As a beginner I mainly focused on Cinnamon, XFCE and GNOME but want to try out a windowing DE on a VM to get a feel for things.

What window manager DE would you recommend to a first timer that doesn’t use tiling DEs?

There seems to be pretty popular ones like i3 and hyprland.

I was also hoping if some wm’s still have a task bar as I am comfortable using that to keep a traditional style as I come from a long line use of Windows as well (starting from the XP era)

Thank you if you have any recommendations, it is good to branch your horizons a bit!

  • @[email protected]
    13•3 months ago

    as others have mentioned, a window manager is one component of a desktop environment – under ideal conditions, a desktop environment collects and integrates a whole set of packages (both primary and supporting), unifying functional aspects as well as look-and-feel – whereas people starting with a window manager add in tools where working for them takes priority over working with other tools

    • minimizing your desktop environment
      • Gnome and KDE
      • Xfce
      • LXDE and LXQt
    • tiling extensions to existing desktops
      • Pop Shell, Tiling Shell, PaperWM for Gnome
      • (I know KDE has an equivalent, don’t know what it’s called)
      • can get simple half- and quarter-tiling in Xfce just through hotkeys
    • switching out window managers in existing desktop environments
      • LXDE typically used Openbox
      • LXQt is pretty much window manager agnostic – distros commonly add Openbox, KWin or Xfwm – Tsujan seems favorable towards LabWC
      • Regolith packages a Gnome desktop with either i3 (Xorg) or Sway (Wayland) as the window manager
    • starting with a window manager
      • can either start straight from tty or rely on a desktop manager
        • supporting apps usually handled by whatever autostart feature the window manager provides
      • stacking/floating – most traditional choice is often Openbox (Xorg) but looks like LabWC (Wayland) is continuing its legacy
      • tiling
        • tiling window managers tend to rely a LOT more on keyboard hotkeys and less on mouse usage
        • Xorg – HUGE selection, all down to how much work you want to put in and how large a community there is to help you out
        • Wayland – currently at the top are Sway (continuing i3’s tradition) and River (trying to grab the Awesome fans)
      • getting a window manager up and running is only one part of the equation
        • obvious next steps include choosing a file manager, an image viewer, a document reader, a video player, a web browser
        • less obvious is the behind-the-scenes apps – seat management, policy kit, clipboard handling, notifications, app launchers, desktop manager