Tiling window manager for Slackware ?
 

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.

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.

That would be dwm for me, although I do run awesome from time to time.

Yes, that's a must with some windows. Some windows/programs are best run in a floating mode (eg. notifications, small programs or anything that would in other windows managers be classified as a 'pop-up' window.)

I am not using any tiling windowmanager. Only WindowMaker (with the fsviewer filemanager) or CDE.
Some 10 years ago, I was using fvwm or olvwm (OpenWindows). I regret a bit that olvwm is not anymore in Slackware,
but I guess that it was not anymore compatible with modern X servers. Personally, I don't see why Slackware
should by default install another windowmanager besides twm,mwm,fvwm,WindowMaker and Blackbox. Anyway, if a tiling windowmanager is added to Slackware, I would prefer to have it in extra/ so that it can be installed from pkgtool if needed after the main installation. Ideally, it should not depend on more libraries than twm or fvwm, not take a lot of disk space, and not consume a lot of memory when running. In that way, it will be useful on machines with a minimal X installation (servers) or low memory where a full KDE/GNOME is not an option.

I used to be a KDE fan but after giving i3 a try I haven't looked back. On desktop and laptop. As mentioned before, it is easy enough to build, and since I want to stay up to date with the latest features it does not have to be included in Slackware.

However, I think at least one tiling wm should be included in Slackware to make them more accessible to Slackers.

I like my overlapping windows including focus-follows-mouse and manually z-ordering. I don't use the "Maximize" option of my window manager.

For those who miss a status bar with the datetime, spectrwm can leave a narrow band of pixels free for the root window. It will then run a command every x seconds and write the output to that band in the font you choose.

I run a straight-forward dash script to display a fairly comprehensive status bar with datetime, cpu use, memory use, battery charge, disk space, weather, moon phase, and ISP quota use.

I got introduced to i3 via this thread, and it's now my main WM.

why there is no ion3/notion?

dwm for me.

I like the idea of including a tiling WM in Slackware, but it would make sense if it was one that could be easily customised at runtime via a file (i.e. not dwm) and didn't have any extra dependencies.

My tiling window managers are KDE and XFCE.

I just install x-tile (available from SlackBuilds.org).

there are omitted many other tiling wms (stumpwm, herbsluftwm, wmii, notion etc). i simply did chosen most known ones or some i've personal experience with.

great :) once one discovers simplicity and effectiveness of tiling concept there is no way back. however it does presume computer is used more for work then playing ;)

Hi, we had at least two polls about tiling-WMs here in the Slackware-forum last year.

I'm using Xmonad, but had to switch to i3 now because Xmonad didn't build anymore on current after I've tried to upgrade all the installed packages from slackbuilds.org on my system ;-) That's the disadvantage when on runs current and stable and current differ too much.

It would be nice to have at least one tiling-WM in Slackware, but which one? Xmonad is very good, but it has too much dependencies and is configured with Haskell. i3 is easy to configure, but I would say there are more different configurations than users. Which configuration should be the default for Slackware?
I've noticed your point that they use the keyboard slightly different than the vi-editor. But it was no problem to solve this.
I agree that many Slackware-users use tiling-WMs but as you also noted there are about 50 or more tiling-WMs available. And those who use one are those who don't have any problems to build it for their system.

Markus

i3 defaults are quite sane so it could be a good starting point (well with the exception of urxvt which is not installed by default on Slackware. That's fixed in i3.SlackBuild). Furthermore, the initial run of i3 welcomes you with a key binding wizard.

From Slackware 14.1 onwards (or the current -current branch:)), we will be able to enjoy i3 with its full vanilla functionality including pango support.

The only potential "problems" I see with i3 being bundled with Slackware are:

a) dependencies: libev, yajl, dmenu
If we consider i3status as well, 'confuse' will have to be added to the list. These are small packages but still it'll mean a total of 6 additional packages being included with Slackware.

b) i3lock - requires PAM.

dmenu is optional, although somebody may find it more comfortable then launching from xterm/rxvt
i3lock is relatively superfluous as xscreensaver can serve as well.

True. slock can be used as well. Although dmenu is not really needed, it does complement i3 very well and is meant to be used with it.

Spectrwm also uses dmenu. I would miss it even if I was using a desktop. Especially for touch-typing, it is so much easier to press a menu key and type the first few letters of a command to execute it, rather than moving a hand over to the mouse and clicking through menus and sub-menus.

The implication that users of non-tiling-wm's "constantly resize and move windows" always puzzles me until I realize most users use graphical applications these days. Those of us who use mostly cli applications in xterms hardly ever move or resize our windows at all.

About fifteen years ago I wrote some short scripts to populate a virtual desktop with particular arrangements of xterms, and have only been tweaking them (the scripts) occasionally since. Once a desktop is thus populated, I don't move or resize the xterms, but only doubleclick titlebars to shade/unshade xterms as needed (similar to selecting a tab in tabbed terminal emulators):

http://ciar.org/ttk/public/2xs
http://ciar.org/ttk/public/2xu
http://ciar.org/ttk/public/screenshot.tabbed.gif

Some virtual desktops get near-fullscreen firefox windows, but other than that, and the occasional (and transitory) xv, xpaint, xfig, and xine instances, it's all cli.

I, too, appreciate never having to move my fingers from the home row. Using a keyboard with a trackpoint device allows this even while moving the pointer:

http://ciar.org/ttk/public/trackpoint.1.jpg
http://ciar.org/ttk/public/trackpoint.2.jpg

I love this interface so much, I purchased lenovo keyboards for all of my desktops, at home and at the office.

