What's the most "unique" DE/WM and why?

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et-pengvin@reddit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_(desktop_environment)

It's available on Sparky Linux.

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DeinOnkelFred@reddit

Exactly! Where's Vim's window manager? 🤔

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79215185-1feb-44c6@reddit

My vote goes to Niri. Absolutely love what it provides with respect to scrolling. When I get some free time I really need to switch back to it.

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That scrolling feature in Niri is what makes it truly revolutionary - the way you can just scroll through windows horizontally like they're on an infinite canvas is mindblwoing compared to traditional tiling WMs.

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First-Ad4972@reddit

Haven't used niri yet (used gnome before, currently on hyprland), but how convenient is it to quickly setup a one screen wide traditional tiling portion of the workspace so I can fit 3 or 4 windows in exactly 1 screen space to see all of them and use them at the same time? Also how convenient are opening floating windows and sometimes stacking them with tiled ones?

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Brisingr05@reddit

You can set the height/width of windows using window rules. You can either set the height/width to be a specific amount, or propotional to the screen size. A floating window rule exists as well. It's all on the wiki.

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79215185-1feb-44c6@reddit

Meta+Scroll Wheel to scroll threw windows That alone is reason to use Niri. The only reason I don't use it right now is Niri Flake having a bug in it where I need to manually restart xdg-desktop-portals on startup due to systemd dependencies not working right.

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yall_gotta_move@reddit

I don't get it.

The point of a tiling wm is to use keyboard only so you don't disrupt your flow by reaching for the mouse.

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einrufwiedonnerhall@reddit

Not everyone has to be "le haxxor" all of the time.

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yall_gotta_move@reddit

We are talking about the minority among Linux users that use tiling wms though, lol

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Vistaus@reddit

Reminds me of the “cards” on Palm/HP webOS. I loved it over there! Not sure if I would love it on a desktop, but I might give it a try.

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dcherryholmes@reddit

/pours out a 40 for webOS

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McNughead@reddit

https://github.com/dawsers/scroll

New PaperWM-like WM, forked from sway.

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79215185-1feb-44c6@reddit

wlroots is cancer and doesn't allow you to properly screen share. It shouldn't exist.

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the_abortionat0r@reddit

And this comment seems to follow the trend of Wayland haters having no idea what they are talking about

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79215185-1feb-44c6@reddit

wl-roots based compositors do. not. allow. per-window. screen. share.

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20230630@reddit

I don't know if you are right or not, but calling something (done by volunteers) "a cancer" just because it misses one feature you need is not the way we should interact in this community.

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79215185-1feb-44c6@reddit

Being repeatedly told to use a piece of software that you can't use because it would result in you being unable to do your job is pretty toxic. The fact that the community can just ignore critical features for some people and play them as not important is what is toxic.

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Hot_Fisherman_1898@reddit

Who is telling you to use a wl-roots compositor? That’s like me thinking notion notes is cancer for existing because it gets recommended but doesn’t fit my workflow. It’s just software.

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DonaldMerwinElbert@reddit

"you're toxic for not developing the feature I need for free!"

Get a grip.

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DuckSword15@reddit

I can screen share just fine.

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79215185-1feb-44c6@reddit

No you can't.

You can screen share your ENTIRE DISPLAY and not a SPECIFIC WINDOW. This is a non-starter for anyone who seriously wants to share their screen.

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dzuczek@reddit

Enlightenment, reminds me of the early 00s

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Dwedit@reddit

"Enlightenment" is one of the few window managers to be considered a resource pig at the time of its release, then by just waiting long enough, is now considered super-lightweight.

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dogstarchampion@reddit

I had a Dell Optiplex about 15 years ago that I used for Linux experiments like trying new distros, window managers, compiz plugins, etc.

I had a distro that used enlightenment and it looked cool but never felt great to use. I can't really explain.

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Zeldakina@reddit

It always felt a little sluggish to me. I think that's what made it novel, but not derivable from a daily perspective.

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mrvictorywin@reddit

Other way around for me, it ran circles around Plasma / GNOME / XFCE, the desktop loaded in 1 sec on a HDD and its native apps opened instantly. It was blazing fast. I used 0.21.x version on Arch.

