I Finally Tried Niri, The New Way Of Tiling Linux Users Are Going Crazy About

Niri is a Rust-powered, scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor that arranges windows in an infinite horizontal strip rather than a fixed grid. Unlike traditional tiling WMs like i3 or Sway, opening new windows never causes existing ones to resize — you simply scroll sideways to navigate. It uses a KDL-based config file and requires third-party tools for bars, launchers, and notifications. The review covers installation on Fedora, Arch, and Ubuntu, and introduces DankMaterialShell (DMS) — a complete desktop suite that pairs with Niri to provide dynamic Material You theming, a spotlight launcher, sidebar dashboard, system monitor, and a polished login screen via a single installer command. The author recommends Niri for experienced tiling WM users frustrated by window reshuffling, while noting the setup complexity may deter Linux newcomers.