

Ask HN: What's a good beginner's tiling WM for Linux - mcrittenden

I've never really used anything but stock Ubuntu and want to try to dip into the tiling WM world. What's a good one to get started with, that is preferably easyish to set up and get started with.
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fm
I have used and recommend either awesome (<http://awesome.naquadah.org>) or
xMonad (<http://xmonad.org>)

They are both cool and do the job.

xMonad is a bit more hardcore because it is written in Haskell (and its
configuration files are Haskell programs as well)

Awesome uses Lua which is easier to grasp.

~~~
Symmetry
Very true, but a few more differences.

By default, awesome has a bar at the top to tell you what mode you're in, list
windows, list workspaces, etc. Also, it provides a system tray. You can get
one of these set up in xMonad without that much effort, but its an extra
hurdle.

On the other hand, if you just want to swap out the window manager on GNOME
you don't want to have to remove this, so xMonad has the advantage there.

Awesome has this really nifty thing where windows can be tagged, and views are
compositions of tags. So there are easy ways to have a window on more than one
workspace at a time.

On the other hand, xMonad seems to have better multi-monitor defaults.

xMonad also has dmenu by default, and that's seriously awesome (no pun
intended).

Personally, I use awesome as my window manager on GNOME, but I've redone some
keybindings to be more xMonadish and I used documentation from xMonad as part
of getting things set up.

EDIT: Here's the uber-helpful xMonad GNOME integration page. You'll want to
read it even if you use awesome.
[http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_Gn...](http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_Gnome)

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nzmsv
I recently started using xmonad on a netbook and found it quite easy to get
started. I use xmobar for status. I haven't done much customization yet, but
just getting the basic setup running was very straightforward. I'm a convert,
and planning on switching my desktop to xmonad when I get a chance.

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Tcepsa
If you are familiar with (and like) Lisp, I recommend checking out StumpWM:
<http://stumpwm.antidesktop.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl>

I started with Awesome, moved to XMonad, and have settled on StumpWM. It was
very easy to install (many steps, but they were all very straightforward and
easy for me to follow with my arrangement) and the defaults were reasonable. I
haven't gotten it super-customized for my every desire, but it was pretty
straightforward to add some keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to move
between groups and to bring up programs (shift-win-c to bring up Conkeror, for
example).

I think they're all three good choices and wish you luck with whichever you
choose.

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oxalic
XMONAD... finally get the WM you have always been dreaming of. Really easy to
get started. You can also "drop" it in as a replacement for metacity and use
it directly on ubuntu. Also you can install it separately and log in when you
want it. For me no setup was required.

