 Hey everybody welcome back to the channel today I'm going to be talking about the best tiling window manager for beginners now when I'm talking about beginners I don't necessarily mean those who are new to Linux if you're new to Linux chances are you probably would be better off using a desktop environment like plasma or a GNOME or Mate or Cinnamon or something like that and the reason why is because all those desktop environments come with tools that are meant to Make them easy to configure things like a GUI application to manage your Wi-Fi or your Bluetooth or your mouse or the way The desktop environment looks all these things are packaged together and come with the desktop environment It's part of what makes them a desktop environment instead of just a window manager Window managers are really usually just that they only manage your windows if you want any of the extra stuff you have to go through and install them and that adds extra complexity on to the whole Getting started, you know thing So when I'm talking about new users, I mean those who are new to tiling window managers, but I've used the next for a little while now When I get this question, there are any number of answers I could give BS PWM is not a hard window manager to use It's written in bash a lot of people know bash. It's easy to configure. It's easy to get around in it's easy to install Something like Qtile. It's also fairly easy to install also fairly easy to get into the configuration of because it's written in Python and a lot of people in the Python But I think the answer to the question is actually I3 and there are several reasons why so the first one is That it's highly customizable, but usable out of the box What basically what that means is you can install it along with that's very few dependencies and use it right away It comes with a bar It has very easy key bindings right of the box and I mean it doesn't look like ass I mean, it's not like complete. It's not customized or anything, but you know It looks okay. It's very minimal and it's usable If you want to get to work right away You can do so if you want to get into customizing it right away You can do so and that's because of the next reason is that you don't have to use or you don't have to learn Another language in order to customize it. It's written in a user configurable language Which means that it's very readable you can go through and get into the configuration file and it will actually be something you can Read it's something that you can understand right away Even if you have no clue what you know see even is because I3 is written in C But the configuration files is written I Think I think right through turn and see I can never remember But anyways the configuration file is written in a language such that it's very easy to read and I can actually show you this this right here is My I3 configuration file and as you can see It's very readable. So this is setting a variable Display port one. This is using that variable to tell what workspace one should be on You can tell that Very easily by what it says there's no I mean and there's look at this There's no commas or anything each had to put on this because I3 doesn't really do that So that's what I mean when it's configurable in a very easy way So even outside of it being usable right of the box You can also get right into it and start customizing it right away without using or without learning another language the next one is That I3 is a manual Tyler and I3 is not the only manual Tyler out there, but I Think manual Tyler's are better for new users simply because it gives new users more control over where Their windows go so when you're using a tiling window manager and you spawn a new window in a dynamic Tyler They always go by whatever layout you're using so like with if you're using DWM the Default of DWM is master and stack and that means you're having a main window along the side and several children child windows along the other side the same thing with like q-tile or Xmonad those are all dynamic tiling window managers with manual Tyler's you always choose where the next windows go with with something Like BSPWM you actually actively choose where the next windows goes with I3 you have a key binding and you tell I3 whether you not You want the next window to be vertical or horizontally split and that's really cool And it's I think that control is very Important for new users simply because that's kind of what they're used to in desktop environments They're used to being able to put the windows wherever they want Whereas with dynamic Tyler's This layout is almost always set. So that's just my opinion It's not necessarily that dynamics are bad or hard to learn for new users. I Just think happen to think that the manual Tyler's Probably what would fit in with new users just a little bit better. So the next one. I want to talk about is Documentation now I3 has the apps the best documentation of Any Tiling window manager, I know and I don't think it's actually close So if you go to I3windowmanager.org and click on the docs thing and then you the user guide you get all of this and It's just page after page after page of Pure awesomeness it tells you everything you need to know and what's more is it's written in a in such a way That everybody can understand it windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the container and the container being You know the screen other window managers aren't necessarily written in that way For example DWM, which is a suckless software utility Literally says on their websites. We are not for noobs. We don't want your business We don't want we don't want you to use this if you are going to have new user type questions BSPWM has the worst documentation. I've ever seen my life. This is literally all there is just this little bit here I can scroll down within the matter of you know a free sense. That's that's it There's no other documentation for BSPWM out there as far as I know. I mean it's possible Yeah That's a little bit extra. That's how you install it. That's I mean so there's a little bit extra there But that was it. I mean in comparison if you're gonna compare these two I mean, there's really no comparison and BSPWM is a very easy to learn Tiling window manager. It's written in because it's written or at least the configuration is written in bash and You can get around bash very easily and there are a lot of guides and stuff out there But in terms of official documentation, it's just not very helpful Now speaking of helpful. I think that the next