A Peek At My i3WM Workflow - Why I Love i3WM

Today I take you through a little of why I love i3wm so much.
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[@keikogaming]

Exactly what I needed to finally make my switch to i3wm. Thanks!

[@russellrussell5495]

My only 'complaint' since switching a month ago is that there's so little to fight with. I spent months and months getting awesome as I like. i3 is so simple I got it all up and running in a couple of days.

[@b3nsh4]

Nice video and amazing setup!

[@itsfish8672]

Nice vid Matt

[@Bruces-Eclectic-World]

Awesome that is working out for you! I bet TFL is jumping up and down... LOL Would like to see where you at in a few weeks with i3. You sound like your in a good place with it. LLAP 🖖

[@benny982]

I like your video's Matt . The way you think about linux , i see i lot off my self in it . And i like your I3 .

[@DimitrisChr]

I love the idea of tiling window managers but they need a lot of config to make them look nice for me and have QoL features that I am used to in normal desktops (lock screen after sleep, keyring auth, clipboard to name a few)

[@russellrussell5495]

i3 is actually a doddle and there's actually little to tweak. I've just set mine up with lxpanel as a systray. I'm on mx-linux and it works like a dream. You could also give Regolith a try which is a Ubuntu-based distro all ready to go.

[@OneCurtis]

That's kind of the point. Spending time to make it your own, and to suit your workflow. You trade a short term investment of time for longer term productivity. You can however cut the time it takes to configure the services associated with a desktop environment by using something like dex. In addition to the recommendations above, check out Endeavour OS' i3 config on github for a working example with annotations. It's a very useful starting point.

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

If you do something like leave the panels, trays, and widgets out of them -- they all look the same. I mean, even floating window managers had looked the same as a twm on floating mode. Unless you use rounded corners or are on Wayland, there's no real visual distinction between either. Vanilla i3 without gaps has a title bar for the windows, but that's literally it if you leave out everything else. I think its better that way and gives tiling window managers a future proof design, aside from the multihead-optimized workflow.

[@redrebel__]

lol looks like awesome multicolor theme. i switched to awesomeWM arcoB edition, i just can't do without the way workspaces are easy to switch. on a laptop this is amazing. best thing i've ever found. recommend for single monitor use

[@FrasSmith]

There's a python script called "autotiling" (I think) that automates the window splitting in i3 so that it works more like bspwm.

[@russellrussell5495]

"I'm loving i3" Me too. Btw, I find exec xfce4-terminal --drop-down works beautifully with i3. Tilda was a nightmare and full of bugs for me.

[@phonewithoutquestion80]

Neat little setup, would you say this is a long term commitment down the road? TWMs are like having a flavor of beer for a particular season, but maybe there's one you come back to just for the greatness it afforded...

[@TheLinuxCast]

I'll be here for a while. I do tend to float in and out of several different ones, but I'm really liking i3 at the moment.

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

Long life to i3wm!

[@thingsiplay]

i3wm was my first (a year ago) tiling window manager I used for a few weeks. I don't like the manual tiling and back then I couldn't make automatic tiling work correctly.

[@uima_]

first time hear about sxhkd, thank you let me know!

[@glidersuzuki5572]

Hey matt, there's a scratchpad script in i3 subreddit which is very well suited for this

[@_david_aaron]

I’m curious, both for the sake of getting inspiration for my own setup, and also just general curiosity about a 20-workspace workflow: what do you use your 20 workspaces for? What is your setup?

[@nathanruben3372]

I am using mod function keys to access workspaces over 10. I am using 22 workspaces. Using function key saves a stroke and provides 12 additional workspace.

[@torsten.breswald]

in terms of workflow, if you set up a rule to open a certain application in a floating window at position x,y, how does that differ from such a so called scratchpad? i ask because that's something you can do in i3 or other window managers any time i think me personally i still prefer hlwm over i3

[@jesse7631]

Matt, I'm sure you've mentioned it in some of your other videos, but what Linux distribution would you recommend if moving over to i3? I'm currently running vanilla Arch Linux with GNOME, but would like to install i3 on it. Or would you recommend a different distro?

[@TheLinuxCast]

If you're planning on setting it up yourself or using someone else's dots, Arch is fine. It will let you easily install i3-gaps. If you run a Debian/Ubuntu based distro, i3-gaps will need to be built from scratch. If you're already familiar with the peculiarities of Arch, I'd stick there and just sudo pacman -S i3gaps i3status dmenu and give it a go from there.

