Hello,

as Slackware does not come with some packaged-in tiling window manager I'm curious if anybody else would welcome such addition. If tiling WMs are popular in this community which, I guess, likes simplicity, effectiveness and straightforwardness.

Stock Slackware distributes just several but floating-only WMs like Blackbox(abandoned project), Fluxbox, Fvwm, WindowMaker, xfwm (bundled in Xfce) and kwm (bundled in KDE).

What tiling WM would you like to see in some of next Slackware releases ?

I would like to see i3, but if that is not accepted I would just built it myself, as I do now.

I rarely resize or move windows. I keep most windows maximized, except ROX Filer. I use 2 workspaces sometimes. I've tried tiling wm's, but they take up valuable screen space, and don't help me.

I'm using dwm, but it's not useful to add it to Slackware, as configuration is done by modifying a header file.

i3 suits me best. As i3 is a very active project with each (sub)release bringing new bugfixes/features, even if it was part of the stock Slackware, I'd still build it myself.

Do you get windows maximized by default or do you have to click maximize button / press keyboard shortcut every time ?
All mentioned wms can set selected workspace to maximize windows by default. Also find very handy to split workspace on two parts (either 2/3 to 1/3 or half-to-half). So you can do some work in one app while reading related documentation at the same time. The point is you need not to manually position and resize these windows as it's done by tiling wm automatically.

I wonder what tiling wms did you tried as they usually take as minimum valuable space as possible. Windows fill whole available space and fit tightly to each other. Rendering of just a 1 pixel wide border is also quite common. Most of desktop space is left to applications - no fancy borders & titlebars, no gaps between windows, no desktop icons, no thick panels with launchers etc.

Correct point. One would end up with is own build in home if not satisfied with defaults.

I do agree, i3 is a polished and continuously maintained project. It has also minimum extra dependencies so integrating into Slackware is painless. The only issue driving me nuts is their vim-like navigation. It's quite confusing as f.E. vim keys for directions are hjkl whereas in i3 they are assigned to jkl; for no good reason. They can be reconfigured of course but they should keep vim defaults as much as possible.

I've only used XMonad, and I like it apart from when I find applications that don't work with how I have it set up. However, I would not like to see it included in Slackware. Its dependencies (including GHCI) are very heavy.

I used to use Ratpoison. Tiling does take up too much screen space, as I've never had a very large monitor it's not really useful to have, say, one window using most of the screen and another using a small sliver on one side. I also tend to use maximised windows, so something like Ratpoison or some other tabbing window manager is more useful. The only downside was having to push a button to get the time, rather than just looking to the corner.

1 members found this post helpful.

I didn't find yet any application xmonad won't properly handle. Though it takes some work to configure it to a full satisfaction.
I do agree, dependency requirements are quite heavy, mostly GHC compiler & environment. Although for the solely run xmonad does not require it as it's native binary linked to standard C libraries. However any need to change a configuration would require installation of GHC again.

Heh, I did forget to add Ratpoison. Although no personal experience with it. Still cann't get how tiling does take up too much screen space ? I wonder if it cann't be set to maximize windows by default.
Tabbing is a very nice feature especially on small screens and for example i3 or xmonad handle tabbing very well.

Same here, I use i3 on all my devices, from a netbook with 7" screen (good old EeePC 701) to a 27" monitor on my main machine. I have not used one floating WM that makes it as easy to get maximum screen-space while making window handling very easy as a tiling WM.

Some Steam games will not work in xmonad (something to do with getting caught in a resize loop or something, I guess...) and I have to drop to TWM to play them. Other than that everything works well in xmonad (though I'm not asking for its inclusion in Slackware because of the dependencies, which, while not technically required for run-time, are realistically requirements in order to change the default configuration).

I can admit there may be some issues with apps with non-standard/wrong messages handling. As a workaround sending them to a float layer (based on their WM_CLASS or WM_ROLE) does help most of times.