Out of the box, most non-tiling managers and desktop environments such as XFCE/Xubuntu does not have tiling support.

A notable exception in Compiz which can be used with the majority of Desktop environments such as Xubuntu/Unity but not Gnome-Shell.

Specifically for Xubuntu, to get mouse tiling support you will need to either compile or install a modified window manager such as this Q&A:

Automatically size windows using Xfce like in gnome

To get keyboard tiling support without compiz and a non-tiling window manager, you will need to be more inventive and control the window position and sizing yourself - this answer gives you this solution.

However, for the best tiling support you should use a dedicated tiling-window manager such as Awesome.

Keyboard Tiling

A basic python script on launchpad allows you to control windows such as moving them to the left or right.

I've slightly modified this to work with XFCE/Xubuntu and to allow you to install in either 11.10 or 12.04. This can easily be tailored for other DEs such as unity-2d

Create keyboard shortcuts - an example is below:

You call the script stiler.py with the following parameters:

• left - tile the current window to the left side of the screen.


• right - tile the current window to the right side of the screen.


• vertical - tile all windows vertically


• horizontal - tile all windows horizontally


• cycle - tile windows in a cyclical manner and rotate between those windows


• prev - move the focus to the previous window


• next - move the focus to the next window


• maximize - maximise the current window

Some examples:

cycle windows

tile vertically

to install

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/xfwm4

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install stiler