- Pros:
- system trays applet already works out of the box (still customizable to some extend at least more than gnome system trays)
- very good support for Wayland and VIDIA GPUs
- easy and quick to customize and you don’t have to deal with CSS if you don’t have much time to waste
- better integrated with KDE’s softwares (Kdenlive, KDE connect, Konsole, Kate, Elisa…) which is my opinion some of the best softwares for Linux even better than Windows’s in some cases
- friendly community (mostly)
- Cons:
- you have to use KDE with Krohnkite
TLDR:
Pros: is a DE
Cons: is a DE
I wanted to give tiling a chance. I decided to use Krohnkite for a week to give it a chance. At first I didn’t care for tiling but quickly got into it and now I love it. Sometimes to really know if something is going to work for you or not, you have to give it some time. I’ve used this approach for other things (not all work out) but for Krohnkite it did for me. Also, don’t forget to check out all the Krohnkite options.
Now that you ‘get it’, can you explain to someone like me who still doesn’t get it, why they might want to use a tiling wm?
Not OP but the answer is that having windows on top of each other is mostly useless. 99% of the time, when you’re working with multiple windows, you don’t want to see just part of the window. So either your window is minimized or somehow tiled. At that point you are using a worse version of a tiling WM. The 1% of the time, you can just make the tiled window float.
The main reason I hear is that it maximizes screen usage and helps avoid/limit the tediousness of having to manage windows.
Not what you’re asking for, but I’ll give you my perspective as someone who’s tried tiling on and off and overall don’t like it.
- Applications work best at certain aspect ratios, having them automatically tiled to different aspect ratios can be annoying
- Some windows windows/pop-ups have no business being tiled. Like some Yes/No dialogs (not all windows specify a max size which would avoid triggering the tiling) or a simple calculator. And you can specify which ones to have floating, but it requires setup.
- Sometimes it ends of causing more work than floating environements. Most of the time I only have a max of 2 windows open, but occasionally I’ll quickly try to do something then end up with 4-5 windows, at which point that’s too many windows and I need to reorganize stuff to continue working. But that usually wouldn’t be an issue in a floating environment.
- Worst of all, just setting up a tiling environment is a nightmare. You have to configure the actual compositor/WM, which tools you want to use with it (bar, launcher, screenshot tool, notifications, screenlocker, etc) and configure all those too, ideally with some basic theming to make them look coherent. But inevitably you end up with missing functionality especially in the modern area where an app might be sandboxed or expecting all xdg-portals to be implemented, which most compositors don’t do.
Cosmic is exciting in this regard since it aims to be a fully-featured floating and tiling environment. You could just toggle between them as necessary (or have them on separate workplaces). You also get much better portal support.
Worst of all, just setting up a tiling environment is a nightmare. You have to configure the actual compositor/WM, which tools you want to use with it (bar, launcher, screenshot tool, notifications, screenlocker, etc) and configure all those too, ideally with some basic theming to make them look coherent. But inevitably you end up with missing functionality especially in the modern area where an app might be sandboxed or expecting all xdg-portals to be implemented, which most compositors don’t do.
Khronkite is worth checking out in relation to this point. It requires minimal setup (keybinds + choosing tiling layout) so it’s a good introduction to tiling WMs. I’m guessing more experienced users would prefer more control but I like it just fine.
I am really excited for Cosmic’s future. I loved the toggling float-tiling functionality, but I was having too many issues with GUI apps, taskbar icons, and annoyances like those. Once it has some more polish I will be happily revisiting it. It may be the first DE in a decade with the potential to tempt me away from KDE.
Number 2 is an implementation issue. Dialogs should be floating by default.
Number 3 is funny to me, because that’s exactly the experience I have when using a floating WM.
Personally, I haven’t had any issues with the aspect ratio. I use a spiral algorithm, this is the defaut on bspwm. I suspect that many people that try twm dont use spiral splitting so windows can be opened in tiny slice and this is ridiculous of course.
Its less work to use keyboard shortcuts to arrange/navigate windows in tiling than it is to use a mouse + alt-tab. Window sizing and placement is something you think about a lot less. Its very fast to flip through various preset window arrangements and usually that’s good enough for whatever task.
