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Sway 1.0

drewdevault.com

71–80 of 256 posts

Re: Sway 1.0

#71
post #53
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on Wayland, meaning it's more modern. Here's what I've heard for benefits: * Better multi-window and gesture support * Gaps built in (currently, i3 is separate from i3-gaps, which is what most actually use). No separate forks to deal with, meaning easier maintenance. * Wallpaper * Faster However, there are some big downsides. Wayland is still pretty beta, and not everything works well with it. This is not the f…

I never understood the allure with i3-gaps. Without gaps wallpaper is only relevant for empty workspaces which I dont really use. The no copy and paste is a nonstarter for me.

No copy-paste is a non-starter for me as well, and probably the largest single reason why I still am on i3-gaps. I still like wallpaper mostly because it's nice to add some light transparency to console windows. I3-gaps, for me, was initially because I had a very, very old computer only. This thing had been retired by a corporation three years prior; ancient i3 CPU. With i3-gaps, it ran nice and snappy; on Windows 10, it largely choked. I've appreciated it ever since.

One of the biggest draws is keyboard-friendliness: you don't have to use a mouse to navigate, ever. Nice for those of us who already prefer programs like vim that allow keyboard usage, and can increase productivity. It's also good for multi-window setups (having more than one open), though some people who use tons of windows use bspwm (represents windows with a binary tree).

Re: Sway 1.0

#72

This is huge news. Sway is absolutely incredible, it puts macOS, built by Apple's army of engineers and dump trucks of money to shame in its simplicity, stability, and efficiency. If you want the best of the best DE, look no further. If you're on the fence about trying a tiling windows manager, I say, give it a shot for a single week and you'll never look back. Invest a few hours in a sway config file that will serve…

I really don't get the benefit of a tiling window manager. I tried one and instantly felt boxed in. There's not enough room on the screen for everything I need to have opened and flip between, which is why I use an overlapping window manager in the first place.

Funny, I feel the same way about overlapping WMs. I think it comes down to how different people perceive space. Vive la difference!

Re: Sway 1.0

#73
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should you (upgrade from i3/X)? What's the benefit?

Based on Wayland, meaning it's more modern. Here's what I've heard for benefits: * Better multi-window and gesture support * Gaps built in (currently, i3 is separate from i3-gaps, which is what most actually use). No separate forks to deal with, meaning easier maintenance. * Wallpaper * Faster However, there are some big downsides. Wayland is still pretty beta, and not everything works well with it. This is not the f…

Not having to download i3-gaps or feh in exchange for copy/paste and hdpi scaling not working seems like a questionable tradeoff. I'm not sure what 'better multi-window' support means? I've never had issues with i3 windows. Speed has also been non-noticeable.

So it seems like the feature list is 'better gesture support' in exchange for a lot of downsides?

I am not trying to be dismissive, but I see so many people evangelizing it over i3, I feel like I have to be missing something. I can't believe there's a single person who finds those tradeoffs acceptable outside of those who want it to be good eventually and are working towards that.

Re: Sway 1.0

#74
post #21

This might finally get me to migrate away from awesome-wm, which I've been using for basically as long as it's existed. As far as I can tell, awesome-wm has been dead for a while, with only one release over the last two years or so.

They didn't have any releases in 2018, but the January release had plenty of stuff: https://github.com/awesomeWM/awesome/releases/tag/v4.3

And quite a bit of activity in the last 30 days: https://github.com/awesomeWM/awesome/pulse/monthly

Re: Sway 1.0

#75
post #62
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on Wayland, meaning it's more modern. Here's what I've heard for benefits: * Better multi-window and gesture support * Gaps built in (currently, i3 is separate from i3-gaps, which is what most actually use). No separate forks to deal with, meaning easier maintenance. * Wallpaper * Faster However, there are some big downsides. Wayland is still pretty beta, and not everything works well with it. This is not the f…

I've always wondered what's the use of gaps.

Twofold: for many, it just looks nice. But for me, having a little margin in between things helps me visually distinguish and makes it easier to look quickly at different windows. This is actually helped with a wallpaper, because it further accentuates the borders of windows. I guess a magenta outline on every window would technically serve the same purpose (the sort of thing you might see on a high-contrast UI), but it's a little less gaudy and a little more visually appealing this way.

Re: Sway 1.0

#76
post #41
post #35

Is there an update to the nvidia (proprietary drivers) situation with sway/wayland?

The author still flat-out refuses to support them. This might change if Nvidia open-sources their drivers, which I suspect is part of what he's trying to do.

It’s a case of nvidia refusing to support Linux properly, rather than the other way around - nvidia have been attempting to force their own APIs on Linux graphics developers rather than fit in with what everyone else (Intel, AMD, and all ARM GPU developers) have been doing.

The result is that anyone doing low-level graphics on Linux would have to support two entirely separate, very complex APIs - one for everyone but nvidia, and then one for the proprietary nvidia drivers. Unsurprisingly, not many people are up for that.

Realistically, nvidia just don’t care about Linux outside of very specific use cases where they’re working with the system integrators directly, the same as Broadcom and a few others. If you’re building a Linux system without their support, you’d be well advised to stick with GPU developers that actually work with Linux developers.

Re: Sway 1.0

#77
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on Wayland, meaning it's more modern. Here's what I've heard for benefits: * Better multi-window and gesture support * Gaps built in (currently, i3 is separate from i3-gaps, which is what most actually use). No separate forks to deal with, meaning easier maintenance. * Wallpaper * Faster However, there are some big downsides. Wayland is still pretty beta, and not everything works well with it. This is not the f…

What does better gesture support mean in this case? libinput works with X too and it can be used to enable some kinds of touchpad gestures there

Xorg usually ships with a different input driver, IIRC. Libinput is the default in Wayland and works seamlessly; Xorg actually needs a wrapper (xf86-input-libinput). Haven't personally used it, just what I've heard.

Re: Sway 1.0

#78
How well does Sway work with multiple screens? And hot plugging / unplugging those screens?

I have a laptop hooked up to 2 additional monitors. When going to meetings I'm often disconnecting the screens then reconnecting them when I'm back at my desk.

Re: Sway 1.0

#79
Sway is the reason why i got the bravery to fully embrace tiling wm even though i switch to i3wm at the end due to some bugs in 0.x version. With i3wm they both make tiling wm so much more accessible to linux noob like myself, the ability to combine tiling, tabbed and stacked windows feels so much powerful for productivity boost. Congrats for the 1.0 release, given news about so much improvement over 0.x version, I might looking to switch back :)

Re: Sway 1.0

#80
post #78

How well does Sway work with multiple screens? And hot plugging / unplugging those screens? I have a laptop hooked up to 2 additional monitors. When going to meetings I'm often disconnecting the screens then reconnecting them when I'm back at my desk.

It should work great. If your laptop has a limited number of CRTCs you may want to use this to deal with enabling/disabling the outputs you want to use as necessary:

https://github.com/emersion/kanshi

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