Windows knows how to complicate things

Date: 2023-01-31

Sometimes I go on and watch some youtube shorts. I found this shit on it recently: The most useful Windows tools #shorts.

What can I say? I am glad that I have been using Linux for the last 16 years. I also become a big fan of tiling window managers, which makes the tasks you see on this video, much much much more simpler.

You would say that using dwm or xmonad is complicated, but that only comes down, if you want to overcustomize it. Both system in default has a good system, that if you are willing to learn you can add some nice things really easily.

You can rename your workspace, add stuff on your bar, modify your layouts (and add them in on order you would use them), etc.

It looks like in Windows you have to install a software, then find it under countless of menus, to customize that on which monitor, what kind of layout you want to use. The idea is good, but honestly just made so complicated, even if a simple user wanted to try out or learn to use tiling stuff, they probably won't. If you are an advanced user, then you would be surely appreciate something more complicated, than what it was provided.

On Linux, you can start using i3, which is a manual tiler, but the config file is really easy to modify. I still have my config from years ago, even though I haven't used it for years.

I personally moved on to dwm and xmonad, which both have steep learning curve, since you are directly editing. Both are much more complicated tiling wise than this half-assed windows solution. But it's also for people who want something more advanced. With dwm, you have to patch the source code, sometimes manually, which is a very interesting experience… Xmonad, is written in haskell, and can be tough for people, like me, who doesn't know how to program.

And this is just my experience, there are countless others, like awesomewm, bspwm, spectrwm and who knows what else. Again, Linux provides better solutions in some places, cause they aren't doing it half-assed. If you want to show an advance feature to the masses, make it more reachable to them. If you want advance users to do some awesome stuff, give them the tools (a config file would be nicer probably).

Just my take on this short…