A youngling says You should try this new windows manager, Niri, and while I have no issues with trying —
they might be right after all, that could be a great windows manager, and it’s written in Rust —
that made me thinking. I’m not that young to jump onto any new shiny thing. That’s first. Second, their argumentation is rather estranges me. I’m not seeking a windows manager that will allow me effectively multi-task with a gazillion of windows. I’m very comfortable with sway, and I’d rather seek something even more simple.
- My use-case is to have just one full-screen app at a time, with others available at hotkeys.
- If there are many open, it could become a mess, and that motivates me to actually close things I don’t need. I can open them within half a second, any SSD handles it very effectively.
- Sometimes I need two apps at the screen. Or three, if it’s my desktop’s 27" QuadHD screen. Otherwise it’s just one or two. I use it for 6 years now, and it was never more than that.
That’s why I wrote youngling. I have no idea who that person is, and intended no offence. In my vocabulary it means that the person might need this constant multi-task and juggling of a gazillion of windows, which feels like a young people being able to do all that. Which makes the other side — my side — some elderly approach.
I think that the limitations, they’re of a great help. I have 32 GB of memory these days, but I managed to successfully use this approach with a 4 GB tiny netbook (from the netbook era) and an old PC. Both having very slow DDR-2 memory and SATA-2 SSDs. It did not limit me, in most regular use-cases.
There are might be scenarios when I want to have this ability to successfully juggle these multiple windows. But most times, for any task, I need just a few of them. And I love the approach of your average boring windows manager so much, that I’m dreaded of the thought I have to use macOS (not to say Windows). Because, I’m being perfectly honest right now, I’m not sure I’d be able to manage running Linux for 100% of my tasks, and a non-Apple company would offer at least something competitive to an M-powered MacBook. Meaning battery life and performance balance.
Living in this limiting but very simplified desktop metaphor is so comforting, it feels like I’m not going back, ever again. At least for my personal devices. And it looks stunning, when you able to enjoy that extreme minimalism and distractionless space.