Changing Distros and TWMs

2026-04-05

Since getting into Linux I have heard more and more about tiling window managers. I don’t exactly have a need for a tiling window manager. My workflow is very chrome based for work. However, the more I get into Linux I think it wouldn’t hurt to at least get familiar with it.

I first threw I3 on my T480. I was a little rushed when I did it and immediately did not like it. Kinda just thought that anyone using it was just heaping extra work on themselves and pretending it was more efficient. ha.

I was very interested in the idea of having savable window layouts though - especially for work. I might not spend a ton of time in terminal for work, but there are certain types of work I do that I would love to have pre-configured window layouts for.

For example, from time to time I do a lot of migrations. It would be so helpful to have a predefined layout specifically for migrations that I can throw chrome windows into. Or, when I am doing billing I could use a different arrangement. There are a handful of layouts I could use to avoid clicking back and forth on tabs (I run four monitors, but could still use having multiple windows on some screens.)

ChatGPT was explaining some baked in window management that was available with KDE Neon/Plasma. Changing distros wasn’t something I really cared to do. I was very happy with Mint/Cinnamon, but thought it might not hurt to give it a shot.

So, I changed to KDE Neon. I did this on my work computer. While this is not a KDE Neon review, I was pretty happy with the initial experience. As far as a desktop went, I didn’t mind Plasma at all. Does everything I need. What I didn’t like was that ChatGPT oversold what I would have available.

There was not built in way to save predefined layouts! Imagine that. ChatGPT was straight up making things up again. I was not happy.