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Johnginji009@reddit

same , i used it on my netbook while it looks good and is light on cpu it just felt weird,switched to lxde .

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dawsers@reddit

I have released scroll, a new fork of sway with a layout similar to PaperWM or niri. It is based on my plugin for Hyprland, hyprscroller, which I archived when I moved to scroll.

Aside from the usual scrolling workflow, it remains very compatible with sway's configurations. It is basically sway with added features like:

Workspace Scaling: you can work at any scale. This also supports overview and quick jump modes (like easymotion).
Content Scaling: you can also scale the content of individual windows. You can zoom in and out of application windows, and the content will be scaled.
Trackpad and Mouse scrolling gestures: scroll the windows of your workspace using the trackpad or dragging with the mouse.
Good support for portrait and landscape monitors: the scrolling layout adapts to your monitor transparently.

And more...

The workflow is very similar to hyprscroller on which I based it.

Note that the only layout supported is the scrolling layout. The original sway/i3 layouts have been removed to simplify things.

There is an AUR package in case you want to try it.

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Specialist-Delay-199@reddit

GNOME before v40

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Alarming-Function120@reddit

In my opinion In the Linux world, one of the most unique desktop environments/window managers is dwm and here’s why:

It's written in C and configured by editing source code unlike the others which are configured by ~/.config and rcs
It’s under 2,000 lines of code, you can literally read and understand the entire codebase in an afternoon.
No bloatware dude! It doesn’t support desktop icons, wallpapers, or panels unless you add them. You only get what you need and nothing more.

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MorningCareful@reddit

Imagine your uniqueness coming from the fact that you're useless

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bytesmythe@reddit

Maybe Simula?

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Best-Firefighter-307@reddit

i3+Plasma

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pak9rabid@reddit

WindowMaker…basically a reimplementation of the NeXTStep GUI.

And as a cool bonus, it’s implemented in Objective-C via the GNUStep framework (yeah, the same Obj-C that old Mac & iOS apps used to be coded in before Swift took over, as they inherited that from their NeXTStep origin).

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DFS_0019287@reddit

Unquestionably, Eagle Mode. I tried it a while back and was blown away by how cool it was, though it's not very practical.

I have no idea if it can even compile on a modern Linux system; I looked at it ages ago. Anyway, the link above has screenshots and videos.

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Past-Pollution@reddit

I don't know I would count EagleMode since it's closer to a very feature rich file browser than a window manager or desktop environment (can it open windows?), but if someone built a zooming DE/WM that would be the coolest thing ever.

Also, shoutout to Quadrilateral Cowboy for having a working version of the concept too

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khne522@reddit

That reminds me of SithWM, but more radical! NEAT.

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_pixavi@reddit

I think newm might be similar in concept to eagle mode.

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gesis@reddit

exwm. Why? Because Emacs.

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derangedtranssexual@reddit

Gnome because it’s the only DE that is opinioned, unique and not designed by programmers.

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Misicks0349@reddit

tbh I think there are plenty of other desktop environments that are just as—if not more so—opinionated as GNOME, they just don't get as much shit because they can't throw around their weight in the same way GNOME can.

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derangedtranssexual@reddit

What do you think are some DEs more opinionated than gnome?

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Bojaccia@reddit

Bunsenlabs. Love it.

https://www.bunsenlabs.org/

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Disastrous_Key2721@reddit

Emacs

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Horror_Hippo_3438@reddit

The one you create yourself.

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lproven@reddit

ROX Desktop.

Unity.

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zlice0@reddit

rox my beloved T_T

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duva_@reddit

KDE is very neat, I think..I might give miri a try after reading the comments

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HappyAngrySquid@reddit

Niri. There’s no going back.

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rabbit_in_a_bun@reddit

How does it differ from Hyprland?

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Good-Spirit-pl-it@reddit

It has scrollable workspaces. I tried scrollable extensions with Hyprland, but they didn't work well with my dual-monitor setup.

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Maykey@reddit

I went back because it doesn't support xwayland out of the box so x apps feel like second class citizens. In KDE I can't tell them apart

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ANDROID_16@reddit

Looks like the PaperWM extension for gnome

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Redneckia@reddit

Looks really cool, gonna give it a try.

