Ask HN: What's your Linux window manager and/or desktop environment?

I use GNOME. I have very minimal requirements and GNOME satisfy them while mostly staying out of the way and being widely supported.

- Tap Super key and type to open apps or select emoji

- Super+Left or Super+Right for simple side-by-side tiling.

- Workspaces on the primary monitor.

Dwm because it sucks less https://dwm.suckless.org/

Arch with Wayland and Sway.

I'm fucking around with it on my ancient Surface Pro 3, and it's been a wonderful experience so far. I haven't even got XWayland. Helps that I'm only using it to use Firefox and write some code in vim.

I have been running either sway or i3 (both tiling window managers) for the last couple years. I used KDE for a couple years before that. One day I tried a tiling WM plugin for KDE and decided to give it a shot and learn it how it worked. Using the KDE plugin preserved the ability to float windows and do everything the way I had in the past if I couldn't figure out how tiling worked. It was a nice easy transition and I'm really glad I gave it a chance! I quickly grew to love the ability to use all my screen space efficiently and the organization of workspaces.

The lightweight footprint that something like sway or i3 gives is really nice too. Now I like to start with a fedora minimal install, install sway & just pick and choose all the applications I want to use. It really feels like my OS stays out of the way and is just the way I want it. If/when I reinstall I just backup my .config folder.... everything is back to how I like it once restored. Very easy.

Currently: LXQT/Mate on most machines. Mostly just because they are some of the lightest DE's that have the bare minimum features I want. I was a GTK-leaning user for decades now but the LXDE -> LXQT transition has begun to convert me. Fedora's LXQT respin is among my favorite prebuilt distros with LXQT.