this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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they are only 'hardcore' because of the poor desktop environment integration.
No, they're hardcore because tiling WMs are hardcore. Most users don't want to use them, they don't care. And they wouldn't be significantly more likely to use them if more distros had them as a default.
Y'all complain that users still occasionally need to use the terminal for certain tasks on Linux, but you think those same users will be totally interested in spending hours writing Perl or JSON configs and memorizing dozens of keyboard shortcuts for every function they used to use the mouse for??
Of course not. This is the argument for a tiling desktop environment. The only reason people need to do all that ATM is because of the current tiling window managers. Not because tiling window management is inherently complex to understand. You can have a tiling window manager with a GUI configuration and that better supports the mouse while still supporting keyboard shortcuts. Then users can incrementally learn the shortcuts - like they do with floating window managers - to gain productivity in their day to day tasks.
They might not be for everyone, but giving everyone the choice is also not a bad thing. Most people I have seen that try a tiling window manager do end up liking it and quite a few hate to go back to floating ones. But not all of them can be bothered with the amount you need to configure the current ones.
So what is wrong with trying to make a easier to configure, use and generally a batteries included tiling desktop environment? This is essentially what it looks like Cosmic are doing - they support both floating and proper tiling without needing complex configuration or needing to learn loads of shortcuts.