one has to be community now Because i3 is a very popular window manager It's also a very popular with new user window manager. That means that the community around it is much more Not only invested in but also happy to you know happy to help new users then You know something like DWM or Xmone ad or even BSPWM the community is just so much bigger And it's also like they embrace new users much more than other tiling window managers do and that means that when you go through And you have a problem It's almost certain that you would be able to go through and find someone who is not only willing to help you But it's not going to ridicule you because you asked a question. That's obvious They may point you towards the manual but chances are they'll just send you a link directly to the answer because again When you go to the documentation everything is linked so you they can link to a specific spot on that page and You've gotten the answer And if it's not in the documentation, they'll be more than willing to help you I know the red the subreddit for i3 Fantastic place up. I've had several questions that I've needed to have answered there and they just go ahead and answer I mean if there's an if there's an answer They're gonna find it for you and and usually for the most priming it's read it obviously so you're gonna have the occasional asshole That should really be reddit's like slogan or whatever read it mostly good, but for the occasional asshole I've been doing this video for way too long anyways when you go there you'll find that the They're very helpful and you know, they're gonna not gonna make fun of you for asking questions. So Documentation and community are definitely two of the biggest reasons why I think that i3 is the best styling way to manage it for news the last one I want to talk about is kind of like a bonus and This one is very very specific and it's one that I think that is overlooked and Is not really something that is specific to i3, but I think it's the easiest i3 and that is tabs Now all the rest of the points on my list were very broad in terms of you You should you should use i3 because it has a great community It has easy to learn language in in your configuration file You know all these things but tabs are a very specific feature of i3 that come built in now You can use tabs in suckless software using a tabbed program, but that's an extraneous program that you have to install You can use the monocle mode in in DWM and you can use the I'm not actually sure what the layout is in q-tiles to have them all stacked on each other because that those are kind of tabs Well in i3 they're like literally tabs and I want to show you this So we're on this window here if I hit a keybinding when my case mod z and then I hit a Open up a terminal I've actually opened up a tab and I can do this many many times and you can actually see the tab up here at The top you can see the color Now this isn't going to be what yours looked like out of the box because out of the box That will actually be the title of the window, but I've disabled that and it just looks like this and then you can just move back and forth between the the tabs like this With the arrow keys in my case. I don't know why I had it set as the arrow keys and not the Vim keys I'm not actually sure. I've thought for sure. I use the Vim keys when I configured that but apparently I did it wrong But anyways, the point is is I loved these tabs and it's just If you know me I love my workspaces and I have 19 workspaces on i3 But I also used that crap out of tags and I love that feature So that was just a kind of a bonus thing now like I said, I understand that in other Tyler win managers You can do similar things with them to this but for i3 I just feel like because it's built-in and it's Easy to use. I mean there's no like if you're using like a Stacked mode in like cutile or DWM or whatever. It's not very easy to see what window you're on or what Window you're using even again. I and DWM the only indication you get is like a number up in the bar So so I think that i3 is the best for new users And I don't think that it's really all that close because every other window manager out there has serious Prickly spots that aren't necessarily great for new users BS PWM for being written in bash still has a ton of features to it that are Not well documented and you're not necessarily going to know how to use so look for example creating zones in BS PWM and is one of the ways you can tell a window where to spawn and what size to spawn and It's not a great experience just because it's not well documented with cutile you have to learn Python obviously and it has You know pain points because of that i3 on the other hand is very easily configured and It just works out of the box now I've been saying all this stuff to new users But if you're using i3 or you're just gonna start using i3 I don't want you to take away from this that this is that the i3 window manager is just for new users And that you can't do Amazing things with it if you look on r slash Unix porn you'll see a ton of awesome rices with i3 There's just tons of stuff that you can do if you want the master stack layout in i3. There's a way to do it if you want To go through and use floating windows all the time. There's a way to do it I mean there's just tons and tons of features built into i3. There's scratchpad functionality built into i3 I mean, there's just tons of awesome features like that just built right into i3 And that makes it possible for somebody who's very comfortable with i3 or with tiling window managers to use it very comfortable And do a ton of really amazing things with it. So don't think just because I've pointed new users to i3 That that means that you can't be a professional tiling window manager user whatever that means and Use it as well. I mean, I know a ton of people who just swear by i3 and they've been using it for 10 years, I mean I've been using now for two or three or four years now or Two years, I guess and I still love it a lot just as much as I did when I started So and there's like I said, I've done a ton of stuff to it and you know, it's not limiting in any way So thank you for watching If you want to you can follow us on Twitter at the Linux cash You can follow us on Facebook at the Linux cash You can also support us on patreon at patreon.com slash the next cast I'd like to take a moment to thank our current sponsors Devon Marcus Maglen American Camp. Thanks everybody for your support. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time