The Top 8 Linux Window Managers of 2020

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  • Опубліковано 17 лип 2024
  • So many people do their "top distros" list or a "top apps" list. It's past time that someone did a "top window managers" list. So here is my top eight window managers that are available on Linux.
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  • Наука та технологія

КОМЕНТАРІ • 472

  • @Morality124
    @Morality124 3 роки тому +615

    0:23 - #8 i3
    2:55 - #7 IceWM
    4:15 - #6 spectrwm
    6:09 - #5 Openbox
    8:21 - #4 dwm
    9:50 - #3 awesome
    11:36 - #2 Qtile
    13:32 - #1 xmonad

    • @jasonwinter1549
      @jasonwinter1549 3 роки тому +6

      Thank you. :)

    • @tezaswiraj4244
      @tezaswiraj4244 3 роки тому +7

      How he moves window and resize with key binding?

    • @duckmeat4674
      @duckmeat4674 3 роки тому +13

      @@tezaswiraj4244 a keyboard...

    • @sketchy2673
      @sketchy2673 3 роки тому +3

      Thanks a lot

    • @ignisimmensus2568
      @ignisimmensus2568 3 роки тому +14

      The only reason I can watch distrotube is people like you putting the timestamp of each video for us to skip unnecessary BS

  • @Gomotianu
    @Gomotianu 3 роки тому +436

    DT is getting more and more really really noob friendly and i love it

    • @DistroTube
      @DistroTube  3 роки тому +266

      Noobs need love too!

    • @MartinErman
      @MartinErman 3 роки тому +49

      @@DistroTube Indeed we do!

    • @trampolinhusetuser7098
      @trampolinhusetuser7098 3 роки тому +26

      @@DistroTube We sure do. Just keep it coming, enough of the complex stuff that makes my brain boil, more material for FOSS virgins like myself :)

    • @marioschroers7318
      @marioschroers7318 3 роки тому +4

      @@trampolinhusetuser7098 I know that feeling. But fear not; your knowledge will grow as your journey continues. Keep it up!

    • @jamesm5192
      @jamesm5192 3 роки тому +4

      @@DistroTube Maybe you can figure out how to benchmark them and see how efficiently they use the GPU vs CPU... They are the type of software that should be able to take advantage of GPUs, after all. I could also imagine WM stress testing being possible - with some program opening hundreds of windows and rearranging them with some (automated) monkey testing. Otherwise, all there is to talk about is features - and many are close in that regard.

  • @valkrake
    @valkrake 3 роки тому +291

    Maybe I should give awesome a try so I can waste even more time riceing without doing anything productive

    • @drishalballaney6590
      @drishalballaney6590 3 роки тому +16

      hehe ricing is fun...I may not be so creative...but its fun to bunk classes to rice the WM and watch DT :P ;)

    • @drishalballaney6590
      @drishalballaney6590 3 роки тому +2

      @gamera lord how about others like xmonad?since I am better with python I find haskell a bit more easier than lua

    • @drishalballaney6590
      @drishalballaney6590 3 роки тому +1

      @gamera lord I found it a bit tricky to configure resizing keybinds in qtile, also it does not fully support standards like ewmh(extended window manager hints) iirc

    • @jonbikaku6133
      @jonbikaku6133 3 роки тому +1

      :(((((((((

    • @yavnest
      @yavnest 3 роки тому +1

      _"so I can waste even more time"_
      time = your life
      Don't waste your life.

  • @dustinmorse8497
    @dustinmorse8497 3 роки тому +5

    You got me into Qtile with some of your early videos and it has been my go to since.

  • @marioschroers7318
    @marioschroers7318 3 роки тому +1

    Excellent choice of window managers. First thing I see in your i3 is vim, and what a color scheme! Awesome colors in your Qtile and Xmonad setup as well. I really need to look into your color themes.
    As always, brilliant presentation. I actually guessed your #1 would be Xmonad. You stay true to yourself. Keep it up!

  • @stm3252
    @stm3252 3 роки тому +30

    I knew about Qtile in this channel and since then it became my favorite window manager!

    • @cun_0092
      @cun_0092 3 роки тому +2

      I'm planning to use it as my main de I'm learning python and using it will increase my python skills also. Technically it's like killing two birds with one stone.

    • @stm3252
      @stm3252 3 роки тому +2

      @@cun_0092 Very good idea. Python is very powerful language and you are going to enjoy extending Qtile features with it!

  • @p5eudo883
    @p5eudo883 Рік тому

    I really appreciate this video! Excellent coverage of a niche that can be daunting to get into.

  • @hilken
    @hilken 3 роки тому +2

    Just found your channel, you make good stuff man. So far I've been only using Debian-based distros (Ubuntu, Zorin, easy stuff for a noob), but after a couple of years using and learning Linux I think it's time to try something based on Arch: gonna try both EndeavourOS and Arco Linux on virtualbox (tried Majaro once, it didn't worked on my laptop, not even MATE, gonna see if its diferent with these ones) this month before going with one next year, and this video gave me good ideas of what I should try first on them, so thanks a lot.

  • @muCephei_
    @muCephei_ 3 роки тому +1

    Wow I found a gem on youtube. I'm coming back to linux and needed this.
    Thanks DT!

