I know… I know I should just check the website or read the wiki.
But the thing is, I am somewhat new to Linux (coming from Windows 10). I am currently using Fedora Workstation 39. Recently I have heard about this thing called Hyprland, and it looks damn beautiful. so I peaked into it and didn’t understand what this is. The website says it is a “Dynamic tiling Wayland compositor” ?
The thing is I don’t know what that means. I have been using Gnome 45 DE and although I like this DE, when I saw some people showcasing their Hyprland setup, it made me jealous. 😅 I want it too.
So should I follow the guide and install it? And can you guys ELI5 me what this thing actually is?
Sorry for asking a dumb question.
Comments
Own-Ideal-6947 • 71 points • 2024-03-14
a tiling window manager splits your screen up like a grid and every window goes into a tile, unlike a floating window manager (which you’re more familiar with from other DEs) where every window is a floating container that can move totally freely and overlap other windows. a window manager is just that, it manages windows so if you want notifications, a status bar, etc you need other pieces of software to set that up (check other peoples configs on stuff like r/unixporn and see what else they use to make a full environment)
a dynamic window manager does the managing mostly automatically, it decides based on an algorithm how to split up the screen for you, in a manual window manager like i3 you divide up the screen and place windows yourself
finally wayland is a display protocol. right now the long term de facto is x11 but for security/technological reasons people are moving on from x11 to the newer wayland (you may have bugs on wayland it’s new and shiny but also new and lacking polish in some areas). the biggest difference in use for me at least is that with the wayland protocol the displaying of windows is handled by a compositor, whereas on x11 you would add a compositor on top of the display server. what a compositor does is some extra window processing which makes it possible to add the effects like animations, transparency, blur, etc. i wouldn’t worry too much about the technical side just know that a compositor makes your windows look cool and a display server allows applications to render on the screen
track me
shrddr • 2 points • 2025-05-01
But tiling is just a subset of floating (you can organize floating windows in a way they don’t overlap, but can’t organize tiles in a way they do overlap). Why was a whole new tiling manager created instead of tweaking the composition rules within an existing floating window manager? Does no-overlapping rule offer significant performance benefits?
Own-Ideal-6947 • 1 points • 2025-07-08
because tiling isn’t a subset of floating. When you tile windows they take up a discrete spot within a grid. when you float windows they can be anywhere within the window. The implementations of these are completely different. I can’t think of a single standalone floating window manager tbh that you could tweak to start with. Most floating window managers are a part of a desktop environment like gnome so you would have to rip out that part of the desktop manager, make it work on it’s own and with other components of a diy desktop environment, and then hack it into not letting the windows overlap. The perfomance benefits of an approach like this mostly come from the fact you’re using a window manager with a completely customized system so you’re only adding in the things you want and hand picking them for the system. Ultimately the actual performance wins are pretty small the main reason to do this is the level of cusomization is appealing to power users and it’s a fun project for computer nerds.
ElvisVan007 • 1 points • 2024-12-23
does that mean i can use both hyprland and i3 together to create a complete desktop environment?
pixitachi • 2 points • 2024-12-25
you can’t use both of them together as they do similar function. for hyprland you need something like waybar etc to get it working for you. IMHO, it ‘s work nice without any extras as well.
ElvisVan007 • 1 points • 2024-12-26
sp wayland on its own, no desktop environment, no windows management protocol (wayland or whatever), just hyprland?
pixitachi • 2 points • 2024-12-29
yeah, just wofi, terminator and hyprland.
cleanshirtuk • 36 points • 2024-03-14
So, you’re currently using Gnome, which is a Desktop Environment - basically, a collection of several components to make your desktop work. This includes your Window Manager, as well as a number of other components and application designed to work together, such as screen lockers, wallpaper managers, panels etc.
The fun thing about Linux, is that you have the option of rolling your own DE, so to speak. That means you have the freedom to choose these individual components to make a system completely tailored to your needs. One of the most notable components of a standard DE is the Window Manager - that governs how your windows are set up, decorated, as well as animations and more.
Gnome’s WM - Mutter - is a classic ‘stacking window manager’ - similar to what is used by Windows and macOS. However, there are other types of window managers, one of the most common being a ‘tiling’ window manager.
With a tiling WM, instead of a window just showing up on screen without any organization, it is automatically sized to the tiling screen. So, if you do not have any apps open, opening a new app will take advantage of all of the available space. But what happens when you want to open a second application? Now, the already open application will take up half of your screen, and the new app will take up the other half.
