The Qtile Window Manager: A Python-Powered Tiling Experience

https://tech.stonecharioteer.com/posts/2025/qtile-window-manager/

64 29 8 months ago

tech.stonecharioteer.com

I've been using Qtile for over 4 years now, and I absolutely love it. I'd written a while ago about my updated config, and thought I'd share.

zahlman2• 8 months ago

Additionally, I disagreed with the default way of installing Qtile. As a principle, I never sudo pip install anything. Instead, I asked my friend Karthikeyan Singaravel, who is a Python core developer, and he recommended using the deadsnakes PPA for Ubuntu to install any version of Python that I chose. I tried compiling python 3.10 myself, installing to /opt/qtile/ using configure --prefix /opt/qtile/ during the configuration stage of the source code. However, I admit that using deadsnakes is a far better idea since I could create a virtual environment based on python3.10 into /opt/qtile/ instead. I had to change the owner of the folder to my user account. Note that I could store the virtual environment in my home folder and just use that, but I wanted to isolate this outside of my home folder.

Qtile doesn't appear to be tied to a specific Python version. Could you not have made a virtual environment based off the system Python? For that matter, could you not have made a virtual environment from a local compiled-from-source Python? (I do that all the time, because I'm interested in testing against specific Python versions and comparing their performance characteristics.)

Then, I changed the owner of the folder to my regular user account.
Then, it was time to install qtile.
I created /usr/share/xsessions/qtile.desktop and filled it with the following:

Doesn't this require the environment to be owned by root? Doesn't it make more sense to leave things that are in /opt as root-owned anyway? (Or at least, change them back after running the installation as an unprivileged user.)

After this, I logged out of my previous window manager and switched to the new entry for Qtile.

Will any random greeter program just naturally pick up the contents of /usr/share/xsessions, then?

Qtile’s config file rests at ~/.config/qtile/config.py

So does it just ignore all your other dotfiles? Can I safely just try this out regardless of my usual WM/DE choices?

stonecharioteer7• 8 months ago

Doesn't this require the environment to be owned by root? Doesn't it make more sense to leave things that are in /opt as root-owned anyway? (Or at least, change them back after running the installation as an unprivileged user.)

I changed the permissions so everyone can run the binary.

You _can_ use a venv. I prefer a dedicated environment for this. I've been using Mise-en-place lately, it's great.

Will any random greeter program just naturally pick up the contents of /usr/share/xsessions, then?

Yep. Your login manager will pick it up.

So does it just ignore all your other dotfiles? Can I safely just try this out regardless of my usual WM/DE choices?

Yeah, you can. It's self-contained. I even setup ansible-based dotfile installation in https://GitHub.com/stonecharioteer/distributed-dotfiles.

While qtile doesn't care about the python version, I do. I've grown wary of environment clobbering, it's an issue that Python has had, one that even Ruby does better than it, I've discovered. I like isolating these, helps debug a lot. Now I have added more shortcuts to my config using Rofi scripts, I can see the Qtile log, access, the dunst notification history and other stuff easily with rofi. Give Qtile a go if you've been looking for a Tiling Window Manager. It's married to the Qtile Bar, though, but the Bar can do almost everything.

kstrauser6• 8 months ago

You _can_ use a venv. I prefer a dedicated environment for this.

A venv is Python’s built-in way to handle dedicated environments. It’s what mise and uv use.

I've grown wary of environment clobbering, it's an issue that Python has had, one that even Ruby does better than it, I've discovered. I like isolating these, helps debug a lot.

That’s a Python virtualenv. It’s had these for many years. I don’t know if there’s even any other way to get the same isolation with Python, short of using a container or something else at the OS level.

clickety_clack• 8 months ago

I use mise with uv, and it works great. https://mise.jdx.dev/mise-cookbook/python.html

tych0• 8 months ago

[disclaimer, maintainer here]

Doesn't this require the environment to be owned by root? Doesn't it make more sense to leave things that are in /opt as root-owned anyway? (Or at least, change them back after running the installation as an unprivileged user.)

No, it doesn't require that, it just means your user-owned binary will be exec'd by root. But if you want the root -> user owned indirection, you can set `Exec=/etc/X11/xinit/Xsession`, which will exec your ~/.xsession as your user, and then you can keep a local install.

Will any random greeter program just naturally pick up the contents of /usr/share/xsessions, then?

