manjaro, wanted to know some basic steps to follow to configure it on my desktop

I dig that skull ascii in the thumbnail 👀

I think you misunderstand the utility of the i3 tabbed layout. When your windows are full screen, it's not useful, it's superfluous, like you demonstrate. Where it really shines is when you already have the view split. I will describe an example. Part of my job requires answering phones, and the phone interface is a web page. On a small window that takes up maybe the right 15% of the screen, I keep the phone system web page open. The other 85% of the screen I use 5 tabbed windows: - Browser for ticketing system and research - Chat client - Remote Windows machine for applications that I need that can't be installed on Linux - Notes - File browser The tabs at the top of the left split allow easy access to any of these windows, while still allowing the phone system window to remain open on the right side of the screen. One other thing that probably many people do not know is that you can split windows inside a tabbed view. This is useful for like keeping many windows open but only one of them focused, taking up the full screen, but then still having the ability to open a split on that window while leaving all the others on their own tabs out of the way. I find myself using this often when needing to reference a web page and open terminals but I still have other web pages open in their own windows that I don't necessarily want to close, but I don't want to have on the screen at the moment.

This guy... master of Computing😂

treetab in qtile is basically a tabbed layout, just the tabs are on the side

Python is a great language to learn for beginners. It's not statically typed language. It's interpretive dynamic language.

Even locally, your X-windows can crash or freeze, or you nay accidentally close the terminal window. But tmux session keeps running.

13:15 well what if I want a "master/tabs" layout? one window on the left half of the screen and one stack of windows on the right half of the screen?

How do u deal with tearing in tiling window managers? Do u use just use picom or do you play with the xorg. conf.d file and add TearFree option?

DT if you could able submissions of closed captions to your videos I'd like to help making them. Thanks!

It's ok to ask for a suggestion, but "the best" is not a question to ask. I love i3wm, but I don't think is the best, it just works for me

Serious question up here: If every single TWM can be configured as every single other TWM... Why even move away from i3wm?

xmonad was my first wm. i had no problem.

Luke Smith made me switch to DWM and I have been unable to use anything ever since. I feel like there's a slight delay between pressing a button and something happening in awesome. Also it's a bit annoying that the good WMs usethe most annoying configs. C code that you have to compile into the binary, haskell and Lua. Might try out qtile at some point though.

I don't have time to customize it right now. Already completely behind in uni because of Arch not liking my gpu.

And maybe just a video on micro, it's like the vi improved of nano like editors

DT, I tried deleting my KDE for an I3 tiling window manager and I screwed up my install because I didn’t know what files you needed before you install any tiling window manager and deleting your DE.

I have wanted to get into qtile for a couple of weeks now but no matter if I try it on Debian or Manjaro or pure Arch I can't get the default config to work. If I try to start qtile with the default config it tells me that there is an error in the config file. If I try to run that file from CLI with Python it looks to me as though it is calling out some methods which the libraries do not contain. I haven't had time to dig into that and wind up going back to XFCE just to get things done. Anyone else have issues with that?

ham the best !

I use tmux in a floating window (luke Smith idea) and with fuzzy finder.

Starting to learn WMs with Arco Xtended. Question though. What WM are you running now? And now? How about now? 🤪

Any1 know how Dt does those graphics in his terminal on startup ? Pls

Doesn't awesome actually show the open windows in monocole layout in the top bar as tabs?

The only bad thing about i3 is the jkl; bindings. It's a pain having to remap everything

What is that program that gets ran everytime you open the terminal?

Ah, the 'Python is slow' misconception. It's a high-level language that's not as efficient at certain tasks as you point out, sure, but most users/code won't necessarily be performing those tasks. Match that against its ease of use, and it's a very fair tradeoff. I'm biased, though.

People ask questions like whats the best because they are scared to start with a “bad” WM

what de are you going to use tomorro

Luke Smith dwm gang where ya at :D?

wait your saying awesome is more customizable than dwm‽

I think you might be trying too much to look after your viewers. If they're infantile and impressionable to the point where they'll stick with whatever you use no matter what then it's their problem, not yours. Otherwise, questions like "what you use?" come from trust in your choices and recognition of similar preferences (or maybe just pure curiosity, this one's the most common for me). That is if I liked something that was recommended to me then there's a fair chance I'll like something else that the person recommends to me. Similar logic applies to "what's the best?" questions, if you're asked that chance is they're asking for your personal favorites. It's the most sensible assumption since it's a purely subjective term.

14:15 yes

4:00 But there is one except about "the best" question, no doubt you won't find a video player better than VLC. :D

I use stock WM s mostly but I can switch.

I bet after this clip the Lenin looking unaboomer ranting ina woods will come with a dab...

Im new to TWM i install i3 and i like like it but i just want to configure my bar like powerline but i didn't find some tuto to conf it :(

I'm not a programmer but extremely interested in Linux

An Arch coffee cup, didn't know those were a thing, kind of jealous now.

Can someone pls tell me what Programm he uses to return the colored ASCII pictures on startup of a terminal :o

GNOME is the best!

WINDOWS managers