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PCLinuxProductivity

What are the most user friendly advanced window managers on Linux?

14

Options
Considered

98

User
Recs.

Nov 15, 2020

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

10 Options Considered

What are the most user friendly advanced window managers on Linux	Price	License	Type
85 Openbox	-	GPL 2.0 (or later)	Stacking
-- i3	-	Modified BSD (3-Clause)	Tiling / Dynamic
-- awesome WM	-	GPL 2.0	Tiling / Dynamic
-- IceWM	-	-	-
-- XMonad	-	Modified BSD (3-Clause)	Tiling / Dynamic

Openbox

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Top Pro

Highly configurable with a moderate learning curve

Configuring Openbox is very easy to carry out, simply by editing its few config files. There are programs that allow for an even easier means of editing these files by doing so in a UI. See More

Top Con

Maintenance is unclear or halted

As of 2018-02: The homepage for Openbox has a News section with the last post in 2010 (http://openbox.org/wiki/Openbox:News). The code is apparently at https://github.com/danakj/openbox but no changes have been made since 2015-03-03. PRs and bug reports continue to be submitted, but they are not commented upon or merged. There are various discussions about the maintenance from third-party commenters, but I have been unable to find an official discussion from the original author (Dana Jansens) and maintainers listed at http://openbox.org/wiki/Openbox:About. See More

Specs

License:GPL 2.0 (or later)

Programming Language:C

Initial Release:September 18, 2002

Top Pro

Extremely lightweight

Openbox is a lightweight window manager that uses a little over 100MB RAM upon boot. See More

Top Con

Not a tiling WM

It uses stacking / overlapping windows, which is messy and inefficient compared to tiling systems. See More

Top Pro

Defaults easy to quickstart

Openbox's set of defaults are easily editable to the user's liking. See More

Top Con

Default configuration is lacking basic features

When booting Openbox for the first time, the user won't even know they have actually booted into a window manager as there will be nothing of note on the screen other than a right mouse action. See More

Top Pro

Very well documented

Due to wide use and a long history, there is a lot of documentation available on the use and customization of Openbox. See More

Top Pro

Uncluttered

Openbox does away with many traditional desktop elements, like menu buttons, bars, etc. and places everything in the (insanely customizable) context menu. If any of the missing pieces are desired, they can be added through others apps (e.g. tint2 for taskbar). See More

Top Pro

Stable

Openbox is used as a default window manager in few desktop environments so it offers more testing, more bugfixes, and more stable behavior. See More

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i3

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Top Pro

Good documentation

Every feature is thoroughly documented (including examples), and documentation is kept up-to-date. For questions that are not answered by the i3 user guide, because they concern tools outside of i3 for example, there is the community question & answer site. See More

Top Con

Missing "include" possibility in config

While pretty good and easy to use for common tasks, the configuration language is missing the include directive common in other languages. You can use a workaround - a shell script to config parts on demand. It would be best if this were built-in however. See More

OpinionatedHehu's Experience

Strong community and more popular making finding the answer to problems easier See More

Specs

License:Modified BSD (3-Clause)

Type:Tiling / Dynamic

Programming Language:C

Initial Release:March 15, 2009

Top Pro

Fully configurable (including tiling)

One of the biggest attractions of i3 is that it can be configured just about any way the user likes. Ranging from custom keyboard shortcuts to placement of opened apps, it is up to the user as to how they would like their window manager to behave. See More

Top Con

Poor floating window support

Sometimes this is necessary, even when the Dev rejects feature requests. Firefox child windows (option dialog) is an example. See More

Top Pro

Fast, especially on weaker hardware

Tiling means there are no fancy compositing or window effects to take up system resources. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Has a steep learning curve for beginners. See More

Top Pro

Easily readable plain-text configuration

i3 has plain-text configuration, meaning that no lua or haskell is needed. This makes it rather easy to recommend i3 to other people without worrying whether or not they have the knowledge to configure it as it can be read by anyone without prior knowledge. See More

Top Con

Not as intuitive as the rest

Key combinations that have to be defined or learned See More

Top Pro

Comfortable usage (keyboard only)

The user keeps their hands in one spot (most of the time). One will find that the mouse is used less and less, making navigation quicker over time. See More

Top Con

Documentation is online

Can't access it offline unless you download the page. See More

Top Pro

Can tab windows

i3 permits tabbing through windows by turning on tab mode with $mod+w. See More

Top Con

The plain-text configuration may not be suitable for beginners

i3 is configured through a plaintext configuration file. While it's very powerful and easy to learn, it may not be entirely user-friendly for those who have never edited a text configuration. See More