I find tiling more efficient because
- I can have predetermined layouts per desktop where my often used programs are.
- I only have to purposely move windows out of the way if I’ve made the floating on purpose, and
- Less mouse use and more keyboard use for changing the layout, resizing windows, changing to another window …
The more I use tiling, the more advantages I find. At this point I think I could use any desktop as long as I had Krohnkite functioning tiling.
never having to resize windows with my mouse, or sort through layers of stacked windows has been a life changer for me.
also, if i open two windows it automatically uses the space. non tiling doesnt usually act this nicely
Tiling WMs are amazing I wish windows/mac also had them.
Isn’t Krohnkite unmaintained?
edit: mb, looks like there’s a fork here: https://github.com/anametologin/krohnkite
softwares
Was this always a word? I’ve heard and seen it a lot recently but I could have sworn the plural of software was still software.
The only time I’ve seen it close to being pluralized differently was “warez”
No, that’s a typo.
Software is both plural and singular.
I switched from a Qtile tiling window manager to KDE with Krohnkite. It does the job of handling the windows. The auto tiling aspect is the only thing I miss in any regular window management. The reason why I switched to KDE back then was, a problem with Qtile and because KDE was good on the Wayland front. In fact, it was the only viable option in my opinion for a desktop environment. I was also using lot of KDE applications anyway, so it made sense.
Cons: you have to use KDE with Krohnkite
I don’t see this as an con. Maybe you could argue that Krohnkite is not a core system functionality and we rely on some community member. BTW that was the biggest issue why I switched away from GNOME years ago, because too much core functionality was community dependent (and breaking). The KDE team themselves should integrate such a functionality. Auto tiling reaches was never more popular and KDE itself has some tiling functionality builtin, just not auto tiling.
Like Qtile had, I like we have many layouts to choose and cycle from. My 4th desktop is set to everything float; no tiling. I could not stand a auto tiler that has only one builtin layout logic.
But there are some couple problems using Krohnkite. It’s not as configurable as I am used to with Qtile off course. And getting rid of the borders and having colored borders in KDE for focused applications and such, was a pain to setup. KDE really need some builtin functionality for that.
Depends on who you ask it may or may not be a con, I myself have been using it only for a week by now and for the most part it works very well it especially for a Linux newbie like me, not having to edit a config file with text editor but with GUI instead is pretty nice ( I made that gtk theme and floorp theme in the screenshot almost from scratch and it’s a huge pain in the ass, dont know if CSS is a bad language or not but it probably make me hate CSS ). So I guess it’s a pro for me
I’ve only recently started trying out KDE and it’s giving me grief in the weirdest ways. I had the tray just outright break while I was trying to customize it, the Windows exe thumbnailer just won’t work despite being enabled and having icoutils, and I can’t seem to get a consistent look.
I don’t do software development, so maybe I’m just not the target audience… I just don’t think tiling WMs are for me. Why not just have the windows overlap if you’re not using them all at the same time?
I DO do software dev, so my answer might not be relevant to you. Its because If the window is open, I need it right now. Otherwise it wouldn’t be open, or it’d be stashed away on another desktop.
For me, it’s more about avoiding using your mouse as much as possible, because moving your hand from keyboard to mouse is tiresome after a while. And tiling managers make it easier to change windows with keyboard shortcuts.
I really like the preset layouts too, I often find myself using the stair layout on smaller screens so I can quickly and easily see what’s open in a clear layout but still use most of the screen for an application. Monocle is good too! Just in case anyone is passing on this because they don’t like traditional tiling
What web browser are you using in the screenshot? Kind of looks like a flavour of FF but I’ve never seen tabs in the address bar like that before.
i wish kde and krohnkite handled onscreen keyboards properly together. the windows just resize and glitch the fuck out unless its the sole window open.
edit - im a kde diehard fan and i never use it without krohnkite. but these days im preferring using niri + a custom mix of dms and noctalia shell. you should check out the shells, they give nearly a full desktop experience these days.
