I’m interested in TWMs for some while now.
Currently, I’m running Gnome with the Forge extension, which gives me a quite nice tiling with the full fledged DE experience I need.

Especially Hyprland is the project I have an eye on the most. The ultra-smooth animations are just out of this world! (I’m not only locked on Hyprland tho.)

My current setup feels a bit clunky, and I want something proper, without losing the comfort of a fully functioning DE.
My end goal maybe would be making my own uBlue-image with a setup that works sane out of the box.

Are there any setups and recommendations of needed packages?

How do Sway, Hyprland and other TWMs differ from each other?
Which one would you recommend for starters, and which one is “the best”?

What do I need to know before getting started? Should I just dive into it head first?

If I have to ask all these questions, would you just say I should ditch the idea for now, with my current level of knowledge and time?

What has your experience been? Any problems I may encounter?

Thank you for your answers?

  • BlanK0@lemmy.ml
    6·
    2 years ago

    I would recommend trying out first sway just because the configuration is very straightforward and you easily find on the internet configuration files of other people, most of the setup is already done for you out of the box as well.

    After getting used to sway I would then recommend moving into WMs that require more tinkering, like hyperland you mention on the post.

    Also if you ended up removing animations and don’t really care that much, you might want to try other projects that have different focuses such as the minimalism of dwl or the different approach of tilling with tags with river (it all ends up on preference after getting used to this kinda of graphical servers)

    Edit: FYI, most of the ricing (aesthetics) tends to come from the status bar you choose, the colors you choose to configure on files and the background image (I would say background img being the most important cause everything is built around it (colors, themeing, etc) )

  • Certainity45@lemmy.ml
    41·
    2 years ago

    I think you have to just try and find your favorite.

    Live boot Manjaro Sway to see how the bestly configured Sway works. If you like Suckless appoach, then try dwl.

    I never tried Hyprland but I recommend to try it.

    Harder task is the bar. Yambar and Waybar are both hard to configure compared to dwm statusbar.

    • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.deOP
      21·
      2 years ago

      I also have to add that I’m no IT-guy. I’m pretty much only a tech-enthusiastic normie who likes Linux and tries a lot.
      I don’t have any experience in coding and think I will mainly use the templates (dotfiles, bars, search box, etc.) from others, at least for the start.

      What do you like about the Manjaro-Sway? What does it differently than other implementations?
      I will definitely give it a try to test it out and then try to replicate it in Fedora. Thanks!

      The suckless software is a big no for me. It might be good for some people, but I heard most of it is hard to configure (at least for a noob like myself) and comes very …minimalist… out of the box.
      I don’t like the suckless philosophy for my use case, I want “bloat”, as weird as it sounds. I don’t want or need a super minimalist system, I want it comfortable and everything working out of the box.

      • Certainity45@lemmy.ml
        2·
        2 years ago

        Manjaro Sway ships with eyecandy and a lots of very useful functionality. The background even includes the default keybinds.

        Suckless approach is IMO way more easier than Sway. What helps a lot is that you write an alias which compiles your new config and then reloads the WM. It requires the reload patch + just few another to make it useful.

        The thing about bloated means usually you have festures you never use and you still need to learn the way other people did for you. When you start building it from bare minimum you add only the configurations you need and then it is much easier to remembee how they work. That’s why I never tried Hyprland.

    • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.deOP
      4·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, I tried it, but it didn’t feel like I wanted continue using it.
      Wasn’t that the “continuous notebook” workflow?

      If yes, then it altered the stock workflow too much for me and felt a bit janky. The main reason for me to use Forge is that it only changes the floating windows into tiling ones, and I feel like that’s how Gnome was supposed to be somehow.

      But I can take a look again at PaperWM, thanks!

    • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.deOP
      2·
      2 years ago

      Each to their own. I’m not too, I prefer simple and clean setups.
      But if one likes to stare at neon colored anime tiddies for 10 h a day straight, go for it bro ✌️

    • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.deOP
      2·
      2 years ago

      I also tried that too. Bismuth and all the other ones.

      There were some that were actually okay tbh, but they are still janky, like they aren’t supposed to exist. In that regard, KDE (Kwin) is even worse than Gnome (Mutter), at least bug wise and in my own experience.

      They all felt like I am using a tractor to drive to work. They work, yes, but I think I will get a better experience on something that was designed from the ground up to work like that.
      I wanna let floating WMs do their thing, and tiling WMs do theirs.

      Edit: The best one was Polonium, but it was very buggy and I couldn’t even close or move windows graphically. The documentation didn’t help too.