Ones that support x11 do, yes.

So does it just ignore all your other dotfiles? Can I safely just try this out regardless of my usual WM/DE choices?

We try to read XDG_* things where relevant, e.g. themes and icons. But generally yes, once you point your xsession at qtile, we only use our config file.

slightwinder• 8 months ago

How is the state of Wayland these days with QTile? I remember some years ago it was somewhat running, but stalling. Did it improve in the meanwhile?

icommentedtoday• 8 months ago

Qtile Dev here (jwijenbergh on GitHub). We just rewrote the Wayland backend in C and will do a new release hopefully this weekend. Feedback welcome!

stonecharioteer7• 8 months ago

OP here.thank you so much for your work on Qtile. It is so underrated, it is really really good and I absolutely love it.

tuhriel• 8 months ago

Uhh nice, gonna check that out. Do rounded corner and transparency work now with wayland? Didn't get it to work before

kstrauser6• 8 months ago

Way back when, I had a little trouble installing Qtile on Ubuntu 10.10 or so, so I wrote up a little guide on how to do it. I think that became part of the official docs somewhere along the way? But anyway, I didn’t think much about it.

I went to PyCon in Santa Clara with a coworker who was being a little full of himself that morning. We were standing in the swag line and idly chatting with people around us. The guy in front of me was saying something, stopped to look at my name tag, and did a double take. “Whoa, you’re that kstrauser? Who wrote the Qtile guide? Wow, thank you so much!” He shook my hand, then we got our swag and went different ways. I don’t recall anyone else ever mentioning it to me, but from my coworker’s POV, we’d talked to about 10 people in a conference of 3,000 and one of them knew of me, so clearly I must be quietly famous or something. He stopped being a know-it-all, at least for the morning.

So thanks, Qtile. You gave me 20 seconds of fame while standing in line once.

dmpayton2• 8 months ago

Oh my god, that was me! I can't believe I just read this on HN. Whenever I'm at a conference (usually PyCon or DjangoCon) and meet someone whose work has benefited me, I try to make a point to thank them.

I ended up getting involved with Qtile for a few years and contributed to the docs, website, and various widgets.

So, thanks again!

kstrauser6• 8 months ago

If you're not saying this to tease me, you've just blown my mind.

So, wow. You're very welcome, and I'm glad you had a good time with the project!

What a bizarrely tiny world sometimes, huh?

Wow.

noobermin• 8 months ago

blast from the past. I moved over from awesome to qtile as I really didn't use lua probably a decade ago (and I still don't) but unfortunately, over the years, I did the boring thing and just stuck with the gnome 3 default installed by whatever distro I use.

Does qtile work on fedora these days? Good to hear wayland support is coming along, I often miss tiling wms.

kataklasm• 8 months ago

Not sure about QTile but I'm using swaywm on Fedora 43, it's a delight to use! I am using a mix of sway and hyprland utensils for everything and I couldn't be happier. Wayland on Fedora is a no-brainer, fixed so many annoyances after moving from X.

pydry• 8 months ago

Looks really nice. It's a shame it isnt quite there with wayland. I'd definitely use it if it were.

stonecharioteer7• 8 months ago

There's a comment by a maintainer here that it's improved on way land. I use xorg though, haven't switched to wayland yet.

caminanteblanco• 8 months ago

I've been using qtile as a replacement for hyprland for a few months now, and I don't have any complaints at all. It's an extremely functional piece of software, and at least for me it seems to be more stable than hyprland was.

stonecharioteer7• 8 months ago

It's so out of the way isn't it? I have to switch to using a Mac for work and I can't get the Aerospace filing window manager to work like Qtile does. It's a shame.

RestartKernel2• 8 months ago

On that note, is there any good window management paradigm on MacOS? Tiling just doesn't seem to work well tacked on compared to full-fledged i3, and MacOS' seperation of applications from their windows makes multi-tasking a giant pain. Windows is miles ahead in this regard, and Linux of course offers options for every paradigm imaginable, so it leaves MacOS feeling particularly mediocre.

imiric• 8 months ago

It's great to see Qtile still going strong. I used it briefly many moons ago, and enjoyed how easy it was to extend, given it is configured with Python. Sadly, I experienced crashes, which soured the experience, and moved on to bspwm, and now niri.

The Qtile Window Manager: A Python-Powered Tiling Experience

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