this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
89 points (95.9% liked)

Linux

62172 readers
1951 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

After 2y on Linux I can say with full confidence that switching from GNOME to KDE (for me) is a bigger barrier than switching from Windows to Linux ever was.

I’ve tried a lot to like KDE but I just can’t. I usually see people discussing distros but I feel like picking the right DE makes much bigger impact. I’m yet to try Hyprland though.

Considering the fact that I’m itching to get Steam Frame and VR on GNOME will likely be broken indefinitely, idk what to do.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] exu@feditown.com 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

GNOME and KDE have large philosophical differences and those show when you use them. I really like KDE and the way I can turn it into a tiling window manager.

Comparing a full DE to a WM is a massive difference. DEs have batteries included, you don't need to worry about which notification daemon to use, which tool can do power management or what renders your task bar. You just get every tool and it works.

I used to use i3, then migrated to sway, but the finding of tools that do X or Y got annoying after a while. In KDE everything just works together with no or minimal configuration and I get more features more easily.

[–] Lemmee@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (3 children)

What’s your preferred way to turn KDE into a tiling WM? I tried something in the past, but every time I tried to resize a window smaller than 25% of the screen, it would pop it out into floating mode.

I am still using sway because I need to know that there are no hiding windows anywhere. That shit drives me berserk.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Another Kröhnkite user here. I used tiling window managers before (mainly Qtile) and cannot use a desktop without auto tiling anymore.

Kröhnkite: is THE tiling addon for KDE in my experience. There was a period when it was broken and I experimented with other solutions (Polonium worked for a while, but now that thing stopped working lol and Kröhnkite works well again). You just need to setup your keybindings and configure the limited configuration itself. You can also remove the title bars and have colored outline for active window, if that is your thing. But that is not very configurable and is a weak point in my opinion.

Karousel: a scrollable tiling window manager. If that is your thing. It worked fine, I'm just not a fan of this type.

Mouse Tiler: and then there is a new and promising addon script in the works. The main selling point was and is that tiling is done manually and with mouse only. But after lot of request the dev is working on an automatic tiling system, which puts it into my radar. And I hope it will have configurable keyboard shortcuts too. Dev says the auto tiling works already and in the next days it will be updated. Didn't try it out yet, but looks promising to me.

[–] Lemmee@sh.itjust.works 2 points 18 hours ago

looks like it might be another trip down KDE tinkering lane for me! Thanks for all the tips.

[–] erotador@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

khronkite is a great drop in kwin script that works kde into a tiler

[–] exu@feditown.com 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Kröhnkite works well. I'm using it with KDE 6 on plasma no issues.

I just tested a bunch of windows and none of them went floating, not sure about manual resizing though.

[–] Lemmee@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Cool. I’ll give it a go. I do often manually resize windows though, so maybe that’s where I went wrong. Thanks for the tip

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

There was a period when KDE 6 was new and the Wayland stuff on top of it, where Kröhnkite didn't work well. I use it since then as my daily driver and don't have issues. Off course there might be edge cases and I do not resize windows manually much, in tiling mode. But I use floating mode too and resize windows to my liking and don't have an issue like that.

BTW there is an fantastic "Dock" mode in Kröhkite, where you can define a window to be a dock that is always visible on the left/right or up/bottom area of all desktops; behaves similar to a normal dock from KDE Plasma. It's a function I never saw in any other desktop environments or tilers.