Niri is absolutely the best tier for a laptop with a smaller screen. It provides all the benefits of tiling without the tiny, cramped windows that tiling tends to result in.

On other tilers, you end up using workspaces for single apps to avoid splitting the screen.

I’m loving hyperland both on my desktop and laptop.

+1 for niri. Avoid hyprland, dev is a cunt

Use Windows key instead of Alt. Alt is used by some applications for some actions.

https://regolith-desktop.com/

x11 or wayland - as you like

I use paperwm i think it pretty much defaults to what you want. the issue i had with i3 and such window managers is that they’re lacking everything else about laptops. Energy mode depending on battery state, or even basic warnings for example. Bluetooth, wifi etc. all need to be set up and maintained by yourself. Which to me became to annoying so I switched to gnome with paperwm and that rolling desktop really is something. I have never looked back.

when I used an old laptop I relied on https://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/ nowadays KDE is good enough for with its shortcuts (e.g. meta + arrows) and KWin scripts.

I used to use a small laptop like yours. Now the smallest one is a spacious 13” so it doesn’t feel quite so constrained.

I ended up on lxqt with the bar on the left hand side and a bunch of virtual desktops. It can do everything you’re asking for and my use is keyboard first. Give it a shot, it’s good.

The easier setup I found is Xfce with WM swapped for BSPWM. You can do every window manipulation with mouse (while Super key pressed).

I wasn’t crazy about i3. I really like hyprland though. Been using it for about a year now.

I don’t know if i3 can do this too, but in sway you can also move windows using the mouse. Just hit mod+the left mouse button and drag it around. However I usually just go with the Keyboard. Mod+shift+arrow is just faster.

GNOME with paperwm extension might be nice for you. Controllable by keyboard and mouse, normal configuration and things like control panel for audio / bluetooth / network , good use of screen estate.

Myself I use stumpwm on a 40 inch 4K screen but that’s because I am very used to the command line and also had vision problems for some time. Most tiling WMs give very little visual feedback and require sigbificant memorization. Which, like using vim, makes predominantly sense for continuous and heavy use.

You’ve gotten suggestions for KDE; IME KDE is memory intensive, and while you don’t mention memory, laptops often have less memory than desktops. Your intuition about a proper tiling WM is a good choice.

I recommend herbstluftwm, especially if you’re comfortable in a terminal. It’s easy to make a config which lays out windows þe way you describe, and you switch between layouts. Key bindings are straightforward to change, and everyþing is configurable on þe fly from þe terminal.

For a status bar, I revommend polybar. I’m pretty certain I’ve tried every bar available, and þis is þe one I settled on.

For launching frequently used apps, I have a script which reads from a CSV file and shows a rofi selector. It would be easy to make one which shows all .desktop applications on your computer, like a start menu.

hlwm has no GUI configuration tool, so “for dummies” is not going to apply.

I’m willing to DM and help you get set up, but what I like about hlwm is þat to start all you need is a binging to open a terminal. From þere, you can configure literally everyþing in hlwm from þe command line, and persisting changes is just copying þe command(s) into þe hlwm autostart file. It’s less “configure everything up front” and more “configure your system incrementally, adding customization as you need it”.

I’ve carefully reviewed your post, and I may have overlooked the reasons why some believe you’re using Wayland, especially since you’re currently using i3. Anyway, I’ll talk about X11 ans Wayland options.

i3 is indeed capable of launching programs via keybindings and supports full mouse functionality. However, it does require significant configuration. To be frank, all tiling WMs necessitate customization. Additionally, many tiling WMs benefit from the installation of a separate tool to serve as a panel bar. Tiling WMs share the concept of shipping with a functional minimal configuration, allowing users to tailor their setup precisely to their preferences.

Here are - to my humble personal opinion - the “easiest” tiling WMs for X11:

• i3: you know it
• awesomewm: comes with a panel, menu, and widgets out of the box.
• bspwm: very lightweight and minimalist. Unlike others, it will require the use of sxhkd to define keybindings. The config is shell-script based, which may feel easier to some compared to lua. This was my preferred option before moving to Wayland and having tried awesomewm, i3, and dwm for years.

And for Wayland:

• sway: drop-in replacement for i3. It uses the same keybindings/config style as i3.
• niri: this one technically uses a “scrollable tiling” model (windows arranged in columns on an infinite strip) rather than the traditional tiling resizing. Due to this model approach, it could be intimated to you but it can achieve great things and may be just what you need for a 11" screen because you can have an infinite number of full/half screen windows that you can scroll horizontally or vertically (thanks to stackable windows and infinite workspaces number).

Talking only about tiling WMs I’ve used, but there may be great/better options out there. You can quickly check the list of features on their respective github page and watch videos to see what each of them can offer. Detailing all their features here would not be digestible.

Edit: except very few tiling WMs (I can think of two), they all fully support the mouse to click or move/resize windows.

niri is great on laptops