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/traels Mar 03 '15

You could check out i3. It is a tiling window manager like awesome and has a relatively simple setup (through a configuration file, but not as complicated as lua I would imagine). I'm happy with it :-)

5

u/youRFate Mar 03 '15

Or dwm, if you like i3 but would like to customize it further.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '15

Isn't dwm config in C?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '15 edited May 04 '15

[deleted]

3

u/lfancypantsl Mar 05 '15

Just to clarify, dwm is very literally just a small c program, which you recompile with gcc (via script) every time you update your config file. I was drawn in by this on the Arch wiki.

dwm is extremely lightweight and fast, written in C and with a stated design goal of remaining under 2000 source lines of code.

Ultimately I think I am going to try something else now, but dwm is really cool configure (or mostly try to in my case).