 Over the last two or three years or so since I switched to using tiling window managers I've tried pretty much all of them. I started out on i3. I moved to bspwm. I Switched to q-tile. I've used awesome. I've used Herp's left for a little while. I've used X-monad Extensively acts of actually as much as I hate X-monad. I've used it a lot I've tried out things like ice wm and jwm and cwm I've tried a lot of window managers. That's the point, but I keep repeatedly coming back to DWM DWM is my favorite tiling window manager and I just can't seem to escape it and I don't really want to so today what I thought I would do is talk about five reasons why I Really really like DWM and I like a few of the other suckless software tools as well I'm not a big fan of all of them. I'll explain that a little bit later But for the most part some of the suckless philosophy really does seem to Be my kind of thing. So let's go ahead and jump in So the first reason why I really like DWM is that it's minimal by design, but it's still mostly functional now I see mostly functional because I do believe that there are many patches that you need to install in order for DWM to be Fantastic, but if you didn't want to install those things you could use DWM out of the box and it would be fine so those people who argue that DWM is Worthless because it has certain functions that aren't built in I Wouldn't agree with those people because you can use it now I think in order for it to be really good You do have to add a few patches like being able to move Windows up in the stack. So by default if I wanted to move this window up in the stack I Couldn't do that by default. There's no way to do that. You have to have a patch in order to do it So there are a few function pieces of functionality that you do have to add by patches and in order to make DWM good But I like that it's minimal. I like that I can add in The features that I need and I'll talk more about this when I talk about patching instead of having to go through and Actually have those functions forced on me now a few of those I wouldn't mind if they were built in But other things like gaps. I don't need those things built in I want to be able to put them in if I want them to be put in or I like being able to choose what kind of gaps that I can put in because if you have i3 gaps you have Whatever control the developer gives you Whereas you can if you put patches and like I said, I'll talk about patches later You can go through and use several different patches for gaps. You can choose one Number two on the list is that it's not updated very often DWM hasn't been updated since 2019 and that's going on three years now a lot of people are thinking well. Wow is this thing's abandoned and no it's not abandoned DWM is meant to be very very stable and If you use other window managers, you'll know that that's not always the case So if you use something like Qtile Qtile breaks a lot and that's because they're always updating Qtile and coming up with new widgets and stuff for their bar And that tends to break things So I like that DWM just happens to not update very often because I know that my build of DWM is going to stay as Stable as possible if something goes wrong chances are it's the distro that has gone wrong and not something that's gone wrong with the window manager The third thing that I really like about DWM is that you can patch it now The patching system for DWM is highly controversial some people love it some people hate it and I've vacillated between these two points of use a few times and because The patching system for DWM is not perfect like if you patch your DWM install too much things are gonna break a lot of patches conflict with each other and Things will just eventually bog down to the point where DWM won't build it happens You I've been successful between seven and ten patches I've never made it beyond ten patches right now I think I'm at eight and I would highly doubt if I tried to patch this again I would actually be successful. It would really depend on what patch. I was trying to add but I don't think I'd be successful. So the patching system is flawed in that. It's not extensible indefinitely But I do enjoy the fact that I can go through And add in the features that I want Without having to have them forced on me now. It's not a big deal You know like I three comes with all the features. It's ever going to have it just does And you can I mean you can build scripts on top of it But all the features that I three has it's already has them You're not going to add anything on top of them and that's a fine way of doing things I like I three plenty. It's the same thing with BSPWM Xmonad is kind of the same way you download all of Haskell and then you can call libraries and stuff I guess so technically you can add features to Xmonad, but you've already downloaded all those things it's just a matter of including the libraries or whatever they're called in the Configuration file, so I don't mind that way of doing things But I also enjoy the peace of mind knowing Exactly what's in my window manager. So I know that everything most of the features that are in my build of DWM I put there I built this thing from the ground up and I know exactly What's there and that piece of mind also allows me to know The exact functionality of my window manager every key binding that is in DWM I put there every way of maneuvering the windows is something that I Set to that specific way of doing things every layout that I have is There by design because I put it there and that's just a great feeling. It's it's kind of like I built this window manager and That's just a feeling that you really can't get anywhere else The fourth one is kind of wishy-washy, but I put it out there I like that DWM who doesn't have any unnecessary layouts by default it comes with three tiling Monocle and floating that's literally it those are the only ones and if you know for me That's perfectly fine. Those really the only three that I'm ever going to use But there are other layouts that you can install but via patches if you want to but unlike other window managers like awesome I Don't have to deal with twelve different layouts and figuring out how to set one by default or disabling whatever layouts I don't want I can just use the ones that are there and I'll be happy I don't have to deal with any of that cruft and a lot of window managers are like that So Qtile has a ton of window man a ton of layouts by default I don't think that they're all enabled but awesome for example has all of their window manager when window manager layouts enabled by default and their default one is floating and I Don't want floating and I mean it's easy enough to change I understand that but I don't have to change it in DWM It's just there out of the box And I don't have to deal with going through and changing any of that other stuff in order to get it the way I want it the final point on the list is