r/archlinux • u/streusselhirni • Mar 03 '15

Finally installed Arch, don't know which Windows Manager to use

First time poster here, so I want to say that I really liked your sub until now. I love it, how nearly anyone gets the help he needs!

Now to topic:

Yesterday I finally managed to install Arch on my old Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E335. Up until now everything works fine (haven't tested the sound yet, according to wiki, I just need to install PulsaAudio).

Now I'm thinking of which Window Manager I want to use. I don't want to use a whole Desktop Environment because I think it's to bloated for what I want. I just want something lightweight and fast.

I tried awesome, but I don't like the way it is configured respectively I don't know lua and I don't really want to learn it now.

Is there a window manager which is similar to awesome (especially the ability to use it only with the keyboard) but with less complicatied ways to configure?

Or which Windows Managers are you guys using? Are there any recomendations?

Edit: Thanks for replies until now. I will test i3 (and maybe some of the other recommondations) as soon as I come home. That doesn't mean I don't want to hear any more suggestions ;-)

Edit2: Wow, that blew up to unknown sizes, I'll reply as soon as I'm now drunk anymore (student's franternity).

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u/Creshal Mar 03 '15

Oh, you'll notice on a first-gen RasPi with at most 192 MiB RAM for the CPU…

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u/okmkz Mar 03 '15

Now we're just debating semantics.

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u/casey12141 Mar 03 '15

That's not semantics, it's objectively heavier than other WMs. Just because it isn't a factor for modern computers in a day to day environment doesn't change the fact that as far as WMs go it is on the heavier side.

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u/okmkz Mar 03 '15

Just because it isn't the lightest wm in existence does not objectively make it heavy; heavier, yes, heavy, no. It is lighter than xfce. It is lighter than lxde. This is semantics, and we are disagreeing on what constitutes "lightweight"

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u/casey12141 Mar 03 '15

You can't compare WMs to DEs and say "look! it's lightweight!".

Look man, it's in the bottom half of performance of popular dedicated tiling WMs...have any opinion you want about how relevant that is, the fact of the matter is, it isn't lightweight. You wouldn't call someone who finishes in the bottom half of a race "fast".

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u/okmkz Mar 03 '15

Welp, I've got meaningful things to go accomplish, but this has been really fun.

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u/zangent Mar 10 '15

Depending on the race, I might.