This is where the use of ‘workspaces’ comes in. If you’ve used macOS, then you may be familiar with the concept, it’s a number of virtual ‘desktops’ that can hold open apps in whatever size you want.
That’s a tiling window manager. the ‘dynamic’ part just means that the WM (in this case Hyprland) will decide how to arrange and size more apps as you open them on the screen, as opposed to manually dialling in the size. Hope that helps!
Please bear in mind this is something of a simplification to give you the brief overview - some details aren’t 100% accurate but should at least give you enough of an idea to understand the concept.
Th4tsMyN4m3 • 2 points • 2024-09-21
I know most of that, but you explained that perfectly! Great job! 😎
Crepida • 1 points • 2025-04-20
isnt it possible to have multiple workspaces in windows too?
Kyyrozu • 1 points • 2025-05-01
Yes it is possible. At least in Windows 10 (never used 11). You use it by pressing the windows key + tab.
Then you can switch between them using ctrl + windows + arrow keysCrepida • 1 points • 2025-06-18
Ive known abt those since i was 9 or smt. Just thought garuda hyprland would have something fancier with the same name
R1s1ngDaWN • 28 points • 2024-03-14
Thing that’ll help you out the most is being comfortable with researching. Start here: https://hyprland.org/ Then delve into the wiki, maybe some YouTube videos, github repositories, etc. It helped a ton looking for the information rather than querying reddit and other people whenever I needed information or had to solve a problem. Another good wiki for general information regarding linux is https://wiki.archlinux.org. even though it’s for another distribution, the grand majority of it will be applicable to any distribution. Good luck
AdmiralQuokka • 15 points • 2024-03-14
Wholesome RTFM
sastanak • 4 points • 2024-03-14
Archwiki is a great place to learn!
[deleted] • 1 points • 2024-09-25
He didn’t want help installing and configuring it, he wants help understanding what it is first
Archwiki is what he’s looking for, not the hyprland website :)
Hiltson87 • 5 points • 2024-03-14
Install Pop Shell on your GNOME setup. It has a decent tiling window manager built into it that’s a good intro into tiling WMs. It’s not as robust as some dedicated tiling WMs, but it’s pretty good for what it is and Pop Shell in general adds a lot a lot of nice “missing” features to vanilla GNOME imo.
t1609 • 4 points • 2024-03-14
I use a tiling window manager purely for productivity, and I got my sister to use one too on her Mac (she’s a designer and has never seen a terminal in her life, but now swears by it).
Basically, you ever run into a problem where you’re in your browser, and need to open up a document, pdf or folder as well, and have them side by side? In a traditional DE you use your mouse to go to the menu bar, open Downloads folder, open the .PDF you need, resize it so you can your browser side-by-side, etc., In a window manager you press one of the keyboard shortcuts (that you define in a configuration file), and it’ll immediately open the thing you want, and resize all the windows on your current desktop so they fit together. When you’re done, you press a shortcut on your keyboard and it closes that window, resizes what you still have on your desktop to fill up the remaining space on the screen.
There’s many more useful features, things like immediately fullscreening a window with a keyboard shortcut, moving things to workspaces that you always use in an instant (e.g. e-mail in workspace 2, spotify in workspace 3, etc.)
It takes a couple of days to get used to it, for me I can’t live without it now for work. Hyprland is a type of window manager for Linux that people are especially excited about mostly because it has really cool/smooth animations.
Ok_Distance9511 • 1 points • 2024-09-25
What tiling window manager can you use on a Mac?
t1609 • 1 points • 2024-09-26
Aerospace, it’s pretty good
leanman82 • 1 points • 2025-04-08
what about windows? I was thinking how can I find that window and window manager that had a search feature for opened windows would be great too. But nothing seems to have such a feature.
JaySeeDoubleYou • 1 points • 2025-05-05
That’s a fantastic name for a mac WM! :-D
Grave_Master • 7 points • 2024-03-14
Good base would be to google for DE and WM differences.
Or chatgpt it.
When you’ll get the concept you should decide if it worth for you, because it’s more keyboard driven.
_T3SCO_ • 3 points • 2024-03-14
Let’s break down the description “Dynamic tiling Wayland compositor” and go from there. You can think of wayland itself as the backend which you graphics client (I.e. a wm or de) runs on top of. In other words, Wayland handles the software side of graphics while your graphics driver handles the hardware side. Wayland is relatively new, and currently the other main option is X11, however Wayland is slowly replacing X for reasons such as having a more modern and less cluttered codebase, as well as providing some additional built in features.
A compositor is a program which takes care of things such as window opacity. On wm’s that use X you have to install an external compositor, such as picom, to get those sorts of fancy effects. Graphics clients built on Wayland are referred to as Wayland compositors as Wayland offers the functionality of a compositor out of the box.