that DWM is a fantastic window manager for if you have multiple monitors. It handles them very very well Now there is a patch that you have to use in order to get bars on both Monitors or on all your monitors, but outside of that DWM handles multiple monitors probably the best of any window manager or at least any Dynamic window manager that I've ever used I could see the argument That says something like I3 does a really good job as well And I agree that it does if you are interested in having just a ton of workspaces like 20 or 30 workspaces I3 is going to be the best window manager you could use because you can go through and dictate what when it workspaces on which monitor and You know, it's just amazing that way with DWM I like it because every works every monitor you have you have nine workspaces. It's just the way it is now It's not as flexible with as I3 in terms of like key bindings. It's really hard to set key bindings for Specific monitors and specific workspaces on specific monitors. You can do it. There's a patch do it But I've never been able to get it actually install But that is something you can do with I3 But I do like the fact that you just have a set number of workspaces on each Monitor you don't have to deal with this whole thing where you have nine Workspaces and you have to share them across all your monitors something like X-Mone ad or Q-Tile and while you can Add workspaces to those you still share them across all your monitors And that's a workflow that I've never really gotten used to Where sometimes you switch to a certain workspace and you expect that workspace to be on a certain monitor, but you have another monitor Focused it'll actually switch to that workspace on the monitor that is focused and it's just like I said It's not a works flow that I've ever particularly gotten a hang of now I've used it in the past and it's fine, but it's not for me I like to have my workspaces whether they're numbered or with icons or whatever in places where I know that they're always going to be they're not moving around willy-nilly and That's just for me. Now. I know other people prefer The whole sharing of workspaces across monitors. That's fine That's their workflow for me. Like I said, I like to have the workspaces on The monitors that they're you know supposed to just that they're just gonna stay there There are a few things with DWM that I don't like So I thought I would go through and cover a few things that are you know, not all that great as well I talked a little bit about the patches how the patching system is flawed if you patch it too often It's gonna, you know, work on you. It's just gonna go away It's not gonna be do it's not gonna build or something and it's not great So that's it. That's a situation. That's just never gonna be fixed because that's the nature of the way patches work Another thing is is that the support from the suckless community is god-awful. It's so bad They don't want to support you at all. If you have a stupid noob question Don't even bother asking the suckless people. They're gonna make fun of you and tell you to go away because that's their philosophy they don't want you to go through and Ask questions if you're a noob. They don't want noob using their software. It says so right on their website So that's why I've tried to make several tutorials on my channel How to install and how to use DWM and suckless software because I feel that that support is really needed and the developers Aren't ever going to offer that so if if you're looking for a window manager and your noob Stay away from DWM unless you're highly able to support yourself The last thing that I don't like about suckless software in general is that the other pieces of software suckless software They're not great. The only other Truly spectacular piece of suckless software outside of DWM that exists Really is D menu now tab doesn't horrible. I just don't use it. So I really can't speak about how good it is But I use D menu D menus great ST. I've used ST in my main terminal emulator before It's okay It's not the greatest thing out there If you've used things like alacrity before if you use termite back when it was here RIP termite Those are way better than ST ever will be even if you go through and patch the hell out of ST It's never going to be up to the standards of things like alacrity or kitty or something like that that are they have a lot of really good really neat features And I don't even really want to get started on surf surf just shouldn't exist I mean it really shouldn't it's a horrible browser. It's slow It's not as good as cute browser not even close, you know, so I mean, it's just it's not a good browser So should they shouldn't waste their time on I understand Doing a browser in a suckless fashion just isn't possible because the modern-day internet requires a lot of stuff in your browser in order to navigate around it in order to make it actually, you know Good so and suckless just you can't do it and it shows that it's just slow So that's probably my other complaint is that I would really like to have a whole suite of suckless software that I can Go through and patch to my heart's content and make my own But most of the suite is just Meh at best or really bad in the case of surf so Yeah, those are my arguments against suckless software, but DWM still remains my favorite tiling window manager I've used all the most all of the others And most of them for significant amounts of times. I've spent a lot of time in I3 I've spent a lot of time in BSPWM. I've spent quite a bit of time lately an awesome window manager I don't care for awesome window manager as much as a lot of other people do Lua is just not my thing. I understand Lua a hell of a lot more than I understand Haskell But it's not a programming language that I particularly enjoy C++ is my language that I understand more than all the others now Python comes close because I'm actually learning Python So I like Qtile, but Qtile has that whole pesky thing where they updated a lot and things break and it bothers me a lot So I can't use Qtile as much as I'd really like to because it actually is a really good tiling window manager But that update thing is just pesky. So Yeah, DWM is just it's it's my tiling window manager. I've tried all them and I keep coming back So in the comments below, I'd really like to know what your tiling window manager of choice is if you use a tiling window manager Or if you've tried DWM and you like it just as much as I do come be a fanboy with me in the comments So you can also follow me on Twitter at Linuxcast You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linuxcast before I go. I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Devon Chris east coast web gen 2 is fun to Patrick L. Marcus Meglin Jackson Nice man tool Steve a Mitchell Arts Center Merrick camp just for Lee J dog in the BSDs rock. Thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time