  • @faizanahmad5464
    @faizanahmad5464 3 роки тому +12

    I've been using dwm lately.
    It's true it isn't the most noob friendly or doesn't come with a lot of features but it's like it grows with you. Slowly you get the window manager that you need with dwm

  • @Matt-el3si
    @Matt-el3si 3 роки тому +1

    Awesome BTC ticker 😎 Top notch content as always!

  • @nandoxus
    @nandoxus 3 роки тому +28

    I been waiting for this video. Finally

    • @DistroTube
      @DistroTube  3 роки тому +15

      Yea, someone (maybe you) asked for this...so here ya go! :D

    • @markscheck
      @markscheck 3 роки тому +1

      @@DistroTube LOL, I know I asked like a month ago, thank you for all the videos since I've was looking at how to display data (like covid cases to a smart mirror.

  • @MaxMustermann-gl1yu
    @MaxMustermann-gl1yu 3 роки тому +1

    Greetings from Germany. Your Videos are great. Linux user for 20 years now and I can always use some content from here

  • @dejanzabaljac6950
    @dejanzabaljac6950 3 роки тому +1

    My first Distro ever was Manjaro i3,that's all i know and im staying there.Tried few WM's and for what do i3 is enough. Great video DT! Thanks!

  • @millankumar9245
    @millankumar9245 3 роки тому +4

    Hey DT, I love the video!

  • @m_abilash
    @m_abilash 3 роки тому

    As a long time Distrotube subscriber, as soon as I saw this video, I guessed he would rate Xmonad as his top pick. Lol
    There are quiet a few videos about Xmonad in his channel.
    Love your work dude, keep it up !! Many of my distro hops this year were influenced by your videos and your genuine opinions on the distros.

  • @wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus
    @wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus 3 роки тому +41

    I like my KDE Plasma and would never want to switch, but I have to say all those tiling window manager setups you see on places like r/unixporn look really cool and sometimes make me jealous.

    • @lorenzocabrini
      @lorenzocabrini 3 роки тому +2

      My son uses plasma. He does like my i3 setup however. Can kwin (or whatever the KDE window manager is called these days) be configured for tiling?

    • @gettriggered_ian3269
      @gettriggered_ian3269 3 роки тому +2

      @@lorenzocabrini I know that on gnome, system76 developed a tiling extension

    • @ranajitmukherjee9789
      @ranajitmukherjee9789 3 роки тому +3

      @@lorenzocabrini yes it can be ... i use a tiling script with my plasma setup. You can even use i3 as wm for plasma. However if u want a simple solution just use krohnkite instead.

    • @matthewrease2376
      @matthewrease2376 2 роки тому

      I go back and forth between KDE and Awesome lol. Just depends on what I'm doing, though I've been using Awesome more and more.

    • @ForgotMyPasswd000
      @ForgotMyPasswd000 2 роки тому

      You can use scripts like Bismuth to make KWin tile, or even integrate a tiling window manager into plasma there’s a lot of bspwm plasma setups out there that work very well, you’ll probably just have to tinker with keybinds so that the ones for plasma and the ones for whatever tiling window manger you use aren’t conflicting

  • @kylestubblefield3404
    @kylestubblefield3404 3 роки тому +89

    I love bspwm, and I am sad it didn't make the top 8 :(

    • @akshatvats7992
      @akshatvats7992 3 роки тому +3

      Same here

    • @HaiNguyen-cf1ji
      @HaiNguyen-cf1ji 3 роки тому +5

      Same here, bspwm just work :))

    • @mizhimo
      @mizhimo 3 роки тому +5

      bspwm > i3, spectrwm, acewm, at least.

    • @OG900Aero
      @OG900Aero 3 роки тому +2

      Same here. Bspwm better than i3 and spectrewm.

    • @007arunabha
      @007arunabha 3 роки тому

      me too. although i know it's not as efficient as others wm's, I am heavily biased to it.

  • @trampolinhusetuser7098
    @trampolinhusetuser7098 3 роки тому +4

    DT, I have an idea for a future video. You seem to know hell of a lot about what panel, what dock, what login manager, what DE, what WM and so on and so forth goes best with what. How do you know all that (more of a rhetoric question that needs no answer) But maybe just talk about all that choice one gets once choosing open source. Cause thanks to your videos I get to understand that linux means to have a choice, but it doesnt help much when you are a rookie and dont know what is there to choose from.

  • @kellyrunnels5684
    @kellyrunnels5684 3 роки тому +6

    1) I'm definitely going to say herbstluftwm, just because I used it for so long and customized it so extensively.
    2) dwm. I recently patched my own build of dwm that has very low system requirements, and goes well with my workflow.
    3) I played around with DT's xmonad, which I found very nice and easy to use.
    4) Bspwm.
    5) JWM. I got this configured how I liked it, and it worked very well for me.

  • @charliekahn4205
    @charliekahn4205 3 роки тому +2

    Recently I've gotten into plugin-based window managers and desktop environments, and in the process discovered that the code for Compiz 0.9 is actually really cool. From what I've read of the source you can even turn off compositing.

