What Is a Tiling Window Manager on Linux? (and 5 to Try)
Tiling window managers have the potential to enhance your productivity, after you spend a little time setting one up anyway. Let's look at how they work and what you need to get started.
What Is a Tiling Window Manager?
On a typical Linux desktop, once you log in, you’re presented with a full-fledged desktop environment, like the GNOME Desktop, for example. This is a complex suite of software that not only draws the windows you use, but also includes a text editor, terminal, and plenty of other apps.
On the other hand, a window manager (WM) does just that: it manages windows. Nearly everything else is left up to either you or some other program. A tiling WM won’t typically offer any built-in power management, as an example. Instead, this is either offered as plugin functionality or you’ll need to add it yourself.
Both GNOME and KDE Plasma feature window managers, but they’re part of a much larger collection of software. While you can install KDE easily, you can’t only install KWin, the window manager that the desktop uses.
That’s the window manager part covered, but what about the tiling part? That all comes down to how exactly windows are arranged as you add them to the screen. Actually, opening those windows in the first place is slightly different as well.