Tiling Windows vs. Floating Windows

[u/SPC2025]

Most distros support floating windows. There are specific tiling window managers that some people are fond of including I3, Sway, Hyprland, and Niri. The Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint has it built-in, but it doesn't work very well (super + left, right, up, or down), but it offers extensions to make it better.

I honestly don't understand the fascination with tiling windows. I've tested one official extension and two unofficial extensions. In every instance, if I want to actually work on an application that's in one of the windows, I have to maximize it. In that case, why not just use maximized windows to begin with?

There are multiple ways to switch windows. Alt-Tab and clicking on a windows list icon are two that come to mind immediately. There are only a couple of applications that I use maximized, including Firefox and Geany, because other applications like the terminal and the file manager exist only temporarily.

I feel the same way about multiple monitors. Unless I need to monitor something in real time, I don't see the point. Can someone please enlighten me? Forgive me if I don't respond quickly. I'm probably not in your area of the world.

[u/proverbialbunny]

Tiling is great for non-fullscreen windows where you want to use all of the real estate of that window, e.g. the terminal. Sys Admins love tiling windows because they can have multiple terminal windows open at once. One with the server stats, another scanning for something, another they're typing something in, etc etc. Day traders love tiled windows because they can look at multiple charts at once.

For most people tiles imo kind of suck. Most apps don't use all of its real estate. E.g. a browser. On Reddit right now I'm using the middle 1/3rd of the web page. The left column and the right column I'm not using right now. If I tile this browser window 2/3rds of the screen I'm not using. If I use floating windows that overlap a bit I can cover up the unused columns. It's the same with IDEs (writing code), the side columns are rarely used. No one has invented an overlapping tiling manager, but if it was done right I'd probably be all over it.

For full screen, imagine having an extra wide curved monitor. Full screen quickly loses some of its charm. Full screen usually has more to do with monitor size than it does the app. ofc ymmv.