  • @sayantandatta1762
    @sayantandatta1762 3 роки тому

    Great video thanks for the info

  • @JosephSaintClair
    @JosephSaintClair 3 роки тому +1

    Should do more of these top xx vids, DT.
    You converted me from urxvt to alacritty, so I am grateful for that. I toggle between vifm and ranger. You did a vid on ranger ages ago, so I am trying it out and thanks.
    Been using i3 exclusively for about a decade now. I don’t use too many third party packages with it besides dmenu/rofi. Almost use it as is out of the box without too many tweaks and it just works, nothing more to do. Love the manual control of how you want to layout the windows. Questioning on weather or not I try bspwm just to see what it’s like. Think it’ll take a bit to convince me unless I can use it how I do i3, is less bloaty and consumes less ram.

  • @lvgsredarmy8776
    @lvgsredarmy8776 3 роки тому +1

    How were you able to get your i3 config file to have such nice and colorful syntax highlighting? Are you using a plug-in or setting a particular file type for that in Vim to make that happen? Thanks for the vid!

  • @engageintellect
    @engageintellect 3 роки тому +92

    # 1: bspwm
    # 2: dwm
    # 3: awesome
    # 4: i3
    # 5: xmonad
    # 6: qtile
    Edit: on each system I’ve tried them on BSPWM is the lightest... even more so than DWM. Xmonad is great but requires a ton of packages to run, Haskell knowledge, and bloated configs. It does what it does well, but there are simpler options that are just as capable and far less bloated.

    • @hyblm
      @hyblm 3 роки тому +1

      +1

    • @engageintellect
      @engageintellect 3 роки тому +1

      @sidhanth rathod I agree, the tabs are cool! I think Brodie did a video on how to do tabs in BSPWM.. I know that it’s possible.

    • @HR-ve7mc
      @HR-ve7mc 3 роки тому +2

      Currently i am also running bspwm, but i am not very happy with it. It is lightweight, but not as good configurable as others. BSPWM is very light, but not lighter than dwm. Maybe you forgot to look for resource usage of sxhkd also, because otherwise bspwm will not work. So you need to count them always together.

    • @plasmalife5532
      @plasmalife5532 2 роки тому

      +1

    • @unnatshaneshwar6477
      @unnatshaneshwar6477 2 роки тому

      yup I love bspwm

  • @mizhimo
    @mizhimo 3 роки тому +2

    Awesome is awesome. Super fun to learn, very well documented.

    • @ellandill
      @ellandill 3 роки тому +1

      they break the api during the update

  • @pascal7947
    @pascal7947 3 роки тому +2

    I see you keep StumpWM to yourself :P
    Small criticism, what you call dynamic vs manual is usually known as list vs tree based tiling. A manual tiling is something like herbstluftwm or stumpwm.
    Still enjoyed the video (as usual).

  • @kvngn
    @kvngn 3 роки тому +2

    dwm all the way for me. The "warp" patch is fantastic for mouse-heavy applications like web browsers, etc.: whenever you change focus from one window to another, the cursor goes to the middle of that window. Key over, and the mouse goes with you. Very, very convenient.

  • @jasfradique
    @jasfradique 3 роки тому +3

    Hi, I've just discovered your "obscure window managers" series! You're just great explaining the pros and cons of these things.
    Well, due to a sucktastic laptop I have, a really piece of... In the beginning I've started with the traditional and light mate DE and xfce4 DE but even with those I've experienced issues.
    I had to turn my head over some very light managers and no more DE.
    I realized it was time to play around with icewm, openbox, i3, fluxbox. Right now I'm using i3, it's really easy and performs great, I can tell I've improved productivity as expected with a tiling manager! But I think sooner or later I'll go to fluxbox, which performed so well on an even older toshiba laptop I had years ago.
    My problem with many of these wm is the way to popup the menu, you know, to let the system show what's installed. I had always issues on first steps of having those installed, in the menu there was always some apps missing and a had a lot of work to make them appear :-(
    But exploring your videos you are for sure a great teacher explaining all these stuff for the rest of us.
    Thank you very much ;-)

  • @shubhanshutomar7940
    @shubhanshutomar7940 3 роки тому

    it's 2021 and I have started using i3wm. Had a brilliant learning curve but I am having fun configuring it.

  • @googleuser9422
    @googleuser9422 3 роки тому +4

    perfect timing!

  • @OliNorwell
    @OliNorwell 3 роки тому

    Great video, personally I use Awesome (but not the default theme, which is baaad). It is #3 on this list but I think has the benefit of "just working" with anything that I throw at it. I use a theme that makes it look very much like i3.

  • @craigw4644
    @craigw4644 3 роки тому +1

    AwsomeWM fan here. Thanks for the info.

  • @Linuxhype
    @Linuxhype 3 роки тому +3

    Great to see xmonad topping the list! It's brilliant

  • @radu6772
    @radu6772 3 роки тому +3

    I've only used dwm before and now I'm using bspwm and I love it. First of all it's manual, which is my preference, second it's easy to switch between tiled and floating, third it has much more powerful keybind support because of bspc and sxhkd, fourth it doesn't come with a bar by default so I can use whatever I want

    • @buildershed
      @buildershed Рік тому

      I love bspwm because it’s done with bash scripting which is my favorite type of scripting.

