I switched from i3 to Sway a year ago on my work laptop. I was looking into using Sway (instead of KDE) on my personal laptop too, but have had to drop it as Sway lacks the ability to load color profiles. I calibrate my screens for photo editing with darktable, so this is a hard requirement, so I guess I'll have to go back to i3.
Switching to the i3 window manager
41–50 of 88 posts
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#42I used to use Awesome. And I3 before that. My young adult son would sometimes ask to do something quick on my laptop. Hilarity ensued.
Now I'm a truck driver. Bought a new laptop awhile back. Don't have time to fiddle (drive, eat, sleep) so I left the default Mint desktop.
Right now I'm being unloaded at a distribution center in Alabama. They tell me it will be 5 to 6 hours until they're done. No labor on Labor Day, I guess.
So I'll install Regolith, based on a couple comments here, and see how that goes.
I actually kinda miss fiddling.
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#43> it can feel quite overwhelming as you need to visualize the tree in your head And that's why I don't use a tiling window manager. I prefer to use my brain for actual work, not futzing around with configuration and OS BS. I mean if it takes 3000 lines of code to make your friggin window manager work then you're doing it wrong. I happen to like overlapping windows, it's just natural and free-flowing. I don't mind was…
I3 is perfectly usable with a default config by the way, you are vastly overblowing the situation.
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#44Tiling window managers are great and they are the biggest overall UX difference I miss when using macOS and Windows vs Linux. I've tried many things for both macOS and Windows to get that "i3wm feel" but nothing quite scratches the itch. macOS can get close but sadly requires disabling security features in macOS for deep integration and that is something I don't care to entertain personally. So I make do with macOS's…
For macOS, I use Amethyst, recommended here on HN and works fine without disabling security features. https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst
I use it when I use OS X, but I find it’s not substitute for i3/sway. It’s better than nothing but I still greatly miss a “native” tiling WM when using it.
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#45Big fan of I3. This may sound superficial, but I've moved away from tiling window managers because everything just looks so ugly. There's something to be said for having a window at ~75% full size with drop shadow around it and a bit of your desktop background showing. It's easier on the eyes. I say this with a heavy hand on heart because I was an enthusiastic user and advocate for xmonad and I3 for several years.
I encourage you to browse /r/unixporn [0]. I my opinion, a nicely configured tiling wm can look just as good as a stacking wm. And people on the subreddit are happy to share configs, so you don't have to spend more effort than some copying and pasting. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/
Those /r/unixporn screenshots are as real as a McDonald's burger in an ad.
In both cases it's mostly careful staging to make it appear better than it is in real life (or when you're actually using your computer).
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#46For my new job I had to switch to Ubuntu on my corporate laptop and I installed Regolith ( https://regolith-linux.org/ ) on it which is basically i3 on top of Gnome (was using Awesome WM on Debian before) and so far it is a very pleasant experience 9 month in.
Does Regolith offer an out-of-the-box i3 experience or do you have to tweak it the same ?
AFAIK (and judging by the screenshots) the former
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#47I switched from i3 to Sway a year ago on my work laptop. I was looking into using Sway (instead of KDE) on my personal laptop too, but have had to drop it as Sway lacks the ability to load color profiles. I calibrate my screens for photo editing with darktable, so this is a hard requirement, so I guess I'll have to go back to i3.
I switched to sway last year when I bought a new laptop and had trouble with screen tearing on i3. It’s been working perfectly for me but I also haven’t done anything that needed me to load colour profiles. One thing I do still need to use X for is playing windows games with proton. They run extremely badly under xwayland (but differently badly: some run slowly, some have mouse resolution offset from screen resolution, some don’t accept input at all...)
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#48I used to use Awesome. And I3 before that. My young adult son would sometimes ask to do something quick on my laptop. Hilarity ensued. Now I'm a truck driver. Bought a new laptop awhile back. Don't have time to fiddle (drive, eat, sleep) so I left the default Mint desktop. Right now I'm being unloaded at a distribution center in Alabama. They tell me it will be 5 to 6 hours until they're done. No labor on Labor Day,…
> Now I'm a truck driver. […] I actually kinda miss fiddling.
What did you do before and why did you become a truck driver, if I may ask?
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#49Tiling window managers are great and they are the biggest overall UX difference I miss when using macOS and Windows vs Linux. I've tried many things for both macOS and Windows to get that "i3wm feel" but nothing quite scratches the itch. macOS can get close but sadly requires disabling security features in macOS for deep integration and that is something I don't care to entertain personally. So I make do with macOS's…
You may want to try out the yabai window manager for OS X. It’s the closest thing to i3 I can think of.
Re: Switching to the i3 window manager
#50i3 and its Wayland port sway are the best things that have happened to UX.