What window manager would you recommend?

[Aaronius_Leonius]

I'm installing arch linux on my laptop and am still trying to figure out my window manager. I have been looking into i3 and am considering that one. I did also ask on a linux discord server and people recommended i3, KDE, XFCE and openbox. They didn't back up the reason to choose it though. I wanted to see what else people recommend and why they recommend it. This is what I'm looking for, 

• Very Customizable
• Easy to use
• lightweight enough for an i3-3217u

What are your recommendations?

[Sauron]

jwm is pretty good, it's extremely light and fairly complete.

 

If you want a full DE I can recommend kde for the extremely wide functionality, customizability and what I find to be very nice eye candy. xfce is also quite nice but it's really old.

[themctipers]

I use total commander for Windows and macos. Why? Because there's two windows side by side. That's about it..

also dark mode  (you can change colours for UI)

also, I have the illegal version :^) not worth $40 

 

 

[Aaronius_Leonius]

3 minutes ago, themctipers said:

I use total commander for Windows and macos. Why? Because there's two windows side by side. That's about it..

also dark mode  (you can change colours for UI)

also, I have the illegal version :^) not worth $40 

 

 

I'm asking about linux though. Do you have a recommendation for linux? If not, that sounds a lot like the i3 window manager so I will probably use that. I am running a triple bot though with windows and macos so I might look into those.

[Aaronius_Leonius]

7 minutes ago, Sauron said:

jwm is pretty good, it's extremely light and fairly complete.

 

If you want a full DE I can recommend kde for the extremely wide functionality, customizability and what I find to be very nice eye candy. xfce is also quite nice but it's really old.

I know XFCE is very customizable because I have used it before (it was the only window manager lightweight enough for my raspberry pi that I liked) and I remember how customizable it was and I recently learned I barely scratched the surface on customization for it. 

 

Also, How much can you customize JWM? It looks a lot like openbox which is supposed to be very customizable as well. Can I add a dock to show off my custom icons? And do you know how battery life is on laptops? (If you don't, I won't worry about it for now)

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, AA-RonRosen said:

I know XFCE is very customizable because I have used it before (it was the only window manager lightweight enough for my raspberry pi that I liked) and I remember how customizable it was and I recently learned I barely scratched the surface on customization for it. 

 

Also, How much can you customize JWM? It looks a lot like openbox which is supposed to be very customizable as well. Can I add a dock to show off my custom icons? And do you know how battery life is on laptops? (If you don't, I won't worry about it for now)

jwm has a configuration file, you can add one or more docks and I think you can add icons to them too. battery life ought to be very good because of the low resource usage but it comes with no power management - you'll have to install that yourself.

[Aaronius_Leonius]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

jwm has a configuration file, you can add one or more docks and I think you can add icons to them too. battery life ought to be very good because of the low resource usage but it comes with no power management - you'll have to install that yourself.

Ok. It seems really nice. It isn't a tiling window manager like i3 but multitasking is probably not going to be possible on a 1366x768 screen anyway. 

Adding Power management is really no big deal either since I had to do that anyway for hackintosh (not going into anymore detail on that since hackintosh discussion is not allowed on this forum) and odds are, it will be a heck of alot easier on linux. 

 

Thanks

[Aaronius_Leonius]

14 minutes ago, Sauron said:

jwm has a configuration file, you can add one or more docks and I think you can add icons to them too. battery life ought to be very good because of the low resource usage but it comes with no power management - you'll have to install that yourself.

 

36 minutes ago, Sauron said:

jwm is pretty good, it's extremely light and fairly complete.

 

If you want a full DE I can recommend kde for the extremely wide functionality, customizability and what I find to be very nice eye candy. xfce is also quite nice but it's really old.

 

 

So according to this, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/JWM

It seems very difficult to configure. Also, this is on the distro's website. Is it easier than it looks?

[Sauron]

17 minutes ago, AA-RonRosen said:

Ok. It seems really nice. It isn't a tiling window manager like i3 but multitasking is probably not going to be possible on a 1366x768 screen anyway. 

Adding Power management is really no big deal either since I had to do that anyway for hackintosh (not going into anymore detail on that since hackintosh discussion is not allowed on this forum) and odds are, it will be a heck of alot easier on linux. 

 

Thanks

I use multiple desktops for multitasking on small screens, it works great when you get used to it

[Sauron]

8 minutes ago, AA-RonRosen said:

 

 

 

So according to this, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/JWM

It seems very difficult to configure. Also, this is on the distro's website. Is it easier than it looks?

well, you have to learn its "language". It's not as easy as with a de but it's not that hard either - there are premade configuration files you can find online.

