this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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Hot take alert:
This is a stupid opinion.
First, the article reads like an AI wrote it, but assuming that's not true, the Linux space absolutely does NOT need more tiling window managers.
Quite frankly, I'm amazed there are still as many actively developed ones as there are.
The VAST majority of Linux users have little to no interest in a tiling WMs, and the basic tiling features of Plasma, Gnome, and soon Cosmic are fine for most of the users that want to try it out. The few that really want hardcore full tiling are almost always already very experienced power users who know what they want and how to get it. They aren't going to be put off by their favorite distro not having built in support for tiling WMs.
In fact, most of them are already using distros that are able to be heavily customized to their liking, like Arch, NixOS, and Gentoo.
How many users do you think want to run Linux Mint or PopOS but with some hardcore tiling WM?
Linux has a massive amount of variety in all areas, it's already hellish for new users to pick a distro from the forest of suggestions, do we really need even more tiling WMs on tip of the dozen+ ones that already exist and serve a tiny percentage of Linux users?
they are only 'hardcore' because of the poor desktop environment integration.
No, they're hardcore because tiling WMs are hardcore. Most users don't want to use them, they don't care. And they wouldn't be significantly more likely to use them if more distros had them as a default.
Y'all complain that users still occasionally need to use the terminal for certain tasks on Linux, but you think those same users will be totally interested in spending hours writing Perl or JSON configs and memorizing dozens of keyboard shortcuts for every function they used to use the mouse for??
Of course not. This is the argument for a tiling desktop environment. The only reason people need to do all that ATM is because of the current tiling window managers. Not because tiling window management is inherently complex to understand. You can have a tiling window manager with a GUI configuration and that better supports the mouse while still supporting keyboard shortcuts. Then users can incrementally learn the shortcuts - like they do with floating window managers - to gain productivity in their day to day tasks.
They might not be for everyone, but giving everyone the choice is also not a bad thing. Most people I have seen that try a tiling window manager do end up liking it and quite a few hate to go back to floating ones. But not all of them can be bothered with the amount you need to configure the current ones.
So what is wrong with trying to make a easier to configure, use and generally a batteries included tiling desktop environment? This is essentially what it looks like Cosmic are doing - they support both floating and proper tiling without needing complex configuration or needing to learn loads of shortcuts.