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bspwm

bspwm Reviews and Details

This page is designed to help you find out whether bspwm is good and if it is the right choice for you.

Screenshots and images

  • bspwm Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-14

Features & Specs

  1. Highly Configurable

    Bspwm is known for its high level of customizability, allowing users to tweak almost every aspect of their window management experience through simple scripts and configuration files.

  2. Efficient Use of Screen Space

    As a tiling window manager, Bspwm automatically arranges windows in a way that maximizes screen real estate, minimizing overlap and unused space.

  3. Lightweight

    Bspwm is extremely lightweight, making it suitable for older hardware and systems with limited resources. It does not come with additional software bloat.

  4. Scriptable with Unix Philosophy

    Bspwm adheres to the Unix philosophy of 'doing one thing well'. It functions without managing keybindings, allowing users to use other programs (like sxhkd) for keybinding management, which offers greater flexibility.

  5. Active Community Support

    Bspwm has an active community and comprehensive documentation, which helps new users get started and troubleshoot any issues they might encounter.

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Videos

Switching To Bspwm - Initial Thoughts

BSPWM - Its like I3 but not.

BSPWM Review

Social recommendations and mentions

We have tracked the following product recommendations or mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you see what people think about bspwm and what they use it for.
  • well... thinkpads are awesome
    Over on Linux, Iโ€™ve been learning kinda a-lot about linux tools and workflows. I've recently got into window managers, bspwm was my first one and I'm thinking of moving towards a Arch+Hyprland setup in future. Setting it up was way easier than I thought, and I got inspired by a YouTuber named jvscholz, whoโ€™s all about minimalism and productivity. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • What WM should I use?
    Use BSPWM. It supports right clicks by default and its modular. You might want to look for status bars that work with it, slstatus does not work. Good luck, supremacist! Source: over 3 years ago
  • What are some OpenSource apps that are the best of their kind?
    I had not heard of bspwm but I am a fan of telling WMs. Looking at the documentation now, I really like the pragmatic approach lol https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Got some questions before moving to linux...
    I am not familiar with that distro at all, so no idea. KDE Plasma is fine, I use it myself (with BSPWM as my window manager, but that's irrelevant). Source: over 3 years ago
  • MacBook Setup - OS Ventura 13.1 - Samsung QLed 43โ€ - VM: yabai - Terminal: Hyper
    There's a paradigm shift required for a lot of people to start using automatic tiling window managers. Yabai is basically a bspwm port for MacOS and it follows the rules of binary space partitioning. In fact, bspwm has a great diagram on its github readme that illustrates how it works. This will limit the number of windows you can have on any given desktop. To overcome this limitation you use multiple desktops. A... Source: over 3 years ago
  • How much better is neoVim? Is it really that much better than VsCode?
    Itโ€™s night and day. I also combine a heavily customized NeoVim config (https://github.com/tomit4/notes/tree/main/nvim) with a tiling window manager (https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm), the espanso text expander (https://espanso.org/), Vimium in the browser (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/), and a 40% ortholinear keyboard(https://drop.com/buy/planck-mechanical-keyboard). Source: over 3 years ago
  • service enabled but why do i have to explicitly start the service after every boot must
    Thanks a lot for your descriptive explanation on how to do this right! I really I'm grateful cos I definitely feel much more knowledgeable than how I was while I was figuring things out yesterday.i actually did try launching my script from within my window manager...i use bspwm and the scripts worked alright but the only issue I encountered was that it made my bspwm revert to its default config. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Integrating the window manager and emacs
    I have actually never used i3 myself, but unless it has option to listen for commands from a socket, you might better be served by bspwm. It is also a tiling manager, probably does not have all or same capabilities as i3, however, option to listen for commands on a socket make it a very good candidate for integration with Emacs. Since Emacs can easily read/write to sockets, you might write a client in elisp and... Source: about 4 years ago
  • How do you guys work with terminals?
    Interesting question. I mix a lot. I use bspwm to create a window with a terminal for each individual project or general task. In kitty I group related functionality by tab and use layouts to position different applications that I want grouped (often development servers or server consoles). When working inside nvim I often use the built-in terminal for tasks related to the "code" (poke around, move stuff, create... Source: over 4 years ago
  • Which WM should I use ?
    My personal favourite is bspwm and sxhkd, together it's super satisfying for some reason. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Is bspwm still in active development? There is no activity from developer's side for almost 6 months on GitHub....
    River is a dynamic wayland compositor that takes inspiration from Dwm and bspwm. Source: over 4 years ago
  • Looking for more CLI and less GUI based Distro
    Try i3 or sway or bspwm, you can install them and switch to them from your session manager, you don't have to uninstall anything, and you can come back to regular Ubuntu anytime ;). Source: over 4 years ago
  • How X Window Managers Work, and How to Write One
    This is a great article and I remember reading it numerous times while I was implementing my own window manager. For someone interested in working on a really fun and rewarding hobby project a WM is a great one to look into since there are so many resources starting from really small implementations: - https://github.com/mackstann/tinywm - https://github.com/venam/2bwm - https://github.com/dylanaraps/sowm -... - Source: Hacker News / over 4 years ago
  • Best tiling extensions for kwin?
    Do you mean the binary division of the selected wmnode described in 'Manual Mode' here: https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm? So that the new window tiles inside the selected node with the window that formerly occupied the entire space? Source: almost 5 years ago
  • XMonad โ€“ The Automated Tiling WM
    Bspwm is great too if you're interested in trying a tiling window manager. Have been using it almost exclusively for the last 2 years without too many problems. [1] https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm. - Source: Hacker News / almost 5 years ago
  • Is it possible to make alacritty/kitty read guifont and change the font size automatically?
    I don't know, I don't use Kitty. The socket-idea came to be because of BSPWM, which does something similar. Source: almost 5 years ago
  • Polybar Install on FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE
    Https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm if you look at bspwm upstream repo, there is default/example config, and so it is in freebsd package. Source: almost 5 years ago
  • Which DE do you prefer?
    I now run bspwm, along with sxhkd, picom, and lemonbar, as separate userland runit services; my .xinitrc now reads exec dbus-launch --exit-with-x11 runsvdir -P "${HOME}/.local/service/". Source: almost 5 years ago
  • I guess this is how it went:
    I use bspwm with minimal config modifications, no window borders/headers, no panels, just the apps I use and keyboard hotkeys which I'm comfortable with. Source: about 5 years ago
  • What Happened To LXQT, LXDE and BSPWM
    What website? LXQT is actively maintained.. https://lxqt-project.org So is LXDE afaik. https://www.lxde.org BSPWM? At best slow development it seems.. https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm. Source: about 5 years ago
  • Yeah, it's 10, DEBIAN 10
    I use a minimalistic setup with bspwm, here's a demo of what it looks like. Source: over 5 years ago