[Shura]

I personally have cinnamon running on a vaio from over 8 years ago and it runs just fine with 2gb ram. I use the laptop for simple tasks like web browsing and so forth but have no issue with it and runs faster than win7 or 10. On a clean install of arch with cinnamon tends to use 460mb ram on idle. If your laptop is really old then I suggest xfce, I used to use it before cinnamon and has a lot of customization. On a clean arch install, xfce4 uses about 350-390mb of ram on idle. Since the difference wasn't too big, I decided to go with cinnamon for my main driver. You should play around with a few to get a feel for what you like and how your computer handles it imo.

[Aaronius_Leonius]

4 minutes ago, Shura said:

I personally have cinnamon running on a vaio from over 8 years ago and it runs just fine with 2gb ram. I use the laptop for simple tasks like web browsing and so forth but have no issue with it and runs faster than win7 or 10. On a clean install of arch with cinnamon tends to use 460mb ram on idle. If your laptop is really old then I suggest xfce, I used to use it before cinnamon and has a lot of customization. On a clean arch install, xfce4 uses about 350-390mb of ram on idle. Since the difference wasn't too big, I decided to go with cinnamon for my main driver. You should play around with a few to get a feel for what you like and how your computer handles it imo.

I will look at that one. My laptop isn't really that old though. I got it around 3 years ago but it wasn't exactly good when it came out. It has an i3-3217u so that should give you a good idea of how fast it is. 

[Shura]

2 or more GB of ram and you should be able to handle cinnamon. It comes to personal preference at the end. I used to do a very clean black numix theme on xfce and cinnamon just happens to have that look by default, with extra functionality so I go with cinnamon as my main. I personally have no issues with it and since it has a similar feel to windows, it makes switching between the two a lot easier.  

 

This is what basic cinnamon looks like with Numix theme, on my setup the window manager is also black and grey though. I simply like the slim, clean design of the UI, just my preference.

 

[Aaronius_Leonius]

9 minutes ago, Shura said:

2 or more GB of ram and you should be able to handle cinnamon. It comes to personal preference at the end. I used to do a very clean black numix theme on xfce and cinnamon just happens to have that look by default, with extra functionality so I go with cinnamon as my main. I personally have no issues with it and since it has a similar feel to windows, it makes switching between the two a lot easier.  

 

This is what basic cinnamon looks like with Numix theme, on my setup the window manager is also black and grey though. I simply like the slim, clean design of the UI, just my preference.

 

Wow, that looks great. I would need to change some of the icons but I like it. I am going to try this one. I have 8gb of ram so that should be way more than enough.

[Dat Guy]

On 28.2.2017 at 5:38 PM, AA-RonRosen said:

• Very Customizable
• Easy to use
• lightweight enough for an i3-3217u

Fluxbox or Enlightenment.

[Aaronius_Leonius]

2 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Fluxbox or Enlightenment.

I was actually looking at enlightenment the other day. I will try fluxbox. I'm not determining which one I will use until I try all of the ones recommended to me.

 

[FoxxyFromStockCooler]

As someone who has hopped between lots of WM's and DE's i would suggest i3wm, it has a steep-ish learning curve if you're not used too a WM but once you get used too the controls etc. its really nice.

[Aaronius_Leonius]

1 hour ago, FoxxyFromStockCooler said:

As someone who has hopped between lots of WM's and DE's i would suggest i3wm, it has a steep-ish learning curve if you're not used too a WM but once you get used too the controls etc. its really nice.

That's one of the window managers I was looking into actually. I still haven't set up arch because I haven't had time. I should be able to this weekend

[Claryn]

Sorry, but I'd like to steal your thread for a quick second:

 

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 with Compiz as my WM and Unity as my DE. I really like the looks with my current theme, but I want some of the functionality of KDE (proper multiple monitor support). How is the process of changing WM, and would it change my current UI??

 

You can have your thread back now

[Aaronius_Leonius]

26 minutes ago, Claryn said:

Sorry, but I'd like to steal your thread for a quick second:

 

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 with Compiz as my WM and Unity as my DE. I really like the looks with my current theme, but I want some of the functionality of KDE (proper multiple monitor support). How is the process of changing WM, and would it change my current UI??

 

You can have your thread back now

Changing a window manager is pretty easy. It would probably change your UI but KDE is very customizable. It also looks decent out of the box and I will paste a photo here

 

You can even keep compiz and switch between them if you want.