[@jesse7631]

@@TheLinuxCast Good deal; thank you for the quick reply!

[@BetaMaster2]

can someone explain the point of tiling window managers, i thought we moved on from windows 1.01

[@moister3727]

Really cool, what bar do you use?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Polybar

[@nathanruben3372]

how can I create a conditional include statement in i3 config file

[@swastikacharyya]

Great video matt 🌝❤️ can we be blessed with your dots ?

[@AcidiFy574]

BTW, just like Axyl_OS ,is there a distro for Floating Window-Managers ???

[@huzitive]

Try something like mabox or archcraft

[@thenextpoetician6328]

The new Arco i3 is much smaller, around 800 lines. Couple of us worked on trimming the useless lines, mostly hash tag blocks and white space. Mine's under 500. No idea why the stacked/tabbed/toggle split is required in your setup. I ditched those functions entirely. Why not assign keybinds for specific apps in the scratchpad? You could also install autotiling from the AUR to get the Fibonacci layout.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Someone just rec'd the autotiling thing. I'm glad that Arco has toned the config down. As for those bindings, IDK why when I removed them i3 wouldn't load. It was awhile ago, so maybe that has been fixed.

[@TheosTechTime]

1:45 u been using ur computer for 4 days?

[@agneaybnair9519]

Hey, I have been watching your video's for sometime now and I have to say you got some pretty amazing wallpapers can you share its source

[@Tux0xFF]

One thing that keeps me from using i3 is when playing any type of video, playback seems like it cuts with lines diagonal or horizontal. It does not happen when using Gnome or KDE, only with i3 and also with xfce, it's like if video quality is degraded in those wm

[@aim__freakz8499]

i loved my endeavorOS with i3 :D it was so fast. unfortunately my laptop broke :(

[@amineneggazi8455]

Its like shifting a 20 speed truck

[@Skaper_]

How to use a terminal emulator as a file manager?

[@bstar777777]

Does anyone use a tiling window manager on a big (36"+) 4k monitor? I couldn't do it because having to deal with so many apps going full screen by default is a huge pain. I do like to tile stuff, but I don't like it as my main workflow no matter how much I think I want to.

[@woozy_deer]

At that point I think it's diminishing returns... I have an ultrawide setup + monitor above and felt i3 just complicated my life more since I have all the space I'd ever need to just leave everything open on startup with space to spare.

[@bstar777777]

@@woozy_deer that's where I am at the moment, it just complicates things too much... especially since I like to play games windowed. My solution has been to use XFCE with aggressive snapping and build my tiled layouts on various workspaces. It's not the fluid keyboard only solution, but it works fine.

[@TheLinuxCast]

It's not easy to configure, but try out a tiling window manger called Herbstluftwm herbstluftwm.org/ This has the ability to set fake monitors. So for example on your widescreen you can set it up to have three monitor zones instead of one. It will spawn clients in each zone just like they were separate monitors.

[@glidersuzuki5572]

@@woozy_deer I think you are better off with float first, float if more than one. On how to achieve that for your twm, you have to Google.

[@eminentqualia5300]

Is that neofetch? It looks super cool

[@TheLinuxCast]

Yup. Config is in my dotfiles (link in the description) if you want them.

[@markmake2252]

Hey any chance you share your i3setup on gitlab? I love it very much!

[@TheLinuxCast]

It’s there. Link in the video description

[@samiralajmovic7298]

What statusbar are you using, i3blocks or something else?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Polybar.

[@samiralajmovic7298]

Thanks, looks great btw!

[@woozy_deer]

I tried it, and tbh just couldn't see how a WM has any benefits if you already have a 3 monitor setup as is my case. I have seen how great it is on a laptop, but remembering the hotkeys to manage content on the 2nd or third screen was extremely frustrating and in 99% of cases windows are already where I want them to be w/o a WM. It seems like diminishing returns to adopt a WM workflow. KDE tiles windows fine to the extent I need it to, can't really see any more productivity gains on a multi-screen setup, why not just configure docs/terminal/vim to always open to the side or better yet on another screen... My hotkey is to look UP or to the right haha

[@Sjoerd1993]

I honestly fail to see any point in laptops either, there you usually want to limit your applications to be full screen or maybe two apps tiled on the sides. Those are things you can do perfectly fine and just as quick with floating window managers. Maybe if you have one single big screen, then I can see merits to this. Or perhaps if you have a 4K screen in your laptop or something?

