7 ms·

QTile – An XMonad-like tiling WM written in Python

65 points by paulchap 6y ago

dang 6y ago
If curious see also 2014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357944 2012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4770610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4770610
butz 6y ago
Is there any significant performance penalty using WM built in Python?
- sqrt17 6y ago
  It's a WM (Window Manager). It only sets the placement of windows, it does not interfere with the programs themselves (that's what systemd and gnome-session do) nor does it do the fancy part of the painting (that's what a compositor does). So no, do not expect a significant performance penalty.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  Couldn't really imagine there being any. WM events are few and far between, and are hardly constrained by single thread performance.
- vmchale 6y ago
  Curious how the garbage collector works.
  - mikelward 6y ago
    I used a Go-based window manager called Wingo for quite a while and never noticed any performance issues.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Go is also fully compiled to native code, big difference.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        But it's still garbage collected. And GC should be done by the python interpreter proper, so it would be in native code.
        pjmlp 6y ago
        A tiny portion of Python's total execution time.
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        Don't get me wrong; I expect Go to be far more performant than Python. Just, they're both garbage-collected, and I have no reason to expect GC perf (specifically) to differ.
        pjmlp 6y ago
        Which just shows that learning about GC algorithms is a must. http://gchandbook.org/ http://gchandbook.org/ And the differences between value types, AOT compiled code execution, bytecode interpreters and FFI marshalling costs between bytecode interpreters and native libraries.
- YarickR2 6y ago
  Having done tiling WM with lots of logic implemented in Lua myself, ten or so years ago, I never met any performance issues, besides repainting of dragging indicators for free floating windows
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Take a look at the requirements.txt: https://github.com/qtile/qtile/blob/ecf216205ccfe72bbdee3183489ad0b67eef0100/requirements.txt https://github.com/qtile/qtile/blob/ecf216205ccfe72bbdee3183... All the heavy lifting is offloaded to C libraries. So, no, you shouldn't see a significant performance penalty, unless your Python WM is doing bitcoin mining in the background or something.
vmchale 6y ago
Haskell isn't ideal w.r.t. XMonad (as it is compiled rather than interpreted) but I prefer it to Python as a language. We'll have too see how this turns out in terms of libraries!
phoe-krk 6y ago
What does this have in common with the Qt framework? Asking because the project name follows the naming convention for Qt classes and widget.
- tych0 6y ago
  Nothing: http://docs.qtile.org/en/latest/manual/faq.html#why-the-name-qtile http://docs.qtile.org/en/latest/manual/faq.html#why-the-name...
  - phoe-krk 6y ago
    Now that is an interesting backstory. I doubt I will ever see any proof for it due to its nature, but it's a curious anecdote nonetheless!
raphman 6y ago
FWIW, I've been using qtile for several years now, switching from awesome. Nice things: - tiling WM with support for floating windows - useful widgets out of the box (CPU/mem/network graphs, clipboard notification, audio volume) - works well most of the time - highly configurable and scriptable - you can set the active group ("virtual desktop) for each screen individually, whereas awesome has virtual desktops that cover all screens at once. This is great for lectures/talks as I can prepare contents/applications on my laptop screen and then move this group to the to the projector screen when needed. This makes switching between slides, web browser, or a live demo easy. - completely written in Python, so one can easily modify the source code and reload qtile Annoying things: - sometimes my X server crashes and I suspect qtile to be at fault. However, it happens rarely enough so that I did not bother investigating further. - the interactive Python shell for qtile (qsh) is a strange mix of Python and filesystem metaphors with too little actual control over the WM - documentation and examples are not always up to date - bug: QT applications leave withdrawn "empty" windows on the screen if qtile is reloaded (which happens when displays are connected or disconnected) - dynamic multi-window applications don't work particularly well with tiling WMs (if these don't recognize all windows that need to be floating) - applications can only be in a single group / virtual desktop. This is an inherent limitation caused by the aforementioned ability to assign groups to individual screens (you obviously can't have the same X11 window to be rendered to two different screens at different dimensions)
- Elv13 6y ago
  > whereas awesome has virtual desktops that cover all screens at once. (disclaimer: Awesome co maintainer here) I am not sure what you mean. Awesome tags are per screen and can be moved to other screens (since pretty much day 1). Can you be more specific? In any case, I am slowly adding support for Xmonad style "shared" tags across screen, so I am collecting comments/use_cases on how to make tags better.
- tych0 6y ago
  > - bug: QT applications leave withdrawn "empty" windows on the screen if qtile is reloaded (which happens when displays are connected or disconnected) Late reply, but this might fix it: https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1807 https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1807
chess_buster 6y ago
There's also bluetile, written in haskell http://bluetile.org http://bluetile.org
- trenchgun 6y ago
  Is that still in development or is it an abandoned project?
linsomniac 6y ago
I've been wanting to try it for a while, but I'm just happy enough with i3 that it's hard to put in the time switching to something else. One thing I tried at one point and really liked in, IIRC, xMonad, was the idea of a "focused" window and then an LRU stack of windows behind that. I really liked that idea for the little bit that I tried it, but I found the configuration otherwise to be impossible to use (for me).
jakeogh 6y ago
Qtile is great, for me the missing killer feature is the ability to have multiple top bars. It's close: https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1239 https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1239 https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1387 https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1387