Can it be configured to scroll vertically and have the workspaces be horizontal?

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qweeloth@reddit

This, I don't even use niri but it's the most unique one by far

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Good-Spirit-pl-it@reddit

Niri

Hyprland served me well, but finally I get Niri working in VM, in few days I switch on my main system.

BTW: I believe my niri (dbus) problem was related to the fact I don't use systemd distro. With a bit of thinkering, now it is solved.

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_pixavi@reddit

I think that niri s the most 'innovative' I allow myself as a daily driver, although I always come back to River for day to day. Not very innovative, but very functional for my day-to-day use.

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DFORKZ@reddit

Wayfire

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Maykey@reddit

I liked it until it crashed and turns out devs didnt believe in writing logs (tee doesn't count)

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nmgsypsnmamtfnmdzps@reddit

Bodhi Linux's Moksha is pretty unique as a DE that forked off Enlightenment a while back. If you want a really bizarre desktop look at the Arch AUR and download the LCARS window manager. Pretty neat fan take of a desktop.

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RevolutionBrave8779@reddit

9wm to go minimalist

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syklemil@reddit

Yeah, I tried out rio and acme way back when and the mental model involved, including the "chording" is, uh, unique.

Was actually surprised later when Pike managed to make something that caught on.

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Zeldakina@reddit

RatPoison.

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syklemil@reddit

That (and I guess stumpwm and cagebreak?) has a somewhat unusual take on tiling, but I'm not convinced it all that unique. e.g. someone used to ion, notion, i3 or sway could likely switch between them and feel somewhat at home.

(I used X/ratpoison for like a decade until I switched to wayland/sway, with some experimentation with ion, dwm, wmii and herbstluftwm before landing on ratpoison)

I suspect any actually practical WM/DE is going to be not all that unique, since familiarity also plays into usability.

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OrSomeSuch@reddit

XMonad. A tiling window manager written and configured in Haskell. If Haskell doesn't break your brain it will at least warp it

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sylvester_0@reddit

My first tiling WM! Maybe it's nostalgia, but it's still my fave. XMonad -> i3 -> sway -> hyprland.

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AkiNoHotoke@reddit

I use Sway, but EXWM is my secondary window manager. With Sway, and some bash and Elisp code and rofi, I managed to replicate most of the EXWM features that I used. But EXWM, with all of its issues, is definitely the most unique one.

While window managers with rich configuration options, and IPC protocols, can achieve most of the common user needs, they are no match to the fully programmable ones.

Other memorable mentions are:

Xmonad (programmable in Haskell)
StumpWM and Mahogany (programmable in Common Lisp)
Qtile (programmable in Python)

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Mister_Magister@reddit

KDE

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Novero95@reddit

How is KDE unique? And I say as a KDE user

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Polter9eist@reddit

define unique

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Mister_Magister@reddit

according to cambridge dictionary:

being the only existing one of its type or, more generally, unusual, or special in some way:

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Zeldakina@reddit

Okay, now understand the words.

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nemothorx@reddit

I’m gonna have to look at a few of these named. I’ve not gone into a WM deep dive in years.

My current (and for many years) setup is pekwm within MATE.

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Sol33t303@reddit

I forget what it's called but somebody made a DE for VR.

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Broad_Force4209@reddit

Gnome?

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FeetPicsNull@reddit

For me it is awesome-wm, because awesome is basically just a framework for you to build your own wm through lua. Doing that part can be a lot of work, though the default is pretty good and gives you a good idea of how it could be extended.

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ClashOrCrashman@reddit

I've tried out Awesome, and it seems any change I make to the config ends up breaking the thing. I started using QTile about a week ago (coming from Hyprland and XFCE), and I'm here to stay. I love the built in bar.

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brelen01@reddit

any change I make to the config ends up breaking the thing.

No offense, but that sounds like a skill issue.

Though I also swapped to qtile sometime ago since they weren't going to make a wayland version of awesome, and it's alright. It ends up eating a lot of ram if your machine stays on for long though.

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that_one_wierd_guy@reddit

thanks brah, my eyes are bleeding

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PurpsTheDragon@reddit

nsCDE is very cool.