  • @eddentt
    @eddentt Рік тому

    bro thanks so much, you actually made soft soft easy to understand

  • @raszelast
    @raszelast 3 роки тому +1

    Really helpful. Awesome and Icewm especially look interesting.

    • @lorenzocabrini
      @lorenzocabrini 3 роки тому

      I haven't used icewm in a long time, but it used to be very light. You could easily run it on older hardware. It was never really my favorite as such, but it was always handy to have it installed, when friends who used Windows 95 came around, because it felt quite familiar to them.

    • @raszelast
      @raszelast 3 роки тому

      @@lorenzocabrini Sounds good. Its actually for a single core Athlon netbook, so this should work well. Now I just need to figure out how the whole X window services work, being fairly new to Linux. This is the first time I'm trying a minimal build starting w/ command-line Debian and there are a lot of things to learn. My initial attempt before properly reading the documentation was... less than successful.

  • @ravishankarsatheesh1901
    @ravishankarsatheesh1901 3 роки тому +7

    I'm wondering why herbstluftwm and bspwm didn't make the list.

  • @Zoltar358
    @Zoltar358 3 роки тому +7

    After a year in Arch I just switched to ArcoLinux B i3 edition. What surprised me that i3 actually behaves like dynamic tiler. All thanks to autotiling, a small python library. It's not exactly dynamic, but after spawning second container it switches direction of next spawn. I think I'm gonna stick with this distro a while longer...

  • @pandasticus
    @pandasticus 2 роки тому +3

    Honestly after trying out Ratpoison I find it hard to move to anything else
    It might be just how my idea of tiling windows is, but it seems to just do everything so correctly and intuitively out of the box. It is a manual tiler, so you’re dedicating frames where you want windows to be able to open, and by default if you open another window in one frame it will maximise it, replacing the window that was under it
    And you can either switch between them in one frame like alt+tab, or further split those two into two frames with one window each.
    People usually complain about the escape key function - by default you have to press Ctrl-t , then followed by any other key binding every time you want to send a command to the wm but to me that’s not an issue, and actually prevents you from accidentally calling a command that will close a window, and frees up a lot of the keyboard bindings for you to use with other programs like tmux.
    Also it’s incredibly light (I believe it only uses 1MB of RAM.
    I encourage people to at least try it, it’s different than the popular wms but I promise if it works for you you won’t be able to use anything else again.

  • @iamjaiguy
    @iamjaiguy 3 роки тому +4

    Hey DT! Which tiling window manager would you recommend to noobs with multiple monitors? Willing to learn LUA but I've heard some complications with getting windows to working multiple monitors

    • @DistroTube
      @DistroTube  3 роки тому +3

      Every tiling window manager listed here is good with multiple monitors (I have three monitors myself).

    • @dakyskye
      @dakyskye 3 роки тому +1

      @@DistroTube sorry but i3 for multiple monitors is quite bad.

  • @taidee
    @taidee 3 роки тому

    Yes, thanks to you, I've been a permanent resident of Arch/Qtile for a while now. The great Xmonad comes next, then i3wm, Spectrwm and then all other are just ok to me.

  • @vidhukant1073
    @vidhukant1073 3 роки тому +5

    My top 8 WMs:
    8: DWM
    7: Openbox
    6: Kwin
    5: BSPWM
    4: Spectrwm
    3: Awesome (is awesome)
    2: Herbstluftwm
    1: XMonad
    Your XMonad show-off video inspired me to switch, and I hate to say this but it's better than HLWM, making it the best on the list

    • @gamerking64
      @gamerking64 2 роки тому

      How can i use kwin without a DE??? There is no video that mention that.

  • @prism223
    @prism223 Рік тому +4

    Honestly I recommend IceWM even for overpowered machines because there's nothing quite like practically zero latency window management

  • @prathameshmali3888
    @prathameshmali3888 3 роки тому +1

    I was previously using popOs then I switched to manjaro i3. Since then using i3, it's simple and the config is super easy. I though i3 was cool 😂, but now I know there are so many wm out there definitely goign to try some of these. Thanks dr for sharing wisdom.

  • @ivans3806
    @ivans3806 3 роки тому +4

    Thanks to your videos, I've switched to xmonad on my main laptop. Still have some quirks to figure out - but going back to Gnome feel so clunky...

    • @lorenzocabrini
      @lorenzocabrini 3 роки тому +2

      No! If GNOME feels slow and clunky it is because your brain is too fast. You are at fault and must slow your brain down to GNOME level. You have to make yourself stupid because GNOME was developed for stupid people. Only GNOME developers should think. Users should never think. That can confuse them and GNOME developers will be forced to remove even more features. And always remember that GNU's Not Unix Network Object Model Environment is absolutely not an acronym. Spatial file management was superior until one day it wasn't. But don't worry, soon GNOME will be rewritten in the only thing that is almost (but not quite) as good as GNOME: Rust and then all your problems will go away because Rust is a great programming language that makes Perl code look readable, so it must be really good.

  • @charliekahn4205
    @charliekahn4205 3 роки тому +1

    This is a video that needed to be made.