 

To get KDE, type the following commands into the command line. A $ indicates a new command btw so that isn't part of it

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

 

sources: http://www.tecmint.com/install-kde-plasma-5-in-linux/

[Claryn]

3 minutes ago, AA-RonRosen said:

Changing a window manager is pretty easy. It would probably change your UI but KDE is very customizable. It also looks decent out of the box and I will paste a photo here

 

You can even keep compiz and switch between them if you want.

 

To get KDE, type the following commands into the command line. A $ indicates a new command btw so that isn't part of it

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

 

sources: http://www.tecmint.com/install-kde-plasma-5-in-linux/

Thanks, but no thanks. I like my current UI and wont change it. I just hate how Compiz handles multiple monitors (Can't scale external monitor with xrandr, and when switching workspace, it switches on both monitors - yuuk!)

[Aaronius_Leonius]

3 minutes ago, Claryn said:

Thanks, but no thanks. I like my current UI and wont change it. I just hate how Compiz handles multiple monitors (Can't scale external monitor with xrandr, and when switching workspace, it switches on both monitors - yuuk!)

That makes no sense at all. Why would they program it like that? It's not much more work to do it with an array of variables with one variable for each monitor. Do you need me to modify the source code to make a version that has it?

[Claryn]

If you could that would be awesome! Right now, the two monitors have their own arrays of virtual desktops (workspaces), but whenever I change workspace on one of the monitors, it changes on both.

 

Also, a problem that I don't think originates from Compiz however, is that I can't get xrandr scaling to work with my MacBook Pro 13" . It is running a res of 2560x1600 (16:10), and I have a 21" external monitor at 1920x1080, where the UI is massive compared to the normal-looking MacBook. I thought doing

xrandr --outout HDMI2 --scale 1.3333x1.3333x -panning 2560x1440

would work, as 2560x1440 is a 33% increase in res, and close enough to 2560x1440 to look okey.

It just sort-of works. The scaling is ok, but whenever I move my mouse to a corner, the desktop moves. It is like I have a desktop at 2560x1440, but I can only see 1920x1080 at a time. If I dont do panning, the monitor uses 33% less of the screen (black bars at right and bottom).

 

These are the two issues I want solved, and I read that KDE might save me.

[Aaronius_Leonius]

Just now, Claryn said:

If you could that would be awesome! Right now, the two monitors have their own arrays of virtual desktops (workspaces), but whenever I change workspace on one of the monitors, it changes on both.

 

Also, a problem that I don't think originates from Compiz however, is that I can't get xrandr scaling to work with my MacBook Pro 13" . It is running a res of 2560x1600 (16:10), and I have a 21" external monitor at 1920x1080, where the UI is massive compared to the normal-looking MacBook. I thought doing

xrandr --outout HDMI2 --scale 1.3333x1.3333x -panning 2560x1440

would work, as 2560x1440 is a 33% increase in res, and close enough to 2560x1440 to look okey.

It just sort-of works. The scaling is ok, but whenever I move my mouse to a corner, the desktop moves. It is like I have a desktop at 2560x1440, but I can only see 1920x1080 at a time. If I dont do panning, the monitor uses 33% less of the screen (black bars at right and bottom).

 

These are the two issues I want solved, and I read that KDE might save me.

I can get proper workspace support easily. I will have to work on scaling but I think I can get it working.

[Aaronius_Leonius]

5 minutes ago, Claryn said:

If you could that would be awesome! Right now, the two monitors have their own arrays of virtual desktops (workspaces), but whenever I change workspace on one of the monitors, it changes on both.

 

Also, a problem that I don't think originates from Compiz however, is that I can't get xrandr scaling to work with my MacBook Pro 13" . It is running a res of 2560x1600 (16:10), and I have a 21" external monitor at 1920x1080, where the UI is massive compared to the normal-looking MacBook. I thought doing

xrandr --outout HDMI2 --scale 1.3333x1.3333x -panning 2560x1440

would work, as 2560x1440 is a 33% increase in res, and close enough to 2560x1440 to look okey.

It just sort-of works. The scaling is ok, but whenever I move my mouse to a corner, the desktop moves. It is like I have a desktop at 2560x1440, but I can only see 1920x1080 at a time. If I dont do panning, the monitor uses 33% less of the screen (black bars at right and bottom).

 

These are the two issues I want solved, and I read that KDE might save me.

Try scaling it to 1080p. It could be running at an incorrect resolution