I want the easiest to configure/theme wm and one that comes with sane defaults. Also I currently use cinnamon, and I’m not sure how to escape from that(everything in it is just so nice) but I want the speed of a wm
Do you want a tiling or a stacking wm?
Uh What’s the difference?
If stacking is floating, I think I’d rather have that
If you’re looking for a floating wm then Fluxbox might be your best bet. Otherwise I’d try i3. It’s easy to configure and has a lot of documentation (it also features a floating mode I believe). If you’re looking for something in python then I would recommend either awesomewm or Qtile (my fav). Qtile is a bit more difficult than awesome to configure though, but it has a better status bar.
My problem with qtile is it seems… just bad… The install instruction doesn’t work, and it was just a pain to install
Fluxbox or IceWM as a more standard, familiar floating WMs (both are pretty customizable too).
WindowMaker is my goto for standalone window managers, it’s look based on NeXTSTeP OS from 90s, so it doesn’t look like yet another ripoff from windows or macos (both are ugly IMHO), so it’s pretty unique.
If you want minimal and keyboard-oriented, cwm is THE wm for you. The main problem is that default keyboard shortcuts are really bad (openbsd fanatics will say otherways, but when shortcuts are spread around ctrl+, alt+, and ctrl+alt+, it’s really far from good), so I recommend tweak them or to find someone’s config.
If you want a desktop-agnostic file manager for these wms, I’d recommend xfe - it’s somewhat obscure for some reason, but it’s really, really good. Can’t recommend more.
As to install, all of these should be in your distro’s repo. Fluxbox may come as two packages (fluxbox2 and fluxbox3), the first one is the last official version and the second is the “community edition” - a fork, basically.
At least on Void Window Maker package is called WindowMaker, with capitalisation. Since Void sticks to official naming, other distros may have the same name.
edit: Also, it’s worth to mention most of recommendation on this thread are tiling window managers (awesomewm, i3, hyprland, etc.)
If you like the relatively polished experience provided by a DE like cinnamon, you’re unlikely to enjoy a WM. It’s a much more DIY experience. Unless you have particularly unusual window layouts, you’re best off just learning the keyboard shortcuts already supported in your DE.
DWM
Yeah it’s customised by editing a C header but you don’t really need to know C to configure it, you can 100% just copy the patterns that are already there and change them up like you would with any other config format.
One thing I just remembered that you might struggle with is applying patches which is how you install “extensions” in most suckless software including DWM. Do you know how to use Git or some other version control system? If you don’t know Git but have used Subversion or Perforce or something then it should be fairly easy to pick up but if you haven’t used version control ever then resolving conflicts between patches might be a little tricky.
Disclaimer: I’ve used tiling window managers for all of 30 minutes in my life.
If you just want a faster cinnamon, you might consider merely switching to XFCE. Just change the menu to the whisker menu and you’ll be right at home.
WMs don’t typically come with “sane defaults” in the DE sense of the word; you have to make your own sanity. In order to find sane defaults, you’ll probably have to switch to a distro that has its own custom configs. (That being said, you can always copy the configs back to your original distro when you know what you want.) Maybe check out Mabox for some inspiration. I can’t speak to any other beginner WM distros.
I like Hyprland