  • @roby2k14
    @roby2k14 3 роки тому +58

    8. i3
    7. icewm
    6. spectrwm
    5. openbox
    4. dwm
    3. awesome
    2. qtile
    1. xmonad

    • @arkvsi8142
      @arkvsi8142 3 роки тому +8

      You forgot windows 8.1

    • @jamesm5192
      @jamesm5192 3 роки тому

      Why?

    • @tacokoneko
      @tacokoneko 3 роки тому

      OPENBOX very good most high performance lightweight fully stacking WM ONLY IceWM and fvwm MAYBE less RAM i love it

    • @tacokoneko
      @tacokoneko 3 роки тому

      i would recommend icewm for pentium III, pentium II antique CPU, or RIVA TNT, VooDoo GPUs. very forgiving for CPU, RAM use. unfortunately after i successfully compiled custom build Pale Moon web browser on my Pentium III Katmai 500mhz, my original factory SDRAM for it was completely used up, it was written to probably billions of times from swapping between 8 GB swap and 384 MB SDRAM over the 11 days it took to compile, I was only able to run Pale Moon with incredible, unbelievably smooth optimized modern web browsing on Pentium III for a few minutes before my DIMMS failed and now cant boot need to find more SDRAM DIMMS in ebay

    • @fParad0x_
      @fParad0x_ 3 роки тому +1

      wheres bspwm?

  • @themroc8231
    @themroc8231 3 роки тому

    Hey DT, do you think it is possible to make Dmenu show the appimages inside a given directory next to the other programs in the search results? How would you go about it?

  • @therandomguy1701
    @therandomguy1701 3 роки тому

    Hey DT, what do you think about Microsoft porting their applications to linux? And what do you think about WSL?

  • @hogstudio4819
    @hogstudio4819 3 роки тому +2

    You may want to look into leftwm, it is not configured in the programming language that it is written, but it has some nice concepts around theming (and it is just a WM, it does not have a panel nor any other thing, very Unix-y).

  • @hostgrady
    @hostgrady 3 роки тому +4

    I've personally only just gotten into the window manager only experience and I've only used 2, Openbox and Fluxbox and I never got to configure Fluxbox because it was virtual and nothing ever stuck past leaving the website.
    So that makes my number 1 choice pretty obvious, Openbox. I have it configured to around my liking so idk where to go from there. I will say though tiling is starting to look like an option to look into however I might just distro hop first, I'll see how I feel.

  • @smolegit3914
    @smolegit3914 3 роки тому +4

    Found this channel just a few days ago and I love it

    • @andrasbiro6604
      @andrasbiro6604 3 роки тому +2

      Get used to the term "proprietary garbage" :D

  • @leandroadrianpaz
    @leandroadrianpaz 3 роки тому +10

    1) Xmonad which I'm currently using, has it limitations, specialy managing floating windows, very flexible thou.
    2) Awesome, the most flexible of them all, pretty nice floating window management, more a hybrid than a tiler.
    3) Spectrwm, is the easy and is better dwm if you want a basic dynamic wm with sane defaults imho.
    4) Dwm, very versatile if you know C and fork some patches to you taste but you have to spend lots of time if you want something more than a basic wm.
    5) ICEwm, very nice and fully feature for a lightweight floating wm.

  • @sotolf
    @sotolf 3 роки тому +2

    I started with wmii, moved over to i3 and now since a couple of weeks qtile is my home, it's a really neat wm, and it's starting to really feel like home now, got my arch up and running, and a nice zsh, just feeling so good being back home in Linux :D

    • @engageintellect
      @engageintellect 3 роки тому +1

      How do you change the color of floating window borders in qtile?

    • @sotolf
      @sotolf 3 роки тому

      @@engageintellect sadly I don't know, I never really use the floating layouts.

    • @engageintellect
      @engageintellect 3 роки тому

      @@sotolf I could never figure that out... I LOVE python, so naturally I wanted to like qtile. I found it’s defaults insanely unusable. DT’s qtile config should be the default.
      Also, simple things (like changing floating window border colors) seemed impossible in qtile and easy in just about everything else.
      Anyways, I’m glad you’re liking it. It’s cool to see people branching out and using other things besides i3. I love trying out new window managers and configs as it gives me ideas for how to set up my own environment.

  • @cstephan7
    @cstephan7 3 роки тому +1

    I still love spectrwm. I am most grateful that you introduced me to it earlier this year. It does almost everything that I would like.
    I do not know a programming language, but I am now considering learning C to try to fork spectrwm or similar (dwm, FrankenWM, etc.) and make it 100% my own.
    You have sent me down many great paths, DT. Thank you. I have been watching your channel for the better part of 2020, and I can hardly explain how much I have learned from your work.

  • @shivamnaik2460
    @shivamnaik2460 3 роки тому +3

    my favourite is bspwm because its config file is just a bash script and its modular design makes it very simple to use.
    the only thing I miss is master and stack layout..
    anyone knows how to get that working in bspwm??

  • @auroradraco9974
    @auroradraco9974 3 роки тому

    Yeah, I was kinda expecting the top 3. Definitely need to give awesome a try when I have time.
    For my personal I will be honest, I have only tried xfwm (xfce was my first de), xmonad (but I had difficulties configuring it so its not 100% usable), i3 and qtile. If I had to rank them Qtile would be first as I currently live in it, then i3 and then xmonad (could be higher of I could actually use it, but its not the easiest one).

