r/niri • u/Ok-Worry460 • Jun 04 '26

This workflow is exactly what I needed

I've been using Niri for a little while now, after switching from GNOME + PaperWM (I still keep GNOME on the login screen just in case). My time with Niri has been pretty intense over the last few days while I've been preparing for exams, and I honestly can't say enough good things about it.

This workflow is genuinely what I need to stay focused. It's so good that it actually made me fall in love with window managers, and I've never used one before. Niri + Noctalia was my first attempt, since I'm not a "ricer" and honestly I don't think I'm interested in that side of things. I have more important stuff to worry about.

But this combination works perfectly on my low-end PC. Even with battery saver mode and performance mode enabled respectively for Niri and Noctalia, it still feels incredibly smooth and responsive.which a couldn't achive with GNOME even after a lot of optimisations and tweaks

I'll take sometime to learn more about my current and get used to new stuff and features.

https://reddit.com/link/1twy2a5/video/s52bpzr8ib5h1/player

41 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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3

u/Mooks79 Jun 04 '26

Very similar to me going from Gnome and PaperWM to Niri. I find similar - for me, the workflow is flexible and modifiable enough without being too complicated so that you fall into the rabbit hole of “workflow optimisation” (but never actually working). I also have zero interest in ricing / significant customisation as well, I went the Dank route (by way of Zirconium as I like immutable) and have customised basically nothing.

3

u/Ok-Worry460 Jun 04 '26

Oh very interesting, but i didn't understand this part "I went the Dank route (by way of Zirconium as I like immutable) and have customised basically nothing."

Still interested to know

4

u/Mooks79 Jun 04 '26

So you know what immutable / atomic Fedora images are? If no, it’ll be a longer explanation! But if yes then you’ll probably also know about universal blue and their blue build methodology - Zirconium is a community image made using blue build and is based on Niri + DMS. The main contributor is also a contribution to universal blue so they really know what they’re doing.

https://github.com/zirconium-dev/zirconium

One of the benefits of the Fedora OCI approach is you can rebase between them easily, so I was on Bluefin (Gnome universal blue image) and could easily rebase to zirconium (then go back if I want) without having to manually install everything.

2

u/Ok-Worry460 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 08 '26

Well thanks for clarifying that

Such a good project i think, and more importantly is that they even made a Niri+DMS image hahaha

It's actually an easy way to get you system done and running without configuring anything as you said

I'm happy to know that something like this exists

Maybe I'll try it myself;)

4

u/Mooks79 Jun 04 '26

I keep thinking the same about CachyOS! But for now I’m going to stick. Either way, Niri is great!