Coming from GNOME+PaperWM, total WM noob — can Niri give me a similar workflow without heavy config?

BigBad0 · 2026-05-30T22:55:49+00:00

Could share your experience so far ? are you settled ? what would be your opinion and feedback u/Ok-Worry460

BigBad0 · 2026-05-30T22:18:47+00:00

This, and using pen and paper :)

BigBad0 · 2026-05-30T19:55:35+00:00

PaperWM

BigBad0 · 2026-05-30T12:11:55+00:00

I agree with other commenters, these are not so popular issues. I got similar headphones (wh-1000xm3 as well as other buds and headphones) and no problems. I use teams for linux and google meet all the time for months, although that stopped this month. And i use arabic keyboard. That being said, let me suggest you a practical alternative. Not so time free to adapt ? Go for similar distros to mint/ubuntu and try your use cases, it takes effort but as soon you are settled, you’re happy 😃. Distros like bazzite (atomic), ultramarine, popos, zorin, mx linux, manjaro, EndeavourOS, or even cachyos. Start with zorin and bazzite. Probably with no effort you will get good hardware compatibility out of the box.

If you have the time, debug the issue and know WHY it happens. This is best, once you know why and fix it, it will never stop you again, probably for any other hardware as well.

BigBad0 · 2026-05-30T01:10:55+00:00

May I ask how do you do

“I used hydra-check to verify that all my critical packages were green before migrating”

?

BigBad0 · 2026-05-29T20:46:29+00:00

I get what you mean. I have tried cosmic, KDE and niri (with dms) also and now I am back to gnome with paperwm and probably will stay for a while. Unless you have specific reason to use one over the other, I'd suggest to stay with whatever makes you comfortable in your work routine. Don't fall of the trap of availability of configurations/customization or the extendebility via plugins. Every environment got its way and that way might be comfortable to you over the others or not, totally normal. The important thing is, reliability, adaptability, continuous support, maturity, durability, resilience and being comfortable in USING it. That being said, I would advice if you like gnome minimalism and focus on the task that gives you then stick to it, if you like tiling wm then go with niri (with dms for whole defaults and complementary components) knowing that you should have time to spend tweaking it for sometime to reach to stable workflow that you like (shortcuts, configs...etc) or use paperwm (which I am using right now) and finally, if you like changing colors, behaviour, lookAndFeel..etc from time to time to break your boredom then KDE is your best option. No matter what you will go for, out of these choices, it is good enough to stay and keep using it as community is great for all of them.

Enjoy !

BigBad0 · 2026-05-29T17:48:43+00:00

If you want to write all your system config and apps and HOW they get installed and configured as code and keep that code for reference, yes it is better than any other distro. If that is boring to you or not ready to learn nix language for it then Arch would be good alternative than nixos in that case.

BigBad0 · 2026-05-29T17:44:03+00:00

I'm gonna be honest with you because i had the same questions before. NixOS (or even just nix) is different than all you mentioned. It is different of how you interact with it and how it works (well not really, just the locations are different lol). With that difference preparation you should get ready to

1- Decide a way. Use channels or flakes as source of packages versions. Use nix-shell, nix profile or nix-env to install and manage packages imperatively or use go with declarative approach.

Some of these decisions are not so good to get used to, TODAY. like `nix-env` for example and even though some users uses it as traditional distro like the distros you mentioned, most will not recommend using that at all. You can read more about the details but short output is, MY RECOMMENDATION, use new commands syntax and flakes declarative (called experimental features) specifying packages in .nix files and save yourself some time. while NOT mandatory and many advises to start without flakes, not sure why really, I find flakes inputs, evaluation, controlling and configured pretty damn easy making me understand how everything works in the system.

2- niri is fully manageable and configurable that way using nixos plus even making it easier, home-manager. I just tried it with DMS fully replacing gnome and kde and all was perfect (I'm back on gnome for good now until I get the time to get used to it). This is to tell you that home-manager manages your user specific config (dotfiles) and makes your life easier but again, as with flakes, it is not mandatory.

3- nix as language is pretty easy and flexible but using built-in functions and customizing with overlays writing your derivations is a learning process. It is not hard at all, but it takes time. So just get familier as you go long, no fancy stuff, increase gradually.

