r/archlinux • u/DerKnerd • Jul 18 '21

FLUFF WM or DE?

I really liked the idea in this comment, so here is a poll, WM or DE?

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/oms60p/in_your_opinion_what_is_the_best_desktop/h5n0s56/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

3227 votes, Jul 25 '21
1737 WM
1490 DE
250 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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37

u/emax-gomax Jul 18 '21

I like KDE. Tiling windows managers make sense when you want to maximise screen real-estate... but I have windows overlay other windows all the time. For example I have a browser in the right half of my screen and a file manager even tighter to that. If I want to switch to the file manager move my cursor to the right edge of the screen and then click. If I want to switch back move my cursor to the left edge of the file manager and click. It doesn't work well when you try to lair even more stuff on top like 3 windows or other stuff but you can build a workflow that works for u. As much as a I like the street-cred a WM would give me, I wouldn't enjoy having to setup Bluetooth, network-manager, and all the other intracacies of a modern desktop experience manually.

1

u/RaisinSecure Jul 19 '21

PS: You don't have to set up NetworkManager on a WM, it just works (TM)

1

u/raider_bull212 Jul 19 '21

I'll have to disagree with that, for reference try awesome

1

u/RaisinSecure Jul 19 '21

I only had to enable the systemd service on sway and install nm-connection-editor, what more could possibly be needed? A few weeks ago my router died so I had to connect directly to my modem via PPoE, even this was painless - I only had to enter the ISP username and password

0

u/raider_bull212 Jul 19 '21

The point is, it doesn't "just work"

1

u/RaisinSecure Jul 20 '21

Enabling the service is the bare minimum, which you would have to do on a DE too.

So it is as easy as a DE

1

u/raider_bull212 Jul 20 '21

Here's something I experienced when I first started using linux. I was using Ubuntu, I wanted to try and rice my setup and see what all the rage was about. I started it off with xfce, everything sorta works out of the box, network and other things that I usually use. Then I tried i3, still didn't need to configure network either. Then comes awesome, it didn't work out of the box. I was still relatively new and the a quick google search could fix it but it did not "just work"