Top Pro

Can be reloaded quickly and configured without a client restart

Just two hot keys: Shift+Super+C to reload the config and Shift+Super+R to restart (which takes less than one second). Restarts pick up new versions of i3 or the updated config file, so you can upgrade to a newer version or quickly see the changes to i3 without quitting your X session. See More

Top Con

It has some issues with transparency

Using transparent windows can cause them to crash. See More

Top Pro

Excellent documentation

Every feature is thoroughly documented (including examples), and documentation is kept up-to-date. For questions that are not answered by the i3 user guide, because they concern tools outside of i3 for example, there is the community question & answer site. See More

Top Con

Manual tiling

The layout isn't automatic. The user must move panels manually and may indeed end up spending time on that rather than on working with the application. See More

Top Pro

Wayland support

It's called sway for wayland, but handles the same See More

Top Pro

Easily switch to and manage floating windows

i3 can allow for the user to manage floating windows. Floating mode can be toggled by pressing $mod+Shift+Space. This way the user can take advantage of tiling as well as floating windows, all in the same session. See More

Top Pro

VIM Style key bindings

You can configure i3 so that your keys for moving windows is similar to vim, for example, M-j to move the window down. See More

Top Pro

Awesome multi-monitor support

User can assign specific workspaces to specific displays as well as apps to workspaces. This makes possible opening set of most used apps with 1 shortcut always on the same screens. See More

Top Pro

RandR support

RandR provides more information about your outputs and connected screens than Xinerama does. To be specific, the code which handled on-the-fly screen reconfiguration (meaning without restarting the X server) was a very messy heuristic approach and most of the time did not work correctly — that is just not possible with the limited information that Xinerama offers (just a list of screen resolutions and no identifiers for the screens or any additional information). Xinerama simply was not designed for dynamic configuration. See More

Top Pro

Layouts can be saved and reused

Top Pro

Never have to take hands off keyboard

Keyboard shortcut based navigation can seem daunting at first, but one quickly gets used to it. It enables the user to never have to take their hands off the keyboard, meaning that they can use their computer quickly and efficiently. See More

Top Pro

Configuration allow multi-monitor support

User can assign specific workspaces to specific displays as well as apps to workspaces. This makes possible opening set of most used apps with 1 shortcut always on the same screens. See More

Top Pro

Simple to use

Configuration is nearly automatic and simple, which can be really helpful to beginners. See More

Top Pro

Sane development process

i3 uses test driven development with an extensive test suite to prevent bugs from ever happening again. All external contributions require a thorough code review to guarantee a certain level of quality. See More

Top Pro

Terminal bell can be used to notify of completed actions

Terminal-bell gets passed through and marks the workspace visibly. See More

Top Pro

No window borders

Screen area is not wasted by window decorations. This allows programs to use the entire screen. NOTE: Default config has window title bar enabled so there is a little screen space lose on the top of the screen. See More

Top Pro

Can stack

i3 allows for stacking of windows in its environment. See More

Top Pro

Windows can be turned into Tabs

i3 permits tabbing through windows by turning on Tab mode with $mod+w. This shortcut can be changed in config file. See More

awesome WM

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Top Pro

Fully extensible with Lua

Awesome can be skinned, configured, and extended with Lua, a language with a programming model similar to the ubiquitous Javascript. Learning resources for Lua are fairly abundant, as Lua is a popular extension language, often used for scripting in games. See More

Top Con

You should have some skills to configure it

Awesome, like most window managers, is targeted at advanced users. Though is has sane defaults and easy to read documentation, it is still a far jump from the more common graphical UIs found in computing. See More

Specs

License:GPL 2.0

Type:Tiling / Dynamic

Programming Language:C / Lua

Initial Release:September 18, 2007

Top Pro

Popup with hotkeys help

Just like in Unity. See More

Top Con

Configuration uses Lua (Programming Language)

It is time-consuming to make changes to configuration. Though Lua is a good language, a plain text file to configure things would seem to be a better approach. See More

Top Pro

Very detailed documentation with examples and pics

Top Con

Difficult to google for solutions to problems

Awesome is a very common word, making searches for solutions to problems using Google very time-consuming as a lot of chaff has to be sifted through. See More

Top Pro

Highly configurable

Awesome is highly configurable, allowing the user to change anything they see fit in order to make the WM work for them and their workflow. See More

Top Con

Some programs don't cooperate well with tiling window managers

The user can usually work around this, but it can be quite annoying at the same time. See More

Top Pro

Any window can be full screen

Select the window. Hold ALT+SHIFT and press SPACE until the window takes up the entire screen. See More