Ratpoison by default!
 

There are a lot of good tilers out there, i3 and xmonad are good examples. Though both (especially xmonad) require a lot of extra dependencies. My recommendation for a default tiler would be ratpoison. It's and old classic that's still actively maintained. It has next to no dependencies, and generally speaking it's a very nice standard tiler. It's very simple and straight forward, has all the necessary features, but not much else. Reading the man page is a breeze!

I think most how need a tiler will find what they need in ratpoison, but for those that don't one can always grab xmonad, i3 or one of the other from slackbuilds.

PS! I would absolutely love it if Slackware came with a tiler by default, even if it isn't ratpoison :)

i like to see i3 , i3status and dmenu included

ratpoison
 

Me, too. I'm using ratpoison in a similar setting. For managing windows, I've set up key combinations resembling those for buffer management in Emacs (as well as other), only the prefix is not C-x, but rather Win-X (to allow simultaneous use of Emacs and ratpoison).

There is also a new re-write of ratpoison in something like a real Lisp, but when I needed it, I couldn't install it as smoothly as ratpoison. That's why I'm happily using the old ratpoison for several years already.

Quite a few window managers tend to clash with old-school application hot keys, and putting all the window management hotkeys on the Win key is a good way of working around that and kind of makes sense. I'm curious now whether this is common practice.

Of course if I ever end up with a keyboard without a Win key, I'm going to have to rethink things. ;)

I've used half-a-dozen tiling window managers and they all let the user define a key, most of them defaulted to using the Win key or Alt.

I also use the Windows key for keybindings related to i3, since I otherwise have absolutely no use for that key (I don't use it on Windows either). Thinking about it, it somewhat makes sense to use the Windows key for window management literally.

My first tiling wm was awesomeWM. I used it on ubuntu for a while, and like it very much. When I converted that laptop over to debian, I immediately installed awesome, and I'm quite happy.

I wanted to get something light and nerdy running on my slackware 14 lappy, so first I tried the included wms, kinda liked window maker (suuuper light) but wanted tiling. As there was no slackbuild for awesomeWM, I went with Xmonad. It was a challenge to set up the first time, but now its working well.

I've got the same keybindings (more or less) as I do in awesome, and it is nice and quick. Very bare bones, which I like. I'd like to see an official slackbuild for awesome tho.

@ahzthecat Awesome is(was) awesome but find it too fast evolving and breaking API several times in a relatively short period. The second issue is with the Lua itself, because there is no mature/reliable module/library for multithreading/multiprocessing support (LuaLanes is far from mature) so I simply couldn't feed monitor in panel with output of a separate thread/process in other way but launching a fat independent shell script around awesome-client and spawned output info process.
On the other hand current Lua implementation even with LuaJit is blazingly fast with very low memory footprint and very simple and effective syntax & types one can completely learn in a few hours.

Xmonad is my favorite, but in terms of possible inclusion in Slackware, I'd vote for i3 because of the lighter dependencies. I too think it would be great to have a tiling WM by default.

I've used pytyle 1 with openbox. Now i'm using just openbox actions to resize and place windows.

I really hope i3 will be include in Slackware in the future.

I haven't tried most of these, though I used to use ratpoison and agree that it's quite pleasant when you have a small monitor or laptop screen and don't need to run something like the gimp. Very good choice if you spend a lot of your time in emacs (and don't often use transpose-chars -- okay you can always rebind -- anything's going to collide with some emacs keybinding unless it used the windows key as a modifier).

I've started to use acme to replace much of my xterm activity (at least non-root -- is there a simple way to use acme with sudo -e in plan 9 port?). Does that count as a tiling window manager? This is the issue keeping me from trying out tiling wms anymore or bothering to use the new tiling style command added to OpenBSD's cwm: acme makes tiling and automatic sizing work really well but only because it combines with other features in predictable, designed ways. e.g. I right click on a directory name and a sub-window opens with my mouse in it giving it focus and sized just right for the number of files in that directory. Also it works well with proportional fonts unlike most Unix programs I use other than the big bloated ones that have adopted the Macintosh/Windows UI. Proportional fonts help avoid screen real estate waste, and just plain look better IMO.

What window configuration choices can a general purpose X wm make for you to behave really well with whatever random application makes a window in it? My experience with ratpoison was that it was a good way to run everything full screen without messing with maximize buttons or losing space to window decorations. Maybe occasionally I got good use of the split screen between two applications feature. But even that was kind of awkward, never mind anything more complicated. I could imagine using stumpwm and customizing it with Lisp for the applications I use, maybe in combination with applications you can communicate with to adjust what's in their windows. e.g. "hey xterm, you're going up in the top right corner for now and I want you to use tiny text until you get back to a reasonably sized window again." That might be fun and eventually give me something good. But I find it hard to imagine someone else has done just what I would want with their automatic sizing behaviour other than for simple splits of the screen or making everything run full screen.

Now I use cwm and for the things I always run I use geometry command line arguments to place them (bound to key presses) or in the case of emacs some internal geometry related customization to put two non-overlapping frames on the screen, the bigger left one in mono font, the smaller right one in proportional font, for reading documentation, etc. I have to figure something out for when I undock my laptop though, cause this setup only works well with a bigger monitor.

Another vote for ratpoison!

I've taken a liking to subtle lately. I was using i3 previously, but I found subtle to be much more flexible in comparison.

Also like it a lot, mostly its approach/philosophy to stay out of my way like Slackware does :)