Using a tiling window manager is a lot like rewiring your brain. You learn shortcuts, ascertain your workflow and finally combine it all into an often cool-looking but insanely complicated setup. Tilting window managers can often be a bit intimidating. Not to mention, if you’re already invested in a desktop environment, it might be hard to learn from scratch.
This is where GNOME’s powerful extension system comes into play once again, which is host to multiple tiling options. The one that I’ve come to appreciate lately is Pop!_OS’s auto-tiling extension.
Getting the extension installed
A bit of a frustrating experience
The Pop!_OS tiling extension can be accessed from its GitHub page, where it mentions multiple AUR packages. In theory, this should be a very easy install (assuming you have an AUR helper like Yay or Paru on your system) but the reality is a lot worse.
On my CachyOS GNOME install, using the AUR package yielded no results, and so I had to install the package manually.
To start, you’ll want to clone the GitHub repo and cd into the shell directory.
Next, you’ll want to install typescript, and run make to get the extension installed onto your system.
git clone https://github.com/pop-os/shell.git
cd shell
sudo pacman -S typescript
make local-install
A few prompts and one reboot later, I was finally able to get the extension to show up on the GNOME taskbar.
Configuration and theming
Easy setup
The extension shows itself as a small tabbed icon on your status bar. Clicking it reveals a surprisingly extensive set of options, which are otherwise locked to some cryptic configuration file syntax.
The first toggle lets you globally enable or disable tiling. It’s a huge quality-of-life addition, and something I keep frequently using for my second monitor. Below it is a Floating Window Exceptions submenu, which allows for selected windows to remain “floating” and not tiled, which might be useful for certain use cases such as a picture-in-picture window.
There’s also the ability to add a colored border to active windows, essentially completing that i3/Sway feel. It’s also possible to change the border color, and apply gaps between windows, further completing that classic tiled look.
And to top it all off, there’s even a handy shortcuts tab to remind you of the layouts. Setting this up on an ordinary tiling window manager from scratch would take hours, and this is a far simpler answer, especially for newcomers to tiling.
I can stick around with GNOME
Proper tiling window managers are difficult to set up
The Pop!_OS shell brings the convenience of tiling to the simplicity of GNOME. While I won’t deny that tiling window managers have a few critical advantages (such as low system resource usage), their learning curve is too steep for me to recommend to a beginner.
This setup essentially lets me stick around with GNOME for longer, even if its many quirks do bother me at times. Since this is an extension that works on top of the GNOME shell, the “core” experience remains the same.
In other words, it feels familiar and easy to navigate as compared to something like Hyprland. All my existing extensions work, and the UI is a lot easier to navigate since I’m used to it.
There’s also the fact that Pop!_OS’s tiling extension blends in perfectly with GNOME’s overall aesthetic. Bold, thick colored borders and familiar shortcuts are all here, along with a surprisingly extensive menu. It looks clean, and doesn’t feel out of place at all.
COSMIC will be a better alternative, once it’s ready
Still needs some time in the oven
While the Pop!_OS tiling extension is great overall, I’m not a fan of extensions in general, along with their implementation. To me, most features from extensions should be baked into the desktop environment itself.
System76 seems to be thinking along those same lines as well, which ultimately culminated in the release of the COSMIC desktop. COSMIC is a new desktop environment built using Rust and targets maximum performance.
Coincidentally, it also happens to include a tiling extension baked into it. Clicking on the tiling menu brings up a familiar set of options, and all of these parameters can be tweaked within the COSMIC system settings.
This does seem like a natural evolution to GNOME, but COSMIC isn’t exactly ready yet. The compositor is technically ready for daily use, but seems to be missing a few features.
Stuff like HDR support, built-in nightlight support and inconsistent theming kind of detract from the overall experience. All of this isn’t to say that COSMIC is bad. Far from it really; it just needs some more time in the oven.
Give it a look
If you’re looking to try out tiling windows without leaving GNOME, Pop Shell should be on your list of things to try. If you end up loving how it works, consider checking out other tiling managers, or even a desktop like COSMIC.
