- Pros:
- system trays applet already works out of the box (still customizable to some extend at least more than gnome system trays)
- very good support for Wayland and VIDIA GPUs
- easy and quick to customize and you don’t have to deal with CSS if you don’t have much time to waste
- better integrated with KDE’s softwares (Kdenlive, KDE connect, Konsole, Kate, Elisa…) which is my opinion some of the best softwares for Linux even better than Windows’s in some cases
- friendly community (mostly)
- Cons:
- you have to use KDE with Krohnkite
I switched from a Qtile tiling window manager to KDE with Krohnkite. It does the job of handling the windows. The auto tiling aspect is the only thing I miss in any regular window management. The reason why I switched to KDE back then was, a problem with Qtile and because KDE was good on the Wayland front. In fact, it was the only viable option in my opinion for a desktop environment. I was also using lot of KDE applications anyway, so it made sense.
I don’t see this as an con. Maybe you could argue that Krohnkite is not a core system functionality and we rely on some community member. BTW that was the biggest issue why I switched away from GNOME years ago, because too much core functionality was community dependent (and breaking). The KDE team themselves should integrate such a functionality. Auto tiling reaches was never more popular and KDE itself has some tiling functionality builtin, just not auto tiling.
Like Qtile had, I like we have many layouts to choose and cycle from. My 4th desktop is set to everything float; no tiling. I could not stand a auto tiler that has only one builtin layout logic.
But there are some couple problems using Krohnkite. It’s not as configurable as I am used to with Qtile off course. And getting rid of the borders and having colored borders in KDE for focused applications and such, was a pain to setup. KDE really need some builtin functionality for that.
Depends on who you ask it may or may not be a con, I myself have been using it only for a week by now and for the most part it works very well it especially for a Linux newbie like me, not having to edit a config file with text editor but with GUI instead is pretty nice ( I made that gtk theme and floorp theme in the screenshot almost from scratch and it’s a huge pain in the ass, dont know if CSS is a bad language or not but it probably make me hate CSS ). So I guess it’s a pro for me
KDE will never use auto tiling as if you’ve followed any of the git issues regarding this KDE devs themselves have said they personally don’t use tiling so they’ll never add it to Plasma. Their compromise was basically setting pre-designated areas on your desktop to drag windows to. KDE wants users to use the mouse. they prefer it.
I still use my mouse with Krohnkite. I even move a window over another, to swap their positions, or change their size with my mouse. It’s not like using an auto tiler means no mouse usage.
We are not in GNOME here. KDE team does not want users to use their mouse. KDE usually is there for configuration and features, so that users can do whatever they want. I still think in a future the KDE team will implement “proper” auto tiling functionality.
I watched talks and discussions with Nate Graham. And yes, its obvious they don’t use auto tiling and don’t understand the benefit from it. That’s why the compromise they builtin is the way it is. But as time goes on, more tiling fans will arise, even GNOME and upcoming COSMIC have auto tiling builtin. There are working scripts to auto tile.
KDE will have builtin auto tiling functionality. It’s only a matter of time.
If KDE had a toggleable tiling feature like PopOS it would be the perfect DE.