65 points by paulchap 6y ago

dang 6y ago

If curious see also 2014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8357944 2012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4770610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4770610

butz 6y ago

Is there any significant performance penalty using WM built in Python?

sqrt17 6y ago
It's a WM (Window Manager). It only sets the placement of windows, it does not interfere with the programs themselves (that's what systemd and gnome-session do) nor does it do the fancy part of the painting (that's what a compositor does). So no, do not expect a significant performance penalty.
heavyset_go 6y ago
Couldn't really imagine there being any. WM events are few and far between, and are hardly constrained by single thread performance.
vmchale 6y ago
Curious how the garbage collector works.
- mikelward 6y ago
  I used a Go-based window manager called Wingo for quite a while and never noticed any performance issues.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Go is also fully compiled to native code, big difference.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      But it's still garbage collected. And GC should be done by the python interpreter proper, so it would be in native code.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        A tiny portion of Python's total execution time.
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        Don't get me wrong; I expect Go to be far more performant than Python. Just, they're both garbage-collected, and I have no reason to expect GC perf (specifically) to differ.
        pjmlp 6y ago
        Which just shows that learning about GC algorithms is a must. http://gchandbook.org/ http://gchandbook.org/ And the differences between value types, AOT compiled code execution, bytecode interpreters and FFI marshalling costs between bytecode interpreters and native libraries.
YarickR2 6y ago
Having done tiling WM with lots of logic implemented in Lua myself, ten or so years ago, I never met any performance issues, besides repainting of dragging indicators for free floating windows
pmiller2 6y ago
Take a look at the requirements.txt: https://github.com/qtile/qtile/blob/ecf216205ccfe72bbdee3183489ad0b67eef0100/requirements.txt https://github.com/qtile/qtile/blob/ecf216205ccfe72bbdee3183... All the heavy lifting is offloaded to C libraries. So, no, you shouldn't see a significant performance penalty, unless your Python WM is doing bitcoin mining in the background or something.

vmchale 6y ago

Haskell isn't ideal w.r.t. XMonad (as it is compiled rather than interpreted) but I prefer it to Python as a language. We'll have too see how this turns out in terms of libraries!

phoe-krk 6y ago

What does this have in common with the Qt framework? Asking because the project name follows the naming convention for Qt classes and widget.

tych0 6y ago
Nothing: http://docs.qtile.org/en/latest/manual/faq.html#why-the-name-qtile http://docs.qtile.org/en/latest/manual/faq.html#why-the-name...
- phoe-krk 6y ago
  Now that is an interesting backstory. I doubt I will ever see any proof for it due to its nature, but it's a curious anecdote nonetheless!

raphman 6y ago

FWIW, I've been using qtile for several years now, switching from awesome. Nice things: - tiling WM with support for floating windows - useful widgets out of the box (CPU/mem/network graphs, clipboard notification, audio volume) - works well most of the time - highly configurable and scriptable - you can set the active group ("virtual desktop) for each screen individually, whereas awesome has virtual desktops that cover all screens at once. This is great for lectures/talks as I can prepare contents/applications on my laptop screen and then move this group to the to the projector screen when needed. This makes switching between slides, web browser, or a live demo easy. - completely written in Python, so one can easily modify the source code and reload qtile Annoying things: - sometimes my X server crashes and I suspect qtile to be at fault. However, it happens rarely enough so that I did not bother investigating further. - the interactive Python shell for qtile (qsh) is a strange mix of Python and filesystem metaphors with too little actual control over the WM - documentation and examples are not always up to date - bug: QT applications leave withdrawn "empty" windows on the screen if qtile is reloaded (which happens when displays are connected or disconnected) - dynamic multi-window applications don't work particularly well with tiling WMs (if these don't recognize all windows that need to be floating) - applications can only be in a single group / virtual desktop. This is an inherent limitation caused by the aforementioned ability to assign groups to individual screens (you obviously can't have the same X11 window to be rendered to two different screens at different dimensions)

Elv13 6y ago
> whereas awesome has virtual desktops that cover all screens at once. (disclaimer: Awesome co maintainer here) I am not sure what you mean. Awesome tags are per screen and can be moved to other screens (since pretty much day 1). Can you be more specific? In any case, I am slowly adding support for Xmonad style "shared" tags across screen, so I am collecting comments/use_cases on how to make tags better.
tych0 6y ago
> - bug: QT applications leave withdrawn "empty" windows on the screen if qtile is reloaded (which happens when displays are connected or disconnected) Late reply, but this might fix it: https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1807 https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1807

chess_buster 6y ago

There's also bluetile, written in haskell http://bluetile.org http://bluetile.org

trenchgun 6y ago
Is that still in development or is it an abandoned project?

linsomniac 6y ago

I've been wanting to try it for a while, but I'm just happy enough with i3 that it's hard to put in the time switching to something else. One thing I tried at one point and really liked in, IIRC, xMonad, was the idea of a "focused" window and then an LRU stack of windows behind that. I really liked that idea for the little bit that I tried it, but I found the configuration otherwise to be impossible to use (for me).

jakeogh 6y ago

Qtile is great, for me the missing killer feature is the ability to have multiple top bars. It's close: https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1239 https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1239 https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1387 https://github.com/qtile/qtile/pull/1387