Installation of Multiple Window Managers

[malspa]

This is the beauty of Linux, in my opinion. The education never ceases!

So true!

I never recommend more then one DE on one account.

I take the same approach here. More than one DE can get to be a bit of a hassle. Not the case with having more than one WM, in my experience.

[manyroads]

I am one of very few bspwm users here.

I can say that I have no problem running i3wm and xfce from the same user account with bspwm (on MX 18.3 and antiX19b3). Though, i3wm & bspwm need to have different versions of ploybar &/or tint2 if you choose to use those. That is not an MX or antiX issue but rather differences between the 2 wms.

Once both MX & antiX release their new versions I will build bspwm respins of both and will likely include i3wm, as well. In the meantime should you decide to dip your toe in the water, you will encounter currency issues with dunst, polybar, bspwm & i3wm. The repo team here is great and support those of us on the 'fringe' really very well. It's just that the timing with both MX & antiX betas out makes things slow. I assume you are not averse to building pieces when you need to do that, just be cautious. You don't want to build a frankendebian install.

If you want to follow my adventures, I publish them on my site at:
http://eirenicon.org/

[Stevo]

If you install fusion-icon, you can also use its taskbar icon to switch GTK window managers in a given GTK desktop. It doesn't seem to see Qt-based ones like Kwin.

[smittyvanilli]

Well, I have installed the 3 desktop WMs mentioned and they all seem to work. I have to learn how to use them! I even included others, such bwspm, dwm, herbluftwm, and xmonad. That's a lot of window managers! It is my hope to get experience in all of these, eventually. Productivity in coding and development is my game and I think if one is using much of the shell and using multiple windows / workspaces, one can benefit from using these WMs.

All your responses have been helpful. I'm learning quite a bit already just from having these experiences.

Also, I think I can say that I have "a home", for at least 2 years, including really enjoying the XFCE DE (i.e. home is MX). And I'm sure I'll have more new questions raised based on this fact!

[smittyvanilli]

I am one of very few bspwm users here.

I can say that I have no problem running i3wm and xfce from the same user account with bspwm (on MX 18.3 and antiX19b3). Though, i3wm & bspwm need to have different versions of ploybar &/or tint2 if you choose to use those. That is not an MX or antiX issue but rather differences between the 2 wms.

Once both MX & antiX release their new versions I will build bspwm respins of both and will likely include i3wm, as well. In the meantime should you decide to dip your toe in the water, you will encounter currency issues with dunst, polybar, bspwm & i3wm. The repo team here is great and support those of us on the 'fringe' really very well. It's just that the timing with both MX & antiX betas out makes things slow. I assume you are not averse to building pieces when you need to do that, just be cautious. You don't want to build a frankendebian install.

If you want to follow my adventures, I publish them on my site at:
http://eirenicon.org/

Bwspm is one of the WMs I would like to experience in a matter of time. Isn't that close to be one of the most advanced WMs out there?

What is the difference between polybar and tint2?

And finally, are you saying you are making your own distro based off of MX & antix on top of bwspm / i3? If so, that may be an interesting project, I'm sure!

[manyroads]

[...]
Bwspm is one of the WMs I would like to experience in a matter of time. Isn't that close to be one of the most advanced WMs out there?

What is the difference between polybar and tint2?

And finally, are you saying you are making your own distro based off of MX & antix on top of bwspm / i3? If so, that may be an interesting project, I'm sure!

You can see early versions of my bspwm efforts, with detailed explanations, here: https://eirenicon.org/knowledge-base/bu ... p-a-guide/
Actually a respin is a 'lot' less than a distro. :lipsrsealed:

Have fun!

[gimcrack]

Well, I have installed the 3 desktop WMs mentioned and they all seem to work. I have to learn how to use them! I even included others, such bwspm, dwm, herbluftwm, and xmonad. That's a lot of window managers! It is my hope to get experience in all of these, eventually. Productivity in coding and development is my game and I think if one is using much of the shell and using multiple windows / workspaces, one can benefit from using these WMs.

All your responses have been helpful. I'm learning quite a bit already just from having these experiences.

