i3 Window Manager - A Desktop Environment For Prodigies Only?!?
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- In this video we take a look at i3wm and the power and productivity that comes with this powerful windows manager that can be used as a desktop environment. We're using Manjaro i3 and recommend using Manjaro or Archmerge as they have the best default configuration.
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Thank you SO MUCH for running a game in i3!
I've been thinking of going i3. I didn't know how that would work. I've played games in Ubuntu w/compiz cube and that worked pretty awesome. I feel like i3 is the more mature, more high-efficiency orientation of the desktop I was originally attracted to.
I'm on vanilla Arch w/KDE and something similar to what I had in Ubuntu, just all in KDE. Anyway.... thanks for demonstrating that gaming with a TWM is no problem.
Excellent, glad this video helped. I think i3 games brilliantly and you're going to love it.
Arch is a great OS to run i3 on. Do try it. I love it and maybe you will too!
I'm also loving i3. I was too intimidated to use it for a while, but after being annoyed with gnome, I wanted something truly minimal, and gave it a shot. I found it surprisingly intuitive and easy. After a day or two, I had no problem using it as my primary "Desktop Environment" for most things. Also, I absolutely LOVE dmenu. Now I can easily figure out what all of the programs on my system are really called!
I love the point you made about learning the software. Using this has really helped fill in some gaps in my Linux knowledge. It's really a great thing to learn and you get to be more productive while you're at it.
Haha, yeah. Honestly, this is what I love about things like i3: they expose how the computer actually works. I think that we do everyone a dis-service by going too far with the "hide and abstract everything" approach to front-end development / user experience design that has become so common-place. I realize that some people simply don't care about computers and just use them as appliances with very narrow utility, but people in general aren't nearly as stupid as developers like to think; it's very much a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you hide and abstract a component from the user, that user won't learn or know anything about it naturally, and therefore won't benefit from the knowledge. But if you make it visible, most people can figure it out. Nautilus, for instance, is a great example of this: file paths aren't shown in ascii strings, but rather in clickable boxes. And folders like the user's home aren't displayed as their actual name, but instead, simply "Home." If I. as a new user, needed a file path, how would I get it? Well, I'd have to press "Ctrl + L", but I didn't know that until 7 months after I started using Linux, and it was a constant pain in the behind to copy / paste paths until I learned that. Now, imagine if I were less experienced with computers: I'd never benefit from the knowledge that "oh, hey, I can copy paste this location in my file manager just like I do in my web-browser!" -- nope, instead, it'd just forever be a mystery where the hell I am on my system, and how my file system works, unless I dived into the terminal.
I love dmenu as well. Fast and straight forward!
@@lukedupont6238 i'm not the only one who says this... there are at least two of us, haha. you're spot on though
How is it when browsing on the Internet?
I usually have a dozens of tabs open in Firefox and i also have a dozens of firefox windows open in the same virtual work space and i also use additional work spacecs to have more Firefox window open.
For websites i also do have to use constantly the mouse.
Is that manageable with i3?
What made me fall in love with i3 is that of all the window managers that offer multiple virtual screens, it's the one in which this feature is the most naturally implemented. After a while you don't even think about them as virtual screens, just as normal ways to manage and group your windows.
rationalityfirst Yes! You are absolutely right. I never got the hang of using multiple workspaces in GUI heavy DEs like Unity or KDE. It just felt kind of cumbersome. But with i3, it all feels so natural.
I think that going from a regular DE to something that behaves so differently like a twm really forces you to rethink how you want to multi-task.
I have been using i3 for less than 24 hours (my first WM-only setup) and I already can't live without it.
It will be tough going to work tomorrow on a Win 10 PC and being forced to use its DE and confusing multi-workspace Taskbar behavior for multi-tasking. Sigh.
PS: using i3 makes me feel like one of those movie super hackers lol.
This is definitely something I want to research! I am a die-hard WindowMaker fan (also not a Desktop Manager, just a window manager) with 30+ workspaces. The only downside is it doesn't understand multiple displays -- only supports mirroring. I could probably trim my workspaces down to about 20 or so...
Thanks. This is a really nice discussion. I run Arch with gnome. To me the decision was always gnome or KDE, and they were kind of the same thing done differently - a floating window WM. So that choice mostly elicited a shrug from me. But this week I heard about i3. To say I'm intrigued is an understatement!
You've inspired me to get back into i3 on my Solus machine, thanks for showing some gaming!
Glad to hear it! =)
Excellent video. When I'm in i3, I love it. I find it very easy to use. Learning the config file and setting it up is not all that hard. Archmerge makes it so easy because it comes with openbox, xfce, and i3. Amazing!!
Pop OS introduced me to window tiling when I switched to Linux 8 months or so ago. I recently installed I3 alongside pop_shell and have been slowly configuring it and learning keyboard shortcuts in my spare time. Already seeing the possibilities.
Great introduction of i3. My first Window Manager was Openbox. My first Tiling Window Manager was i3 and loving it. I even had to try out other Tiling Window Managers and I kept going back to i3. Even the others where good, but not as good as i3. And there were bspwm and herbstluftwm. My Dynamic Window Managers were dwm and FrankenWM. But I leaning more towards a Stacking Window Manager call Pekwm which is better then I other Stacking Window Managers I try out which was Openbox my first one and JWM. But Pekwm seem to be my favorite one now. Everybody should try out the many Windows Managers out there. They are fun to use over a GUI DE.
