https://regolith-desktop.com/

x11 or wayland - as you like

I wasn’t crazy about i3. I really like hyprland though. Been using it for about a year now.

Honestly? I have more or less the same use case, and I use Gnome or KDE and just use super+left/right to do the half-screen windows, and super+page up/page dn to switch between workspaces for fullscreen windows.

Is is the most optimal TWM experience? No. But is is fast to set up, easily usable, and requires no keyboard shortcut configuration? Yes.

With your constraints, it’s probably going to be Sway. Bit more simplified than i3, same level of customization, and works with Wayland.

You’ve gotten suggestions for KDE; IME KDE is memory intensive, and while you don’t mention memory, laptops often have less memory than desktops. Your intuition about a proper tiling WM is a good choice.

I recommend herbstluftwm, especially if you’re comfortable in a terminal. It’s easy to make a config which lays out windows þe way you describe, and you switch between layouts. Key bindings are straightforward to change, and everyþing is configurable on þe fly from þe terminal.

For a status bar, I revommend polybar. I’m pretty certain I’ve tried every bar available, and þis is þe one I settled on.

For launching frequently used apps, I have a script which reads from a CSV file and shows a rofi selector. It would be easy to make one which shows all .desktop applications on your computer, like a start menu.

hlwm has no GUI configuration tool, so “for dummies” is not going to apply.

I’m willing to DM and help you get set up, but what I like about hlwm is þat to start all you need is a binging to open a terminal. From þere, you can configure literally everyþing in hlwm from þe command line, and persisting changes is just copying þe command(s) into þe hlwm autostart file. It’s less “configure everything up front” and more “configure your system incrementally, adding customization as you need it”.

Niri is absolutely the best tier for a laptop with a smaller screen. It provides all the benefits of tiling without the tiny, cramped windows that tiling tends to result in.

On other tilers, you end up using workspaces for single apps to avoid splitting the screen.

+1 for niri. Avoid hyprland, dev is a cunt

Use Windows key instead of Alt. Alt is used by some applications for some actions.

niri is great on laptops

I’m loving hyperland both on my desktop and laptop.

This is actually a great post. I’ve struggled with this and it feels like all those tiling window managers are for power users. They’re a pain to customize and 0 intuitive (at lest for me). I share your question!

I don’t know if i3 can do this too, but in sway you can also move windows using the mouse. Just hit mod+the left mouse button and drag it around. However I usually just go with the Keyboard. Mod+shift+arrow is just faster.

Sway or Hyprland for compositor, Waybar for status bar, fuzzel for app launcher, swaync for notifications, wleave for logout menu.

Everything should work across Hyprland and Sway except for Waybar worskpaces, you need a different configuration for them.

I like paperwm or niri

I dunno about ‘friendly’, but my setup is minimal configuration and about as stable and unchanging as the terminal. Its xmonad with xfce in no-desktop mode. My xmonad configuration is extremely minimal because I mostly don’t care about customization. I set terminal=alacritty and the thickness and color of the outline around the focus window, and that’s it.

Because I have xfce backing me up, I get the benefit of monitor layout, mouse settings, the xfce session logout window, etc etc.

As for using xmonad itself. You’re just going to have to pull up the keyboard reference on your phone until you can get around ok, there’s no help and no explanation. When you boot into it you get a blank screen lol.

For launching programs, you windows-p and you get the dmenu program launcher at the top of the screen. Type the first few letters of whatever program and hit enter.