Tiling window manager on a desktop environment
 

Hi folks, recently I read about tiling window manager (a concept that I've never heard before) and it got my interest. I've read some people talking about them, have seen some screenshots and videos but I am yet to try one. The thing is: I can grasp the advantage of it on developing/production environments but would a desktop usage benefit off it? I don't code, I don't develop, my entire computer usage is about browsing, watching videos, reading my e-mails, forums, social network and go on. What would I get using a tiling window manager? And what would the easiest/best to start with? Because well, it seems to have a considerable learning curve and I would like to hear your opinion before really trying. By the way, I have a 21,5" monitor at 1920x1080 resolution, would it be usable?

Thanks for your attention, sorry for my english and please no flame wars.

I use the I3 window manager, and it works great for single and dual monitors. It does not take much time to get used to either. Multiple work spaces and the ability to move between them and move windows as well as resize them all through the keyboard is great. But all of this is personal opinion.

I feel like I move faster using I3, and the resource requirement is incredibly low, so my cheap old laptop feels faster. Monitor size and resolution wont make a difference. If anything, tiling WM's are better at utilizing more space on your screen.

Do you use it with only one monitor? To be honest, I never liked the "multiple workspaces/virtual desktops" idea, it is the first thing I disable on every distro I try/use.

yes, i like having multiple workspaces. For example, I'll have Firefox open full screen in one, 2 terminals open side by side in another, Rthymbox open full screen in another, IRC full screen in another, and probably a few terminals I forget to close in a few other workspaces. I guess a similar thing can be accomplished by minimizing windows in just one work space, but If you want to have the windows arranged a certain way, multiple work spaces is a life saver. I couldnt imagine using a tiling window manager without multiple work spaces. I don't even know if there is a way to minimize windows in one, I've never had the need.

And i bounce back and forth between dual and single monitors. I got a laptop, so if im at my desk, its dual, if not, its single monitor.

Just installed awesomewm and it looks cool, really weird but I am gonna keep trying it

That fact you don't get it with Windows is one of the big reasons I hate to use Windows at work. When you have multiple remote logins to different testing environments, it's a real PITA to search through ALL of your icons on the task bar to find the one that makes sense with what you're doing.

But at home, I just use Windows to play a game or two, so not having multiple workplaces/desktops doesn't bother me at all. So if you aren't doing multiple wildly different things at once, I can definitely see that you wouldn't see much use for the idea.

On a tiling WM you will always see all open windows at the same time, there is no minimizing function. For this reason a workspace/virtual desktop/tags function is essential for tiling WMs.

Having said that, while Awesome is a nice WM you need to grasp the Lua scripting language to configure it. For this reason I prefer the i3 WM, it is very easily configurable using a plain text file.

I have to say this is more "shocking" than switching the operational system lol
Gonna keep trying to use it.

That's not quite true. Many tiling window managers including i3, xmonad or subtle allow either tiling modes which display only window's title or can hide window at all (put lower on stack, raise on demand).
I really like this feature (stacking or tabbed mode), especially on displays with lower resolutions.

Switched to i3, it seems a lot easier. But also it seems it takes a lot of time to configure it. Everything looks "uglier" than in XFCE, it is gonna take some time (I like a bit of eye-candy).

i3's default config sets sane defaults, only main key modifier $mod usually needs to be configured. The same is valid for i3status.

If you are looking for an eye-candy, ie. favour impressiveness over efficiency, you are probably at the wrong place ;)

If I can make it to not look like Windows 98 I am happy :)
And prettier fonts too, then I am fine

just to note, e17/18 has a module that makes the wm into a tiling wm
also there is dwm that has a couple modes, tiling among them

Fonts are easily configurable using the config file. Please keep in mind that the window manager you choose has no impact at all on the GTK and Qt themes in use, if something looks like Windows 98 most likely you are using the default themes.
I use lxappearance (available from SBo) to change GTK themes and KDE's systemsettings to choose Qt themes.

Will try lxappearance, still haven't customized nothing. And I am liking it, I mean, I thought it would be a claustrophobic experience but I am liking it. A few annoyances but I am still getting used to it (i3).