Also, I think I can say that I have "a home", for at least 2 years, including really enjoying the XFCE DE (i.e. home is MX). And I'm sure I'll have more new questions raised based on this fact!

Your start out with to many WM. I started with openbox while I was using Crunchbang. That was my very first experience with a WM. It's been a while before I try out a tiling window manager. I went with i3 and glad I did. Their website has all the info to become very productive with i3. Then I try out bspwm, which is different then i3, which has two config files one are for the keybindings. Took a while to get it going. As it wasn't as easy as setting up i3. Then later on I try out herbluftwm, which was very easy to deal with since I dealt with previous ones. The really different one I try out was dwm. Since you have to recompile every time you make a change. It's not hard to do, it was just different then the others. I'm currently using Pekwm as my window manager. I'm just saying learn one before you move on to the next one. Don't jump around to soon. I mean spend sometime with one window manager and understand it, even try to have a good workflow before moving onto the next one. I like to experiment with other things as well. But I at least understand what is in front of me, before I move one and just carry that experience to the next project.

[smittyvanilli]

[...]
Bwspm is one of the WMs I would like to experience in a matter of time. Isn't that close to be one of the most advanced WMs out there?

What is the difference between polybar and tint2?

And finally, are you saying you are making your own distro based off of MX & antix on top of bwspm / i3? If so, that may be an interesting project, I'm sure!

You can see early versions of my bspwm efforts, with detailed explanations, here: https://eirenicon.org/knowledge-base/bu ... p-a-guide/
Actually a respin is a 'lot' less than a distro. :lipsrsealed:

Have fun!

I have bookmarked that link and once I learn bspwm, I will definitely check those resources out. It seems you have quite the experience. *smiles*

[smittyvanilli]

Well, I have installed the 3 desktop WMs mentioned and they all seem to work. I have to learn how to use them! I even included others, such bwspm, dwm, herbluftwm, and xmonad. That's a lot of window managers! It is my hope to get experience in all of these, eventually. Productivity in coding and development is my game and I think if one is using much of the shell and using multiple windows / workspaces, one can benefit from using these WMs.

All your responses have been helpful. I'm learning quite a bit already just from having these experiences.

Also, I think I can say that I have "a home", for at least 2 years, including really enjoying the XFCE DE (i.e. home is MX). And I'm sure I'll have more new questions raised based on this fact!

Your start out with to many WM. I started with openbox while I was using Crunchbang. That was my very first experience with a WM. It's been a while before I try out a tiling window manager. I went with i3 and glad I did. Their website has all the info to become very productive with i3. Then I try out bspwm, which is different then i3, which has two config files one are for the keybindings. Took a while to get it going. As it wasn't as easy as setting up i3. Then later on I try out herbluftwm, which was very easy to deal with since I dealt with previous ones. The really different one I try out was dwm. Since you have to recompile every time you make a change. It's not hard to do, it was just different then the others. I'm currently using Pekwm as my window manager. I'm just saying learn one before you move on to the next one. Don't jump around to soon. I mean spend sometime with one window manager and understand it, even try to have a good workflow before moving onto the next one. I like to experiment with other things as well. But I at least understand what is in front of me, before I move one and just carry that experience to the next project.

Openbox seems a good one to start with. When I get the experience of that more, I will learn i3. After that, herbstluftwm, dwm, bspwm, awesome, and last would be xmonad. That last seems very interesting and quite for the advanced user.

How has your experience been with Pekwm?

Not to mention, I found the following resource for WMs:
https://www.gilesorr.com/wm/table.html

[manyroads]

If you are looking to learn window managers... remember there are two primary styles:
1. stacking (the more popular)
2. tiling (more on edge due to its less common interface style).

The most popular stacking wm is probably OpenBox (OB). iceWM & fluxbox are close behind. My unofficial ratings.
The most popular tiler is i3wm (and variants).

Most people would recommend you start with some combination of those, I think. Before starting, you might want to investigate the types of wms and see which sounds like a good fit for you and what you want to do. Remember this is linux. You can choose; you can change. But I recommend whatever you do, learn & have fun.