What's Old Is News Again

Tiling desktops are graphical environments in which windows open in a grid. They appeared early in Linux's history and have always had a few followers, especially among developers. For much of the past two decades, though, tiling desktops were ignored in the efforts to mimic Windows and macOS and to improve usability. However, in recent years, tiling desktops have become more popular, most likely because modern computing power means that more users are working with more windows open. Today, users can choose from a variety of tiling desktops. Some have been around for years, and others are more recent.

The idea behind tiling desktops is to reduce clutter on the desktop and make windows easier to find. By contrast, the standard or stacking desktop becomes less orderly with each open window. Most stacking desktops open windows in the upper left corner or some other default location. As users search through windows, the unwanted ones tend to be dragged aside, destroying what little order existed. In fact, the clutter is so great that many stacking desktops have a Show Desktop icon or widget. Others, such as Ubuntu's discarded Unity desktop, encourage users to open only one window at a time. Tiling desktops, on the other hand, arrange windows in a grid, making them easy to find. Should the windows become too numerous and too small for comfortable browsing, users can use virtual workspaces to add another grid. You can remove windows from the grid to increase their size and temporarily stack them on top of the grid. Another advantage of tiling desktops is that they can be easily navigated from the keyboard, although many also support a mouse.

You can get a feel for tiling desktops from terminal multiplexers such as GNU Screen, tmux, or Tilix (Figure 1), which turn a terminal into a tiling environment with multiple prompts. When you are ready to try an actual tiling desktop, here are some of the most popular choices. Many of these options can be installed as desktop environments in distributions, and a couple are also distributions in their own right.

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