Top Con

Difficult to persist and restore layouts

As discussed at https://www.reddit.com/r/awesomewm/comments/7w9t49/hello_how_are_people_saving_layouts_sessions/ "default layout system is quite hard to configure to do that" with improvements slowly being worked on in this PR from January 2016. See More

Top Pro

Some mouse tiling support

You can rearrange and re-size [some] panels via the mouse. See More

Top Con

Regular API breakage

Results in many of the scripts for awesome to be found online end up being outdated. See More

Top Pro

Tags instead of workspaces

With awesome, clients are organized with tags: one client can be on more than one tag, and multiple tags can be displayed at the same time. See More

Top Con

Doesn't have tabbed containers

There is no option to have tabbed containers in awesome window manager. See More

Top Pro

Low latency

Awesome was the first window manager to be ported to use the asynchronous XCB library instead of XLib, making it much more responsive than most other window managers. See More

Top Pro

Stable

Awesome always works as it should: it is very stable and reliable. See More

Top Pro

Good default configuration

By default, you'll have a status bar (hidden in some modes), an application launcher, automatic fullscreen, manual fullscreen shortcut, etc. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard friendly

Awesome is extremely keyboard friendly. See More

Top Pro

Single window, multi-workspace support

The user can have each window visible on one, multiple, or no workspace. You can also temporarily include another workspace in the current one. See More

Top Pro

Xinerama support

Awesome has real multi-head support via XRandR/Xinerama, with per-screen desktops. See More

Top Pro

Easy module for useless gaps

Lain module makes useless gaps easy. See More

XMonad

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Top Con

Requires knowledge of Haskell for configuration

Understanding of Haskell is required in order to configure XMonad. See More

Top Pro

Very stable

Use of Haskell, in conjunction with smart programming practices, guarantees a crash-free experience. See More

RobustManaf's Experience

Very stable, cool customization. See More

Specs

License:Modified BSD (3-Clause)

Type:Tiling / Dynamic

Programming Language:Haskell

Initial Release:March 6, 2007

Top Con

Requires a lot of Haskell dependencies

XMonad depends on GHC (the Glasgow Haskell Compiler) which can take up about 700 MB or disk space. See More

Top Pro

Great availability of libraries

The use of Haskell as an extension language means that popular pieces of functionality are easily shared and widely available as Haskell Libraries. Many default layouts, and tools for quickly and easily building your own, are available through XMonad-contrib, and highly re-usable configurations are commonly shared through blog articles and the Xmonad Wiki. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve for uninitiated users

Like a lot of tiling window managers, the learning curve for XMonad is quite steep. See More

Top Pro

Fully extensible with Haskell

XMonad is written, configured, and fully extensible in Haskell. This means that users aren't limited to a small set of pre-programmed layouts and actions: anything can be programmed into the configuration. It's simple to modify basic settings, and the example config has lots of comments to get you started. Haskell keeps this code clean, concise, and readable, and its type system keeps you safe from any serious mistakes. This makes it fast and light, even on very small and slow systems. See More

Top Pro

Highly configurable

If you enjoy programming, you can even add features to XMonad to make it your perfect desktop environment, and the Contrib modules give you most of what you need to do exactly that. See More

Top Pro

Efficient to use

XMonad is a very minimal and efficient window manager, especially if the user is familiar with Haskell. See More

Top Pro

Dynamic Tiling

XMonad uses dynamic tiling which means that it automatically handles arranging your windows into various layouts which the user can cycle through. See More

Top Pro

Xinerama support

XMonad has full support for Xinerama: windows can be tiled and managed across multiple physical screens. See More

Top Pro

Handles multiple monitors well

XMonad can handle multi-monitor setups by default. See More

Top Pro

Absolutely minimal

The entire window manager is extremely small, and includes nothing beyond basic window manipulation and tiling. Out of the box, there are no window decorations, status bar nor icon dock; just clean lines and efficiency. See More

Top Pro

Edit configuration and reload on-the-fly

Configuration is compiled into the WM, and it can be changed/updated on-the-fly, without requiring a full reload. See More

dwm

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Top Pro

Simple and small

Dwm is a low-resource window manager that is entirely simplistic in design. See More

Top Con

No runtime config file

There is no config file that can be edited after the window manager is compiled: all changes need to be made prior to compiling. See More