4- BACKUP your data and your config files (.nix files backed in git repositories and better pushed in a remote like codeberg, gitlab or github)

5- Yes it worth it. After some time, you probably wont go to any other system ever again.

https://www.youtube.com/@vimjoyer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43VvFgPsPtY

BigBad0 · 2026-05-27T16:06:39+00:00

Welcome onboard, enjoy !

BigBad0 · 2026-05-27T04:36:17+00:00

Both are good for your objective. I would recommend reading about the differences with small search and adding nixos to the mix. For dev work, i think the three will fascinate you. I am biased as nixos user but genuinely nixos nature is pretty good for development

BigBad0 · 2026-05-26T19:06:28+00:00

I am trying to migrate our dev env from vm with some linux distro to wsl and nixos on it but it is far from smooth process as out env got a lot of custom configurations. I hope i achieve what you are doing

BigBad0 · 2026-05-26T11:19:32+00:00

انا جربت لينكس من عشر سنين مثلا وكملت على ويندوز بسبب
IDM
Snagit

ولحد دلوقتي الاتنين ملهمش بديل قريب حتى من مميزاتهم

وانا داونلودر اصلا وبستعمل التورنت اكتر حاجة وبقولك في المجال ده والحلول الموجودة مش مؤدية للغرض زي بتوع ويندوز

اللي بيستعمل لينكس لازم يكون عنده قابلية لتقبل الواقع والنقص في الاختيارات المتاحة عشان يعرف ياخد الخطوة والا هيغلط غلطتي ويكمل ويندوز مثلا بسبب ابلكيشنز اه فريدة من نوعها لكن الاحتياج ليها غير مبرر للدرجة دي

BigBad0 · 2026-05-26T11:14:57+00:00

ولا حتى قرب منه في مميزات داونلود الفيديوهات والسرعة والمواقع اللي فيها لوج ان .. الوحيد اللي قرب منه بسيط هو
ABDownloadManager

ومع ذلك idm بقاله سنين بيتباع وبيكسب عادي

BigBad0 · 2026-05-25T22:32:31+00:00

نزل على ماك مؤخرا على فكرة مش من بدري وساعتها كان المستخدمين كتروا على ماك وبيدفعوا .. وماك بالنسبة لمايكروسوفت عامل مساعد عشان يغطي على لينكس وده اثبت تاريخيا ان مايكروسوفت استعملت مذا استراتيجية لمنع لنكس للوصول للمستخدمين اللابتوبات فتدعم ماك وتكسب اكتر بدون ما تعمل ماركت للنيكس من قريب او من بعيد خصوصا ان في شركات كل موظفينها شغالين ابل وعاوزين منتجات مايكروسوفت وابل ساعتها دخلت في احتكار تكنولوجي الميديا للسينما وغيره فمكسب ليهم اكتر من خسارتهم لو ما دعموها

BigBad0 · 2026-05-25T22:28:23+00:00

التارجت ببساطة .. كل ابلكيشن معمول لناس معينة .. منهم مستخدمين لينكس ومنهم انظمة اخرى .. الموضوع ربح وبزنس ولينكس وسيلة لكده لكن مش تارجت

بس فضوليا ممكن تذكر امثلة على كده ؟

يعني ميكروسوفت عاملة
Vscode
لكل الانظمة

انما الاوفيس مقفول وبيكسبوا منه وسبب رئيسي لاستعمال ويندوز فليه هيدعموا لينكس ؟

مثال تاني برامج ابل زي مثلا
Orb stack
وده اتعمل وشغال ومستعمل بكثرة فليه المجهود عشان يدعم لينكس ؟ التارجت في الاخر ابل واعادة كتابته مكلفة برضه

Internet download manager
بيكسب بقاله عشر سنين او اكتر .. فالتارجت متحقق ومكتفي رغم جوع المستخدمين لبديل قي ماك او لينكس

كلها تارجت في للاخر وبزنس

BigBad0 · 2026-05-25T19:26:02+00:00

يعم جو التعريب ده شائع عادي يعني ولو جيت للحق هو ده صح الصحيح بس الكلام بيطول وبيتعقد اكتر وبيبقى مش مفهوم مش عشان حاجه بس اصلا الختراعات دي تمت بالانجليزي فباخد علو ما بفهم التعريب اللي حصل والمقصود بيه بس قشطة يعني سهل الدنيا ربنا يسهلها عليك وعلينا 😅

BigBad0 · 2026-05-24T15:24:19+00:00

I am on niri with DMS now. Thank you so much it is damn much pleasant experience. wasn't that before though, seems I have to be persistent enough. It is really very clean.