  • @leviticus8930
    @leviticus8930 3 роки тому +1

    I made a couple of *iso's of a Xfwm4 standalone. One Debian Sid and one Ubuntu 20.04 based. Nice that the compositor is built in and it has an autostart file like openbox. It has a gui for keybindings and lets you know if there is duplicates. Plus it has the nice right click menu and it has some built in minimal Pseudo Tiling.

  • @torspedia
    @torspedia 3 роки тому +2

    No real surprise about your top two :-)

  • @rizkyadiyanto7922
    @rizkyadiyanto7922 3 роки тому +7

    nice list, although maybe you should also check wayland WMs/compositors.

    • @supremedeity9003
      @supremedeity9003 3 роки тому +2

      wayland isnt as mature so there isnt much hype around them.

  • @AnkitJosh
    @AnkitJosh 3 роки тому +2

    Hey DT ,can you cover the arcolinux tweak tool once?

  • @alphabennyrosy5068
    @alphabennyrosy5068 3 роки тому +5

    1. DWM
    2. Hersbluftwm
    3. Bspwm
    4. Openbox
    5. Kwin
    6. Xmonad
    7. Awesome
    8.SwayWM
    Waiting for the day dwl or a dwm like windows manager that uses wayland and the same workflow / master stack layout will become like stable and the whole xorg-server-xwayland thing goes out to the trash.

  • @smjure
    @smjure 3 роки тому +1

    Nice background with church :) I live close by, it's in little country Slovenia ❤️

  • @roteirosemfamilia
    @roteirosemfamilia 3 роки тому +1

    Thanks to you I gave Qtile a chance last week.
    Started with the config in your repo, and changed it a bit. Qtile has pretty understandable docs.
    I was using i3 since forever, it was my first tiling wm, than tried xmonad, and now Qtile.
    Keep up with your great work!

  • @GabeGinorio
    @GabeGinorio 3 роки тому +2

    Now that it is under active development and the docs have all been updated, I am trying out IceWM as my daily driver.
    I copied the configs from /usr/share/icewm to '.icewm' and used 'maker' to update the menu file. It doesn't tile like enlightenment, but I want to give it a chance.
    Something new in IceWM is a config that handles specific apps. You can config where and how an app opens. Interesting.

  • @ronnythompson9115
    @ronnythompson9115 3 роки тому

    @distrotube next year could you pls also show the base memory usage of the DM?

  • @peterarbeitsloser7819
    @peterarbeitsloser7819 3 роки тому

    Hey @DT, do you know how to get rid of the border of a non focused window in dwm? I couldn't figure it out yet...

  • @besnikrrustemi
    @besnikrrustemi 3 роки тому +1

    Bullet Proof Fully Encrypted BTRFS Arch Linux with Fish shell and your amazing Qtile Config tweaked with added Brightness Control and Battery into the panel for my laptop. I absolutely love it.
    Enjoying your DWM build as well, will have to tweak it a bit as well to make it laptop friendly too.
    Im set on my macro(s), now tinkering with my micro(s) until i find my favorirte like:
    - Terminal Emulator (Alacritty, Termite, ST) have to pick between those or if any better one
    - File Manager (Thunar, PcManFm, Nautilus), better suggestions with reasons are appreciated
    - GUI Editor (playing with Gedit right now) would like some suggestions
    - Best Image Viewer
    - Best Video Player and Best Music Player.

  • @75dhib
    @75dhib 3 роки тому +14

    my top 3 windows managers :
    1) DWM for advance user
    2) I3 bcs users frendly
    3) XFCE for noobs

    • @75dhib
      @75dhib 3 роки тому

      @@____-gy5mq i agree xfce is a DE but it can be use as WM for new linux users before switching to TWM

    • @75dhib
      @75dhib 3 роки тому

      @@____-gy5mq a new linux users that come from mac os or windows need GUI interfaces like kde after that xfce and TWM

  • @IvanMalison
    @IvanMalison 3 роки тому

    Will you do a video on taffybar? It's a really nice alternative to xmobar!

  • @hendrix4597
    @hendrix4597 3 роки тому +5

    My favourites: 3. Enlightenment 2. Compiz 1. Kwin. Guess I've soft spot for maximalistic WMs

    • @lorenzocabrini
      @lorenzocabrini 3 роки тому +1

      I'm not sure I'd call enlightement maximalistic. It depends on how you configure it. It can actually be pretty MINImalistic if you want. I used it quite a bit back in the days when it was the default window manager for GNOME.

  • @SupaShang
    @SupaShang 3 роки тому +1

    I recently started tinkering with awesome window manager. I don't think I'll ever go back to using a traditional desktop environment.

  • @poms3559
    @poms3559 3 роки тому +21

    Whoa, herbstluftwm is not in top 8.
    That's really disappointing it's a pretty neat Tiling WM.

