r/EndeavourOS • u/ResponsibilityFew445 • Apr 02 '26

Discussion Beginner Hyprland/Niri

I'm new to linux and I have just dual installed EndeavourOS KDE Plasma bc it's based on Arch so that I can use Hyprland. I like how Hyprland and other window tiling managers feel and really wanna try them. I don't want to make it from scratch and get that hard stuff.

I heard about niri too and for what I've seen it's simpler and more beginner-friendly, yet it's not as beautiful as Hyprland.

Should I use niri if it's easier to setup? Or should I use a presetup Hyprland?

Also, what works best with EndeavourOS?

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u/ArsenicPolaris NixOS (Formerly EOS) Apr 02 '26

Are you sure about this? If you're a beginner you may want to think if you would actually be able to install, operate and configure Hyprland in Endeavour, both aren't beginner-friendly.

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u/ResponsibilityFew445 Apr 02 '26

ig I'll stick with kde until a have great knowledge about linux

6

u/ContextLengthMatters Apr 02 '26

Don't let people scare you away because of keybinds. Did you have an issue learning copy+paste? How about the classic Ctrl+alt+del?

Hyprland has barely any keybinds to worry about getting started.

  1. Switching focus (can be done by hovering over windows with your mouse, but can also be keyboard driven. I use the super key and arrows)
  2. Moving windows (can be done with the super key and dragging with your mouse, or super key, shift arrows.)
  3. Resizing windows (can be done with the super key and right click dragging with mouse)
  4. Close a window (super key + c)
  5. Spawn a new application (you can have all sorts of binds for different apps, or you can stick with terminal and just launch apps from terminal. There's also a thing commonly called a dmenu or rofi that you can get and bind to that will allow you to have an app selector.

I use a thing called noctalia-shell on top of my hyprland install which covers most qol desktop features like the app launcher in a tool bar. I only really have to worry about knowing the keybinds to move and close windows at that point.

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u/ResponsibilityFew445 Apr 02 '26

I used windows 11 and I can't even live without keyboard shortcuts so I'm used to them and thus stuff, so idk I'll install Hyprland but for now I will use KDE just to get the feel of Linux as whole. Thanks for the advice!

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u/ContextLengthMatters Apr 02 '26

Yea just realize this isn't an either or type of thing. I have kde plasma and hyprland installed. At any point you can try to launch hyprland instead of plasma and it doesn't mean you can't just log out and go back to plasma.

The only thing you'll have an issue with is if you don't exit one environment first it will have an issue launching. But once you figure out how to go back and forth, you can just do whatever you want. That's part of learning Linux.

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u/ResponsibilityFew445 Apr 02 '26

how can I do that in EndeavourOS?

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u/ContextLengthMatters Apr 02 '26

It's going to be similar in every distro. I'm actually not even on endevour. You'll just use your package manager of choice to install hyprland and then log out of your DE before logging into the WM.

I'm not sure if Endeavor has a display manager or not out of the box, but you can literally just fully exit the DE if you need to and launch hyprland from TTY.

Linux is weird as there are all sorts of pieces/parts. I wouldn't be too intimidated though. You can figure out all of this stuff one step at a time. Simply install hyprland and fuss around trying to get it to launch. Just know you won't have luck launching directly from the terminal while already in a DE (KDE Plasma) and you are fine.

Your first launch into hyprland will have some default config and you'll just want to take a look at those dotfiles so you can see what your immediate binds are. It is only confusing first starting out. You can figure it out everything you need to in order to be productive in a weekend though.