Summary of the public mentions of bspwm

Summary of Public Opinion on BSPWM

BSPWM has carved a niche for itself in the landscape of open-source tiling window managers, particularly among Linux users seeking a highly customizable and efficient environment. Public opinion reveals that BSPWM enjoys a solid reputation but is tempered by some areas for improvement noted by its user base.

Features and Functionality

One of the most frequently mentioned strengths of BSPWM is its minimalist and modular design. Users appreciate its ability to handle multiple windows with ease. It also allows configuration and control via messages, which appeals to those who favor scripting and automation. This functionality gives it an edge in seamless integration with other tools, such as Emacs, leveraging its capability to listen to commands from sockets. Moreover, BSPWMโ€™s partial support for Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH) makes it compatible with several utilities and applications, although this limited support also signifies room for enhancement.

Learning Curve and Community Sentiment

The learning curve associated with BSPWM is perceived as moderate, which aligns well with beginners experimenting with window managers and experienced users focusing on productivity. Many users, inspired by minimalism-enthusiast influencers, have found BSPWM's initial setup surprisingly straightforward. Nonetheless, it requires an adjustment in how one conceptualizes workspace management as BSPWM employs a binary space partitioning technique. This is compared to the paradigm shift required when using related tools like Yabai on macOS.

BSPWM is often contrasted with competitors such as i3, Sway, Xmonad, and others. While some users initially begin with BSPWM, they sometimes migrate to other managers like Hyprland or Sway in pursuit of additional features or more active development communities. This occasional transition might reflect in part BSPWM's slower development activity, as noted by some users lamenting a lack of recent updates. Despite this, a consistent base of users remains loyal due to its stable performance and simplicity.

Community and Resource Availability

The community surrounding BSPWM, though not as vibrant as some of its peers, provides sufficient resources through tools like GitHub, where example configurations can be found. Such documentation aids newcomers and keeps existing users engaged, enhancing the overall user experience. Users often discuss integrating BSPWM with peripherals such as Polybar and complementary applications like sxhkd for hotkey binding, highlighting its flexibility.

Overall, BSPWM maintains a reputation as a robust choice for users prioritizing minimalism, customization, and an efficient tiling approach to window management. While its slower development pace may be a concern for some, its core functionalities and philosophical alignment with open-source principles continue to endear it to a dedicated user segment.

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Is bspwm good? This is an informative page that will help you find out. Moreover, you can review and discuss bspwm here. The primary details have not been verified within the last quarter, and they might be outdated. If you think we are missing something, please use the means on this page to comment or suggest changes. All reviews and comments are highly encouranged and appreciated as they help everyone in the community to make an informed choice. Please always be kind and objective when evaluating a product and sharing your opinion.