this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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I wanted to give tiling a chance. I decided to use Krohnkite for a week to give it a chance. At first I didn't care for tiling but quickly got into it and now I love it. Sometimes to really know if something is going to work for you or not, you have to give it some time. I've used this approach for other things (not all work out) but for Krohnkite it did for me. Also, don't forget to check out all the Krohnkite options.
Now that you 'get it', can you explain to someone like me who still doesn't get it, why they might want to use a tiling wm?
Not OP but the answer is that having windows on top of each other is mostly useless. 99% of the time, when you're working with multiple windows, you don't want to see just part of the window. So either your window is minimized or somehow tiled. At that point you are using a worse version of a tiling WM. The 1% of the time, you can just make the tiled window float.
Having windows on top of each other might be useless but it also doesn't hurt anything, and KDE already has the ability to snap windows into different positions. So this description doesn't really capture the problem you're solving.
The main reason I hear is that it maximizes screen usage and helps avoid/limit the tediousness of having to manage windows.
Not what you're asking for, but I'll give you my perspective as someone who's tried tiling on and off and overall don't like it.
Cosmic is exciting in this regard since it aims to be a fully-featured floating and tiling environment. You could just toggle between them as necessary (or have them on separate workplaces). You also get much better portal support.
Khronkite is worth checking out in relation to this point. It requires minimal setup (keybinds + choosing tiling layout) so it's a good introduction to tiling WMs. I'm guessing more experienced users would prefer more control but I like it just fine.
I am really excited for Cosmic’s future. I loved the toggling float-tiling functionality, but I was having too many issues with GUI apps, taskbar icons, and annoyances like those. Once it has some more polish I will be happily revisiting it. It may be the first DE in a decade with the potential to tempt me away from KDE.
Personally, I haven't had any issues with the aspect ratio. I use a spiral algorithm, this is the defaut on bspwm. I suspect that many people that try twm dont use spiral splitting so windows can be opened in tiny slice and this is ridiculous of course.
Its less work to use keyboard shortcuts to arrange/navigate windows in tiling than it is to use a mouse + alt-tab. Window sizing and placement is something you think about a lot less. Its very fast to flip through various preset window arrangements and usually that's good enough for whatever task.
I find tiling more efficient because
The more I use tiling, the more advantages I find. At this point I think I could use any desktop as long as I had Krohnkite functioning tiling.
Tiling WMs are amazing I wish windows/mac also had them.
I'm using FancyWM on my Windows 11 work pc. It works quite well for me.