[@nevoyu]

i3 on gentoo?

[@coffeedude]

Is i3 dynamic like dwm or manual like bspwm?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Manual

[@coffeedude]

@@TheLinuxCast Thanks, I've been getting mixed info on it. I despised the tiling in bspwm, I'm using dwm at the moment but I'm looking for something simpler. I'll try i3 out but I fear I won't like it because of the manual tiling

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@coffeedude There is an auto tiling script that you can use that will make it more like DWM if you want it to be. Otherwise it's completely manual, not a hybrid like bspwm.

[@getblowd407]

Lol to the people with the 'what is *?' questions 😜

[@giulianofrancopalazzi1104]

Check out this KZbin channel called budlabs. It has some very interesting videos about an i3 workflow. I think u will like it. The videos are a bit long, I guess that puts off a lot of ppl

[@giulianofrancopalazzi1104]

Btw the channel has a video about a script called i3run that solves the scratchpad problem too

[@ChaiBronz]

How do you make a 'Why I Love i3" video without mentioning anything about tabbing? ; P

[@TheLinuxCast]

I actually don't use tabs anymore. My first go around I used the crap out of them, but I don't anymore. Kinda of makes me sad.

[@dragonballjiujitsu]

I really don't get the whole manager thing. I tried it. It's like a huge step backwards in almost every way. It just complicates things. Dozens of keybindings to setup and remember and for what? Maybe 100mg less RAM usage? Honestly I think Its simply for people who like to spend the majority of their time setting up their computer and feel smarter than other ppl because they waste their time with it. But to each their own. I feel the same about arch

[@TheLinuxCast]

It's about workflow. If you're a keyboard centric user, then a WM makes sense. If you're not, then it doesn't. It is really as simple as that. Using a WM isn't really about less resources, and anyone who says it's all about that is deluding themselves.

[@dragonballjiujitsu]

@@TheLinuxCast Makes sense. Just use gnome bro. ;) *giggle*

[@russellrussell5495]

@@dragonballjiujitsu Actually, I've got to disagree with Matt a little here. I'm not specifically keyboard centric at all but my workflow works perfectly with one tiled window on the left of my screen (my video conference window via Chrome) and 5 or 6 'stacked' windows which I need to flick through on the right (open office, Okular, file manager). I used to have to continually click through the window tabs on the panel, drag them into place, lose them is a mess of floating windows... the stacking (or tabbed) function on i3 keeps everything really neat and much more easily accessible - even with a click of the mouse.

[@dragonballjiujitsu]

@Terminalforlife (LL) When you say "productivity" what exactly do you mean? What can you do faster or better with i3 or any wm that someone couldn't do just as fast in a full on DE?

[@dragonballjiujitsu]

@Terminalforlife (LL) yea...not worth it. I stand by what I said.

[@christophersoda8204]

I watched, then I switched to i3.

[@milohoffman274]

A: Which is better DWM or i3. A: qtile

[@spaceguybob]

In terms of comparing tiling widow managers Yes buttered bread is better than basic bread, but that the end of they their both bread and it doesn't matter when you make a sandwich

[@woozy_deer]

I like that analogy lol, if i3 is the bread then tmux is the MEAT

[@spaceguybob]

@@woozy_deer yeah lol. I thought it was pretty good

[@livb4139]

Are you still using i3?

[@TheLinuxCast]

I have it installed, but I've been using qtile for the last few months

[@vehementham]

WHAT IS THIS COLOR SCHEME!?

[@vehementham]

Pls tell me, I want to use it.

[@TheLinuxCast]

That's i3 with OneDark

[@nathanruben3372]

what is shkd

[@TheLinuxCast]

github.com/baskerville/sxhkd

[@Ironpants57]

For theming, you could try out Xresources. The `set_from_resource` command is pretty cool. Code Example: command i3_variable Xresource_variable set_from_resource $c-background background

[@Ironpants57]

It is dependent on X.. So, no wayland support and no way to get this working for SwayWM.. Really wish you source a file for all color variables.. I like Qtile's method how it handles it. But thats the strength of using a full coding language for Qtile's configuration file.

[@lqlarry]

2nd Try. Great Video Have you tried tdrop? It's pretty cusomizable. It's on github and probably on AUR.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I haven't. I've heard of it, but never tried it.

[@codychan4992]

I use tdrop only for dropdown terminal kitty/alacritty before and after using i3