Hello world,
So since, my last post I bought myself a Samsung 870 Evo for my T440p to get some more space. And as I’m moving away from GNOME, I was going through some rice’ that I saw on the interwebs.
To my question. I read the Arch wiki on Window Managers, but I still don’t get it. What is it, how does it differ to a Desktop Environment? Would I be installing bspwm, berry or hyperland onto XFCE, GNOME, Cinnamon or how does this work?
Alvast bedankt
I believe, and I could be wrong, but the window manager is the backend that the desktop environment uses to draw windows, whereas the DE is the actual graphical interface of the desktop. A Desktop Environment needs a Window Manager, but a Window Manager doesn’t need a Desktop Environment.
You can start a window manager and manually launch software to it via a terminal without a desktop, taskbar, application launcher, system tray, or wallpaper.
Would Flatpaks work in this environment without a DE?
Assuming you can launch them, I would think so. You have to launch the software from a separate tty and point it to the correct WM instance. Flatpaks often have pretty long launch commands, too, but if you set up some scripts to launch what you need for you, there’s no reason I can think of that it shouldn’t work.
Look for a program/script launcher that works with the window manager you choose.
For example: with the i3 window manager, you can use dmenu to launch applications and scripts using a keyboard shortcut.
Once a program is launched, the WM will open it in your selected virtual desktop and resize other windows to accomodate it.
Note however, that not every window manager will work properly with every application, and that some widgets and utilities (like system tray apps) may not be compatible.
Also, I’m not entirely up to date on it, but AFAIK there isn’t a tiling WM that supports desktop-wide v-sync. So you may have screen tearing issues with a web browser.
PS: You may have to create some .desktop files to launch programs installed from flatpak or appimage.
So,
I got this gh0stzk rice working and it looks quite nice, but like one said ‘nice ui but terrible ux’. I have to agree, I don’t feel comfortable to do my daily work over this as there is just so much missing compared to a proper desktop environment. What DE I go for is completely out there, I want this EWW vertical task bar on the other DE. I haven’t been able to figure out if EWW works with DEs or not.
also got kind of warm towards the '95 rices
That’s not the case at all. You can have, say, xterm running in an X11 GUI without either a WM or a DE.
A window manager very much manages the windows, letting you switch between them, and resize or minimize them. A desktop environment, meanwhile, provides a lot of different programs and services.
Remember that when you are downloading and installing someone else’s config files you are also installing their way of working. Meaning they might have their own key binds, scripts, etc. tailored to fit their muscle memory and use case. So what works for the guy who made the “rice” might not work for you.
Also if not evident already, remember that WMs are more keyboard than mouse focused, so if you are coming from DE or Windows you most likely are accustomed to use mouse to almost everything, where WMs are more efficient if using a keyboard.
That’s kind of the idea of WM. Desktop environment offers more out-of-the box experience where you install it and can start using it right a way. WM is more like an empty canvas where you are supposed to mess around with config files and customize it to fit your needs. Some WMs need more initial setup than others, for example I find i3 to be much more bare than AwesomeWM.
If you are trying to mess with something new while also being productive then my advice is: don’t. Use the tools you know the get the work done and experiment on new things on your free time, or at least when you don’t need to be productive.