Tiling refers to the fact that windows in hyprland will tile into a grid-like pattern by default. The counterpart of this would be a floating window manager, think windows or the default behaviour of GNOME, where windows are free to sit wherever you want them to on the screen and can overlap each other.
Dynamic refers to the fact that this tiling process happens automatically and can be adjusted on the fly. You can reposition and scale your windows within the grid as you please while maintaining the properties of a grid.
Finally, if you’re not already sure about the difference between a wm and de, I like to think of wm’s as the more stripped back version of a de. While a de is intended to give you a fully graphical desktop experience out of the box, via graphical settings dialogues and a preconfigured hotbar, a wm only really provides you with absolutely core functionality which you then have to freedom to add to. You can pick your own status bar, your own wallpaper daemon, your own everything really. It offers you a lot more in the realm of customisation, but if handling all that sounds a bit much for you at the moment you can try it out with someone else’s dotfiles, I recommend Stephen Raabe’s for absolute beginners.
soulinvader4000 • 1 points • 2024-05-20
you re a hero
SirSpeedMonkeyIV • 1 points • 2024-05-25
… beautiful. Just, … ****ing beautiful.
Now i even know what it is much better than i already did.
MassiveSleep4924 • 2 points • 2024-03-14
Mmmm. Perhaps I’m not so familiar with hyprland since I just gave it a try for a short moment. I think you can try a plugin of Gnome calls PaperWM which is purely written in JavaScript. You can simply download it at Gnome Extension website. After that you may discover the positive side and negative of tiling window manager. If I said something not proper or wrong, just tell me and I’d be thankful.
Donteezlee • 2 points • 2024-03-14
Fancy animating wayland compositor that goes brrrrr
Heroe-D • 2 points • 2024-03-14
Watch Distro Tube videos about tiling windows managers to get the gist of it. The simplified version is that you’d have to install Hyprland + many other programs (status bar, screen saver, idle management, something to manage brightness, notification system etc) to get what Gnome or KDE provides ootb. You’re trading ootb convenience for customization possibilities (as often with software) and well you also get tiling and workspace management that are hard to get with those 2.
i-eat-kittens • 2 points • 2024-03-14
Tiling WMs are a keyboard friendly way to manage your desktop and get shit done. I only use the mouse for browsing, to adjust speaker/mic volume and to click my logout button.
Launching apps, switching between windows and moving them about is quick and efficient, using only keyboard shortcuts. Mine are loosely based on the xmonad default bindings, which I’ve been using for a while. Hyprland configuration is a lot nicer than xorg+xmonad, and I’m not missing any features.
themaster567 • 2 points • 2024-03-14
This is not even CLOSE to a 1:1 experience to Hyprland, but if you want to get a VERY rough a idea of what a tiling window manager is like:
Open the GNOME extension manager and add an extension called Forge. It’s the best tiling window manager extension that GNOME has in my opinion. The keybinds for using it are listed in the settings for it under the keyboard section.
If you decide you like the workflow and still want Hyprland, I would recommend following the instructions here and installing it that way, as it will do all the hard work for you and give you a really pretty base to change any way you like.
VindicoAtrum • 1 points • 2024-03-14
The website says it is a “Dynamic tiling
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Window_manager#Types
Wayland
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Wayland
compositor
silver163 • 1 points • 2024-03-14
Okay I’m gonna give you the short version I’m also really new to linux but I’ve been using hyprland for most of it
From my understanding your using a desktop environment Where hyprland is a window manager I’ve found that they are faster and more efficient than normal desktop environments (sorry I’m not good at explaining it)
If you want to get into actually using it all you gotta do is open a text editor and edit the ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf file And to figure out how to format the text to do what you want to go to https://wiki.hyprland.org/configuring/variables/
Ps looking at other people’s .config (also referred to as dotfiles) online can help a shit load
[deleted] • 1 points • 2024-03-16
Been using it for 2 weeks now … it’s magic . Lack wizardry magic harry
B99fanboy • 1 points • 2024-03-25
The best thing since dwm
soulinvader4000 • 1 points • 2024-05-20
i’m not very keen on fancy animations and opacity and a “hyper” look. can you recommend me a different WM that has the same tiling dynamic, where i dont need the mouse but is lighter on resources because it’s less complex and less vfx.
and another question: is a WM and a DE installed at the same time?! Or does a WM replaces the DE? (I’m running Ubuntu Gnome)
soulinvader4000 • 1 points • 2024-05-20
what about i3?
