As I’m about to start renewing and expanding the computer fleet in my house I decided I want to have a machine solely for my personal use, where I can use some solutions no one else will feel comfortable with in the house.

I’ve been wanting to try window managers for a while but after researching on it for a bit I’m none the wiser on which to choose.

There are a few distros out there that already deliver this kind of experience but I want to use the opportunity to learn and start from a stock Debian and build from there to where I want to get to.

I’m fully capable of setting up my computers as is but I’m aware WMs require a bit more involvement, so having at least good documentation is a must.

I’m also not averse to learn some coding, even more when considering I want to have a fully costumized conky, but I’ve never coded before.

The machine will be used essentially for writing, web surfing and email and, if possible, running Stardew Valley.

Any advice will be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
    3·
    1 year ago

    I started out running gnome, then got an extension called Forge which makes gnome into a pretty decent tiling WM, obviously it’s gnome so you hit a block if you want tons of customisation past the bog standard

    Recently tried out qtile which was not a pleasant experience, if there’s an error in your config file the entire wm fails to start and it stopped NixOS from being able to hot reload config

    I then tried hyprland which is absolutely gorgeous, and the config file is pretty simple and intuitive plus hot reload is a god send

    TL;DR If you want a good enough tiler that just works out of the box and don’t care about customisation too much go gnome+forge

    If you’re ok with spending a few days tinkering with your system and building it from the ground up go hyprland (I hear sway is very good too and more mature)