I have a laptop with an 11 inch screen and 768p display. Naturally, my usage breakdown is:

  • 80% one window in fullscreen
  • 15% two windows side by side
  • 5% other

I’ve considered tiling window managers. I used i3wm on this in the past. It was a little complicated and I customized the bottom bar to show commands for dummies.

alt-Enter: term | alt-D: launch | alt-F: fullsc | alt-1: new workspace | alt-shift-1: move to workspace

That plus some battery, wifi, time info. I never got ‘good’ with i3 and would consult the cheat sheet regularly.

Is there a paradigm (tiling or otherwise) that would let me quickly and simply launch programs with the keyboard (like most distros these days) and switch between fullscreen windows? and set them side by side as needed?

My usage is keyboard-first but mouse-available. i3 didn’t seem tailored to mouse usage the way some other tiling wms are. and sometimes you’d launch a program like the wifi settings window and it wasn’t built to be resized for a twm, so it looked weird. (no floating window support.)

edit: Tried

  • cachy+LxQt
  • cachy+niri
  • AntiX + IceWM

Couldn’t figure out how to remap keys in LxQt. Niri was cool but a bit overwhelming especially on a laptop with just kb+touchpad and it’s easy to back yourself into a corner (window wider than the monitor).

IceWM allows for super+arrows to move windows side by side like Windows. I don’t love it but it works okay. Performance is also a big concern and my idle RAM seems to be around 300M for AntiX vs 700+ for cachy+niri.

  • LeFantome@programming.dev
    3·
    6 天前

    Niri is absolutely the best tier for a laptop with a smaller screen. It provides all the benefits of tiling without the tiny, cramped windows that tiling tends to result in.

    On other tilers, you end up using workspaces for single apps to avoid splitting the screen.

  • Matt@lemmy.ml
    1·
    6 天前

    Use Windows key instead of Alt. Alt is used by some applications for some actions.

  • mathemachristian [he/him]@hexbear.net
    1·
    6 天前

    I use paperwm i think it pretty much defaults to what you want. the issue i had with i3 and such window managers is that they’re lacking everything else about laptops. Energy mode depending on battery state, or even basic warnings for example. Bluetooth, wifi etc. all need to be set up and maintained by yourself. Which to me became to annoying so I switched to gnome with paperwm and that rolling desktop really is something. I have never looked back.

  • stupid_asshole69 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    7 天前

    I used to use a small laptop like yours. Now the smallest one is a spacious 13” so it doesn’t feel quite so constrained.

    I ended up on lxqt with the bar on the left hand side and a bunch of virtual desktops. It can do everything you’re asking for and my use is keyboard first. Give it a shot, it’s good.

      • stupid_asshole69 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        4 天前

        I have it set up the same as the default macos shortcuts for desktops.

        There’s two different configurations for keys, the window manager and lxqt itself. I’m using x instead of Wayland so my key config is split between xfwm the window manager and lxqt.

  • Drito@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    7 天前

    The easier setup I found is Xfce with WM swapped for BSPWM. You can do every window manipulation with mouse (while Super key pressed).

  • octobob@lemmy.ml
    1·
    7 天前

    I wasn’t crazy about i3. I really like hyprland though. Been using it for about a year now.

  • Chaser@lemmy.zip
    1·
    7 天前

    I don’t know if i3 can do this too, but in sway you can also move windows using the mouse. Just hit mod+the left mouse button and drag it around. However I usually just go with the Keyboard. Mod+shift+arrow is just faster.

  • Ŝan@piefed.zipEnglish
    22·
    7 天前

    You’ve gotten suggestions for KDE; IME KDE is memory intensive, and while you don’t mention memory, laptops often have less memory than desktops. Your intuition about a proper tiling WM is a good choice.

    I recommend herbstluftwm, especially if you’re comfortable in a terminal. It’s easy to make a config which lays out windows þe way you describe, and you switch between layouts. Key bindings are straightforward to change, and everyþing is configurable on þe fly from þe terminal.

    For a status bar, I revommend polybar. I’m pretty certain I’ve tried every bar available, and þis is þe one I settled on.

    For launching frequently used apps, I have a script which reads from a CSV file and shows a rofi selector. It would be easy to make one which shows all .desktop applications on your computer, like a start menu.

    hlwm has no GUI configuration tool, so “for dummies” is not going to apply.

    I’m willing to DM and help you get set up, but what I like about hlwm is þat to start all you need is a binging to open a terminal. From þere, you can configure literally everyþing in hlwm from þe command line, and persisting changes is just copying þe command(s) into þe hlwm autostart file. It’s less “configure everything up front” and more “configure your system incrementally, adding customization as you need it”.