[deleted] • 1 points • 2024-07-21
its okay bro im new too!
acd11 • 1 points • 2024-08-08
Did you end up trying Hyprland?
LuzifersGame • 1 points • 2024-10-23
In windows and the fedora (gnome) default installation, windows can overlap and display on top of each other. In a tiling window manager they do not. A new window will split the existing screen and they display next to each other unless you explicitly set a window to “float”. In a way they take the “depth” dimension out of your desktop and display every window in a “flat” 2 dimensional layout.
Another difference is that windows in a tiling wm (usually) don’t have “window decorations” which is the bar at the top showing window controls (minimize, maximize, close). You do control those windows with keyboard shortcuts or by pressing a superkey (win) and then moving, resizing with a mouse.
Tiling wm’s come with a learning curve and can be doubting at first. However, once you get the hang of them they can offer a faster and more streamlined workflow. With a tiling wm you will also make much greater use of your different desktops and switching between them. Some people swear by them and some don’t like them at all. Like almost everything in the Linux world it is a matter of your preference.
I hate clutter on my desktop and my brain functions best when everything is nicely ordered and I can see all that is going on. Therefore I love tiling wm’s. I am currently running hyprland with the nwg-shell on a minimal arch install.
Should you install and try it? Well, you came from windows to linux for a reason. Hell yeah you should. Using linux (in my opinion) is an evolution of your computing experience and knowledge. There is so much more you will discover and you will eventually see computers in a different and liberating way. This comes at the expense of time. Try it out in a vm if you need a working machine and be prepared to spend a few days googling and tinkering. Don’t give up when you stare at a blank screen and don’t know what to do next but most of all, have fun.
fuyunoyoru • 0 points • 2024-03-14
Based on the question in the post title, I had to make sure this wasn’t r/linuxmemes.
hitmebaby069 • -2 points • 2024-03-14
“Display servers using the Wayland protocol are called compositors because they also act as compositing window managers”
“a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more common approach (used by stacking window managers) of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects (windows) that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor.”
would it kill you to look it up?
cleanshirtuk • 5 points • 2024-03-14
This person said they’re new to Linux - there’s a lot to unpack there and doesn’t really fit the idea of ELI5. No need to be a dick.
hitmebaby069 • 0 points • 2024-03-14
I was the only comment that gave him the answers he seek and didn’t write a wall of text not doing what he asked for. Who is the dick?
t1609 • 1 points • 2024-03-14
“Operation was successful and patient died”
hitmebaby069 • 1 points • 2024-03-14
if they can’t do a search nor read a single paragraph of documentation, they have zero chance of liking linux.
Beginning-Pace-1426 • 1 points • 2024-06-15
Found this thread with similar questions. Got a lot out of the other responses.
Nothing out of yours.
hitmebaby069 • 1 points • 2024-06-16
it is fine, not everyone is a scientist. if endless blabbering helps you, suit yourself.
Pale_Fisherman_8874 • 2 points • 2024-08-15
You’re the reason people have a negative impression of the Linux community.
hitmebaby069 • 1 points • 2024-08-15
you all are the reason of your own misery. instead of doing wtv you think you are right about, you keep trying to argue about irrelevant sht with ppl you say you don’t give a f about.
3003bigo72 • 0 points • 2024-03-14
One suggestion only from me: make a partition, install Arch Linux, install and setup hyprland. Or just do it by scripts you can find online. Like ML4W or hyprdots
[deleted] • 0 points • 2024-03-14
of-course! You can do that in almost every distro. But for a beginner, in my honest opinion, it’s much better to install an hyprland distro already made or start from pure arch.
Again, it’s my opinion, based on my personal experience, I now run 1 desktop environment and 3 window managers on the same distro without any problem, but the first time I installed Hyprland on top of a gnome distro … it was a mess and I had to reinstall everything. It was my beginning with hyprland.
A separate partition keeps everyone on the safe side. It’s undred percent sure that you can’t screw-up your daily driver. Or if you want to take the risk … welcome
3003bigo72 • 2 points • 2024-03-14
of-course! You can do that in almost every distro. But for a beginner, in my honest opinion, it’s much better to install an hyprland distro already made or start from pure arch.
Again, it’s my opinion, based on my personal experience, I now run 1 desktop environment and 3 window managers on the same distro without any problem, but the first time I installed Hyprland on top of a gnome distro … it was a mess and I had to reinstall everything. It was my beginning with hyprland.
A separate partition keeps everyone on the safe side. It’s undred percent sure that you can’t screw-up your daily driver. Or if you want to take the risk … welcome