    • @annihilationallenradio5710
      @annihilationallenradio5710 3 роки тому +2

      My favorite

    • @bandithedoge
      @bandithedoge 3 роки тому +1

      herbstluftwm is manual

    • @poms3559
      @poms3559 3 роки тому +1

      my bad it's manual tiling but it ain't suck, people just haven't spent some time on it and saying it suck.

    • @poms3559
      @poms3559 3 роки тому

      @kot Well, Fucking Enjoy patching DWM.

    • @GreyDeathVaccine
      @GreyDeathVaccine 3 роки тому +1

      HLWM has crazy configuration potential. The best WM for huge screens.

  • @LFrigoDeSouza
    @LFrigoDeSouza 2 роки тому

    Not on the topic of the window managers, but I`m wondering, is it any any package I could install that makes appear some different "color test" whenever the terminal opens?

  • @nevoyu
    @nevoyu 3 роки тому

    I switched from awesome to dwm and I'm quite enjoying it.

  • @love_pets1363
    @love_pets1363 3 роки тому

    Twm - there is a video on it here: ua-cam.com/video/9-5dU1Wc-rg/v-deo.html

  • @wojtekburzynski654
    @wojtekburzynski654 3 роки тому +3

    I never used standalone wm, but you inspired me to try tiling in my workflow. KDE + kwin tiling script + some tweaks such as disable toolbars, add bright frame for Windows gave best of TWM and full DE.

  • @yura979
    @yura979 3 роки тому +1

    What WM is best suited for Ultrawide (21:9) monitor? I would like to display the first program dead in the middle and have other programs being opened on the sides of it.

    • @yura979
      @yura979 3 роки тому

      Can Qtile split my monitor in 3 columns and launch first app in the middle one by default?

    • @plasmalife5532
      @plasmalife5532 2 роки тому

      I3

  • @CFWhitman
    @CFWhitman 3 роки тому

    I used to use IceWM a lot at one time. The only thing I've noticed about it more recently is that it doesn't seem to work correctly with the Compton compositor. I tend to use Compton to reduce/eliminate tearing when I'm using a window manager or desktop that doesn't have built in compositing. In fact, counterintuitively, using Compton seems to improve performance on low powered hardware by shifting some of the processing load from the CPU to the GPU.
    I've never really tried to develop a workflow for using a tiling window manager. I figure it would be an adjustment period, and I haven't worked up the ambition to give it a serious try. Also, it would probably make my computer desktop seem even more alien and inscrutable to casual observers / Windows users, and I'm not sure how much more or less interested it would make them in trying out Linux.
    I think it's worth mentioning that if you want to switch between tiling and floating, Awesome will let you do that.
    So my list of window managers at this point would probably include, in no particular order:
    Openbox
    Fluxbox
    PekWM
    Edit: I thought perhaps I should add the window managers I am most interested in trying out either at all or more thoroughly:
    Tiling:
    Awesome
    Qtile
    Floating:
    JWM
    Of course I use the desktop environment Xfce a lot, especially on more powerful hardware (though Debian/Xfce works pretty well even on not so powerful hardware).

  • @whenthethebeansstrikeback6728
    @whenthethebeansstrikeback6728 3 роки тому

    Am I able to have a mix in i3 of stacked window mode and be able to have other windows organized in a quadrant form? Like what if I wanted to have one application full screen but have another set of applications in quadrant form which I can pull out later, what would I do?

  • @EL_OEMS
    @EL_OEMS 3 роки тому +1

    #HeyDT! What's the point on spending time between different WM's when they all try to accomplish the same? What are the points that a WM starter person should check?

    • @shail0124
      @shail0124 2 роки тому +1

      He told the differences in video. Surely they are allmost same at the end but they try very different aproaches to do that.
      I'm going to use Awesome because it is very customizable and use lua as scripting language

  • @magicguirarman
    @magicguirarman 3 роки тому

    Pop Shell is my current favorite. It's a good balance of desktop and tiling window manager.

    • @ajarivas72
      @ajarivas72 2 роки тому

      How to compile it on Mac OS X 🖥 ?

  • @dangrabko
    @dangrabko 3 роки тому +3

    Wow BSPWM doesn’t even get a mention...

  • @robotglock6909
    @robotglock6909 3 роки тому +1

    qtile and i3 are the only tiling window managers on this list that provide tiling/stacking (plus tabs) out of the box. i3/qtile stacking is a must have. If your tiling WM doesn't handle qtile/i3 style stacked layouts along with standard tiling, you might as well go back to using Windows.

  • @SxC97
    @SxC97 3 роки тому +5

    Surprised that BSPWM didn’t make the list, my top DWMs are Awesome, i3, and BSPWM.

    • @thetreeofclues
      @thetreeofclues 3 роки тому

      assuming "dwm" means dynamic wm, neither i3 or bspwm are dynamic

    • @SxC97
      @SxC97 3 роки тому +1

      @@thetreeofclues Correct, I meant to write WMs.