Specs

License:MIT/X Consortium

Type:Tiling / Dynamic

Programming Language:C

Initial Release:July 14, 2006

Top Pro

Application grouping with tags

Dwm's design paradigm is to use tags to group clients (applications) that can then be pulled into a view (workspace); this allows you to view multiple clients at once and to assign or reassign those tags and their related views on the fly. Contrary to most other window managers, when you view a tag you are not ‘visiting’ a workspace: you are pulling the tagged windows into a single workspace. Combined with rules in the config.h, this makes for a flexible and responsive means to manage your workflow. See More

Top Con

By developers, for developers

Basic knowledge of C language, general programming, and compilation are all required. See More

Top Pro

Useful and informative status bar

The dwm status bar can be set to display all kinds of useful information, such as volume level, wifi signal strength, and battery notification. See More

Top Pro

XRandR/Xinerama support

Dwm has support for XRandR and Xinerama, allowing for multi-monitor support. See More

Top Pro

Encourages user modification

Dwm is part of the suckless suite of tools, and encourages users to extend and configure it by modifying the code itself. To this end, dwm is kept under 2000 SLOC, and is an exemplar of clean, readable code (C). This, while giving users all the flexibility they could ask for, also makes dwm as lightweight as possible, and means that users have a full understanding of how it works. See More

Top Pro

Default keybindings and functionality are very useful and well thought-out

An example of this is the application of alt-tab to switch between two tags. See More

Top Pro

Easy to configure

Configuring dwm is straight-forward thanks to its config.h file (though it will have to be rebuilt for the effects to take place). See More

KWin

Top Pro

Window effects

KWin offers an assortment of window effects, such as wobbly windows and window shadows/glow. See More

Top Con

Dependent on some KDE libraries

This makes stand-alone KWin somewhat inconvenient to set up, as opposed to openbox and awesome, to name but a few. See More

Specs

Type:Compositing

Programming Language:C++

Initial Release:July 12, 1998

Top Pro

Beautiful interface

KWin has an assortment of attractive desktop effects, creating a rather beautiful interface. See More

Top Pro

Integrated compositing manager

KWin has built-in compositing with options on how it performs that can be changed by the user in the settings. See More

Top Pro

Highly configurable

KWin has a very configurable environment. Just about any option that you would like to adjust will be available in the settings. See More

Gala

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Top Pro

Beautiful, uniformly designed, and sleek

Gala is designed to be unimposing while still remaining functional and pleasant to look at. By following the elementary OS design guidelines, Gala maintains a very consistent look. See More

Top Con

Limited configurability

Configuration options are few and far between and require editing settings with dconf editor. See More

Specs

License:GPL 3.0 (or later)

Type:Compositing

Programming Language:Vala

Initial Release:March 31, 2011

Top Pro

Easy for Linux beginners who are coming from legacy OSs

Gala has limited configurability which keeps things simple. See More

Top Con

Buggy with nVidia Graphics

It's fantastic with the Intel integrated graphics; however, it is not good on nVidia ones See More

Top Pro

Extremely fast

Gala works well on limited-resource hardware, e.g older netbooks and Chromebooks. See More

Top Con

Hard to install on some distros

While Elementary OS has Gala built-in, it might be difficult to set it up on certain distributions because it's tailored to Elementary OS only. Arch, for example, only supports Gala via AUR at the moment. See More

Top Pro

Hotcorners give shortcuts for multitasking, window management, or custom commands

User-configurable hotcorners means power users get four super easy shortcuts for multitasking, window management, or custom commands. See More

Top Con

Does not render well under AMD graphics

The underlying compositor is know to have issues with AMD graphics cards, leading to poor performance, stuttering, and graphical artifacts. See More

Top Pro

Integrated compositing manager allows for fancy effects and animations

The Gala compositing manager allows for effects and animations to be used on a window by window basis. See More

Top Con

Not very lightweight

Although it certainly does not eat up CPU or RAM, it is not as lightweight on resource usage as awesome, i3, openbox, for instance. This shouldn't really be a surprise however. See More

Top Pro

Innovative multitasking

Gala takes some hints from mobile OSes, but handles multitasking in a powerful way designed for desktop. Workspaces and alt-tabbing work well and are familiar, but feel smoother than alternatives. See More

Top Pro

Excellent stability

Despite the current stable release only being on version 0.2, it is very stable. See More

Top Pro

Dynamic workspace management

Workspaces are added and removed on the fly so you only have as many as you need at any given time. See More

Top Pro

Works with Gtk client-side decorations

The current bets of elementary OS (Freya) has enabled the use of Gtk client-side decorations. See More

Window Maker

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Top Pro

Customizable

Top Pro

Very fast

Fluxbox

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Top Con

Comparatively heavy on system resources

Fluxbox is a bit heavier on system resources when compared to Openbox or other window managers (though it does come with more options as well). See More

Specs

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