Why don’t you try becoming comfortable with Linux while using it in a Virtual Machine? I tried different distros too, and then I decided which one was the best for me.
We can’t really suggest you one, if we don’t know what you are going to use it for.
You may want to do some research, because different distros have different purposes (gaming, privacy, programming, easy to use etc etc).
<a href="">https://distrochooser.de/</a> is a great tool that help to understand what the different distros can do.
Also, you should probably know that selecting a distro is more about selecting the underlying OS and less about the UI (DE). Most distros support the top 5 Desktop Environments (DE for short). And selecting a DE can be just as important.
So, I use keybindings for my browser, terminal, file manager, run launcher, Screenshots (latest addition), music player, and a few other things, but almost everything else is for window management such as changing layouts (which I never use), Promoting a Window to master, moving a window up and down the stack, closing the focused window, switching between workspaces and moving windows between workspaces.
For me, the most used features of a tiling window manager are keybindings, workspaces and then tiling, in that order. I usually keep my windows either maximised or as 2 windows next to each other. I sometimes use 3 windows in a workspace, albeit rarely, and I pretty much never use 4 windows in the same workspace.
In terms of workspaces, I use my 9th (last) workspace for my music player, and the other workspaces for other things depending on what I’m doing. I know some people have a workspace for web browsing, a workspace for programming etc. but I have a pretty dynamic range of things I use my device for, so I don’t have the workspaces marked for a specific use.
For example, in the last few days, I found myself following the updates for a game I play so discord was opened on workspace 8. I needed 3 vscodium windows and 2 workspaces with a total of 5 terminals between them. That’s 5 workspaces total. I also had a workspace with 2-3 browsers where I would change between them when needed (meaning I would have 1 maximised and then maximise another when needed, hiding the others under it), with discord on the 8th workspace, and cmus, my music player on the 9th. I think only 1 workspace was free at that time. So safe to say, I use my workspaces a lot.
In terms of my layout, I have used, currently use, and will continue to use a tiling (master and stack) layout where the new window is spawned at the bottom of the stack (rather than at the top, or after the currently focused window), with the master window on the left, and the ratio between the master and the stack being 0.5 (meaning the master window takes half, the stack splits the other half). That way, I can have, for example, my browser on the left, a terminal on the right, and if I temporarily need a file manager for something, it will open at the bottom of the stack, under the terminal, regardless of where my mouse is (I use dynamic tiling), with minimal changes to the layout of other windows (My browser is still on the left, my terminal is still on the right, and as my terminal remains on the top right, it means that there is no need for me to readjust to a different window layout because I spawned a new window for a few seconds.
So yes, that’s the workflow I use and have used for a while. As I’m on Hyprland, I decided I might as well use the animations available, and I think I’m running the default in terms of animations and rounded corners. One of the things that sold me on Hyprland were the rounded corners, with the animations just being a nice benefit. I have ran Hyprland both with and without them, and it really doesn’t change anything for me. In fact, they are so unimportant to me that I had to check if I had them activated right now to see if I use them, and yet when I do occasionally notice them, I enjoy the fluidity that they create. I have also recently decided to “upgrade” my setup a bit and I changed the “Brightness:”, “Mem:”, “CPU:” and other text indicators, to icons, and habe mande the bar rounded and floating, and it looks so much better. While I was at it, I wanted to changed the Wayland icon, which was a bit blurry, to an Arch icon, and prepared a config with a NixOS icon, as I plan on switching to NixOS full time eventually.
If there is anything else you are interested in or have questions about, feel free to ask.
A bit late to the party, but especially for an older machine I’ll take Openbox any day. I still have some low range 2015 laptops running just fine where something like KDE would choke them up completely.
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