  • @supremedeity9003
    @supremedeity9003 3 роки тому

    (Look at the end of the comment for a tip for new users)
    I have used dwm and currently using xmonad and plasma in turns. Seems like i need to check out Qtile and Awesome because they not only look good but are also are full of features and customisable in a language that i already know.
    Tip for new users:
    If you dont already know when you install a WM/DE it will create a session file and you can login into a WM/DE of choice however this is a better way of testing imo, All or most linux distros have ~9 Text console and the last or first one is used for all your main tasks (for example the DE/WM you login into) however you can switch between these. I recommend you look into Xinit and TTY for easier testing so if something goes wrong you can easily stop the process and switch to your main DE/WM

  • @kamiltopoa9248
    @kamiltopoa9248 2 роки тому

    Hi, do you have any solution on multiple workspaces on multiple monitors? Now i have multiple workspaces but only on main screen and not on the other monitors

  • @piotrtalarczyk8987
    @piotrtalarczyk8987 3 роки тому +7

    1. dwm - may be because i put lot of time in patching, coding statusbar, setting other staff;
    2. fluxbox

    • @supremedeity9003
      @supremedeity9003 3 роки тому +1

      Patching got annoying real fast for me. Having the freedom to easily attach or easily remove something is way better.

  • @warhawk_yt
    @warhawk_yt 3 роки тому +3

    For me no window manager can replace qtile. Since me first trying it after learning about it from Derek I have a hard time using anything besides qtile. Something about it I love but I have never figured out what I love about it. Subconsciously something about it I love but can’t place a finger on it.

  • @thierrybo6304
    @thierrybo6304 3 роки тому

    My main wm is openbox but I run dwm also. I feel more comfortable in dwm since I use dwm-flexipatch and jgmenu. Jgmenu can output the exact same menu I use in Openbox because it can use obmenu-generator as an input, the menu generator I use with Openbox. As jgmenu is also searchable I don't even use dmenu.

  • @MaxWis
    @MaxWis 8 місяців тому

    its not often that you see someone running the same background as yourself. but the openbox background is the same as mine!

  • @user-rx2il6tl9w
    @user-rx2il6tl9w 3 роки тому

    How do i get working brightness and hybrid graphics switching in tiling window managers. I have a hybrid laptop.
    Really painful to spend so much time configuring.
    I use my laptop for studying.

  • @whathandleisnttaken
    @whathandleisnttaken 3 роки тому +26

    My top 5 would probably be herbstluftwm, bspwm, qtile, xmonad, i3

    • @eli1882
      @eli1882 3 роки тому

      no sowm?

    • @engageintellect
      @engageintellect 3 роки тому +2

      What do you like about herbsluft?

    • @whathandleisnttaken
      @whathandleisnttaken 3 роки тому +3

      @@engageintellect I like herbstluftwm because it is pretty minimal, I can update it without restarting, and the fact that I can use any language I want to customize it. A lot of window managers have some of those functions built in but I like the combination of them all.

    • @engageintellect
      @engageintellect 3 роки тому

      @@whathandleisnttaken sounds exactly why the reasons I love bspwm so much. It’s just so damn easy! And fantastic for scripting.

    • @arsacode6145
      @arsacode6145 3 роки тому

      Noob here. Do i have to change DE's in order to use a particular tile windows managaer?

  • @markiroto9395
    @markiroto9395 3 роки тому

    You should take a look at Leftwm. It's a dynamic window manager written in rust and it separates it's config from it's theme.

  • @SFSAtlas
    @SFSAtlas 3 роки тому +1

    I'm installing a Gentoo VM with DWM, since it's the only WM that just worked for me.

  • @enderger5308
    @enderger5308 3 роки тому +4

    Honestly use Herbstluftwm while I learn Haskell (not even just for Xmonad, but as a language I write stuff in), but once I’m a bit more proficient I’ll probably move to Xmonad.

    • @umka7536
      @umka7536 3 роки тому +1

      No need to wait. I don't know Haskell, I used to program on C, C++. But I set up Xmonad and Xmonad without big issues, just looked into the configs of others and logs.

    • @enderger5308
      @enderger5308 3 роки тому +1

      I know, I’d just prefer to have a config which makes full use of Haskell.

  • @MarkusBurrer
    @MarkusBurrer 3 роки тому

    I miss herbstluftwm in this list. I recently saw a setup with an ultra wide monitor and it was amazing

  • @BrucesWorldofStuff
    @BrucesWorldofStuff 3 роки тому +1

    DT that is a Nice list!
    Seeing how you got me to try a WM for the first time it was Awesome WM. Then I tried SpectrWm and i have stuck with it for 6 months of so.
    So my list is short...LOL
    1. SpectrWm
    ?. DWM could be 2. :-)
    ?. Awesome
    Awesome is great and all I just like Spectrwm. I have in the last 4 or 5 days been playing with DWM so far I like it. Still figuring it out... Lol
    Qtile is on my list next. :-D
    Come to think of it I started to look at Herbstluftwm but never got back to it... :-(
    So thanks to you DT, also Linux Dabbler and OTB I have been in the world of WM's for over 1/2 a year...
    Yes I have other computers with regular desktops but I'm not needing a desktop as much these days.
    A Desktop just feels slow or something.. Don't know....
    BTW Thanks you for the help the other day DT, I got the DWM bar at the bottom of the screen just fine... THANKS!
    Thanks for the video!
    LLAP

  • @AbacateSexy
    @AbacateSexy 2 роки тому

    how do you set your terminal to show these pretty colors every time u open it? *^*