this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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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.
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Former Xmonad user here.
I had two 5 screens and two columns. One screen was for terminal emulators, one was for writing code and software development, one was for my web browser, 2 others were for miscelaneous things, but most often were for working with files a GUI file browser like Nautilus or Thunar, or for reading PDF files in Evince, or reading PowerPoint or Excel documents in LibreOffice.
On each screen the tiles were always in 2 columns. The left for doing work, writing code, prose, drawing graphics and charts, interacting with the CLI, and so on. On the right was documentation: manual pages, PDF files, HTML documents, sometimes the MPV video player window when watching a tutorial that I was able to download from YouTube.
The right column usually had no more than 3 windows open, they started to get too narrow to be useful if more than that were open. I would occasionally horizontally split the left column as well, usually when going back and forth between two documents I was editing.
However...
I did not use this workflow once I started using Tmux, and then I continued not using this workflow when I switched to Emacs. The reason is of course because Tmux and Emacs both provide their own tiling windowing system that operate within a single application window. So my main workflow was always in a single maximized terminal window, or a single maximized Emacs window, or a single maximized GIMP window. Only occasionally would I un-maximize these windows, but then to keep it from getting too small, I would set it in "floating window" mode. Also my web browser, PDF reader, GIMP, LibreOffice, all worked better in full-screen (maximized window) mode. Even Thunar (GUI file browser) has multiple tabs, and a multi-column mode which was useful for the very few times I ever needed a GUI file browser.
At one point, I actually changed my tiling window manager configuration to always open windows maximized, except for Thnuar (GUI file browser) which would open in floating mode, not tiling mode. At that point I finally realized that I don't really using a tiling window manager at all, it is just there managing windows the same as a non-tiling window manager would do.
I switched back to the Xfce default window manager, and quit worrying about window managers all together.