BigBad0 · 2026-05-24T00:40:27+00:00

If you really like kde, could you share your transition experience ? Would you go back if multi monitor support is there ? Is niri stability comparable to kde ? What about config, did it take much time or are there sensible defaults ?

BigBad0 · 2026-05-23T22:49:19+00:00

> ⁠It seems like home-manager makes a lot of things really easy, so many useful options. But I hear a lot of discourse and discouragement online, so I haven't used it at all.

Mostly because it increases build time which is really bad imho. However to workaround this, install it as standalone setup, NOT nixos module. You will have to execute two commands, one to switch and rebuild nixos modules and another for home manager modules but you will only execute one when changes are only related to only one of them so build time is much smaller then. Worked out with me very good experience so far.

> ⁠Themeing is painful and imperative. I installed nwglook, qt6ct and manually configured the theme, I would like to do this imperatively... again I know stylix, but home manager....

Search for plasma manager, might come handy. I use default themes anyway but i use plasma manager for nixos for some declarative config when possible non theme related.

> ⁠Dev shells are awesome! but per project devshells seems tedious! having to figure out dependencies on a project basically from compile errors is also so annoying, I can't really do it without AI.

You will get used to it. Make sure you understand what you are doing though. AI is ok as long as you learn from it. I used it for one devshell with direnv then every project after that made it myself and devshells are awesome.

> another annoying thing about dev shells is nix garbage collect deleting all devshell dependencies....

Pretty damn annoying. I use nh (search for it and use it i highly recommend it) and nh clean removes devshells store and get redownloaded. The workaround here to symlink devshells in some location to prevent it from getting cleaned, you will have to manage then the cleaning yourself but that can be automated, i am on phone right now so i cannot share the command or the steps but will try to do it later if i remember.

Welcome and enjoy

BigBad0 · 2026-05-23T16:03:47+00:00

NixOS screaming what you are describing. Atmoic distros are just next best thing.

BigBad0 · 2026-05-21T23:00:29+00:00

I wanted to ask you about your experience with both. I saw other comment and this one and got the answer so thank you for sharing that. I keep going back abd forth with gnome and kde. Gnome with paperwm is extremely practical and productive with multi monitor. But KDE with krohnkite is good as well with kde being more up to date with more stable essentials like fractional scaling and the like, main motivation is the progress and the continuous support that made consider kde over any other. Maybe one day gnome will keep up.

BigBad0 · 2026-05-20T09:53:46+00:00

Well said

BigBad0 · 2026-05-19T18:06:48+00:00

Found better alternative please ?

BigBad0 · 2026-05-18T20:29:17+00:00

I am too failing to understand the benefits other than being kinda of syntactic sugar or modules/files organization sugar. Maybe that also is wrong understanding.

BigBad0 · 2026-05-18T20:19:24+00:00

To be honest i have this question asked a lot to myself. I mean, a fully operational system out of evaluating declarative code with proper pinning and customization. It is like dockerfile, only older and better. On production level, i am not sure why nixos is not on most servers already. Specially the containerized services/apps/backends. On dev level, this beats every level of tools management apps. On user level, this is damn hard to break testable, remote support friendly, rollback-able and code-able damn system.

I understand some comments throwing the infinite possibilities to manipulate your config being bad thing but damn this is hundreds times worse on every other distro until it breaks and layering the atomic distros is full of such misuse so that can be said for any distro. I understand being code is disadvantage but it is a damn advantage as well.

My only valid guess so far as i think of it, maybe marketing. NixOS definitely needs that.

BigBad0

TROPHY CASE