Hey Ryan! How cool that you made this awesome video on Manjaro-i3. Thank you! Cheers. Bernhard :)
You've continued to do amazing work at Manjaro. It's even cooler to know you've seen the video =) really appreciate all the touches that make this such an amazing user experience. Well done.
manjaro is love. I'm a long time Manjaro cinnamon thinking about switching over to i3 lately. Love the work you guys do over there.
I3 with a terminal open... 100% transparentcy and no borders always has a soft place in my heart... fly workspace u got there
I use this because of the productivity and how it's like half feather-weight. basically revived my potato laptop.
As much as I love my keyboard shortcuts, what really won me over about i3 was the multi-monitor handling, although I tweaked it to have workspaces 1-8 mapped to the primary display and 9 and 10 for the external, because it messes with my head if they're not in some kind of numerical order.
With a standard desktop environment, multiple workspaces with two monitors are basically pointless. Switching from workspace 1 to 2 for example will switch both displays. If you launch an application in most environments, there's no predicting where it shows up. Sometimes it's where your cursor is. Other times it's whichever monitor has the most free screen space. Sometimes I'd make a video fullscreen in Firefox and it fullscreened it in the other display, which nearly made me pull my hair out.
i3wm solves all of this. I know where everything will launch and I can move it around freely. And if something like a game doesn't handle fullscreening properly? Put it in windowed mode, set it to your screen size, and mod+f. You just made it fullscreen and put it exactly where you want it. It's a total breath of fresh air.
Well said, those are some of the reasons I just absolutely love i3wm. The flexibility is incredible.
I just started with i3 recently and I'm having fun learning how to use it. It really isn't very difficult to get started and just start a browser or terminal or play on steam. I installed Manjaro i3 as well and all the main key bindings are in the conky on the desktop so it's easy to just get started right away.
Love it and glad you’re enjoying i3
I got rid of the conky as soon as I touched the config file, don't know, hate things on the wallpaper XD
I tried 3 or 4 different tiling wm's and i3 was the easiest for me to configure and use. And I like XFCE and Gnome, but I keep finding myself trying to treat them like a tiling wm, so I keep going back to i3. So I'm on i3-gaps on Ubuntu right now. And for anything I don't have on a shortcut key, I can get via Rofi. And the config file gives you a lot of flexibility. And you're not stuck with just the 'super' key; one thing I do is first set up a list of variables for keys:
set $win Mod4
set $alt Mod1
set $app Mod1+Mod4
set $ctl Control
set $print Print
set $tab Tab
set $del Delete
set $end End
set $volup XF86AudioRaiseVolume
set $voldn XF86AudioLowerVolume
set $volmute XF86AudioMute
Hello DASGeek ! In less than half a day you can learn the vast majority of the actions you are going to execute in i3wm.
Even DasGregor who was tired of having so many updates with KDE Plasma decided to go i3. He installed it in LFS too !
So nobody is too old to get it working !
By the way could you do a video on setting Jack up ? Or could you ask Skrappejaw to do one ? Perhaps even a mini series on it ?
Best regards,
Serge
Plan on doing some work with Skrapp on Jack. He taught me how to set it up so plan on doing those videos over on his channel.
I pretty much have the same attitude about windows tiling managers as Zeb. However, I have heard you speak about i3 a number of times as well as comments and videos by DistroTube.. So...I took out the old Lenovo laptop and went with ArcoLinux. You might say I've taken the challenge. Thanks for arousing my curiosity. Catch you later on the next Destination Linux.
Good intro. Xfce has built-in tiing. I installed i3wm alongside Mint 19.2 Cinnamon. Erik Dubois jump started me.
Also, it's bindsymbol.
Even windows has built in tiling nowadays, does change the fact that xfce and windows even are both floating window managers and the implementation is way different
thanks after working around 30 years with windows (from 3.11) I wished all the time there would be a way to just have like DOS but still be able to open programs with GUI, but without an, most of the time, not need and annoying DE since nearly everything is faster with shortcuts and to work direkt on a command line.. this is the final reason for me to move :)
Nice vid man, congrats! How did you apply this cursor theme on your mouse pointer? It seems your window have something customized as well, not sure.
I've enjoyed using i3. I had Manjaro on a laptop and archmerge on a desktop pc and i learned a lot from using both. I incorporated some things I learned from the Manjaro config file over to archmerge and altered my configs according to my taste. I have been off of i3 for a few weeks though as I am a registered distro hopper. LOL. I will probably reinstall i3 on top of my archmerge cinnamon. Erik makes things easy to install with his github files.
Erik is awesome and incredibly talented. If it wasn't for Archmerge I don't think I would have seen the value in i3wm. Even as a registered distro hopper (cracked me up) myself, I found myself wanting to get back to i3 after a recent hop. Its addictive.
Yes it is addictive. I will have to relearn the keyboard commands again as I have forgotten most of them already. LOL
Nice short introduction! I used it a few months, but had some problems with the keepass autotype feature. Besides that, great lightweight WM.
Thank you!
Is there any option for changing colours? How to use browsers? How to shift to another app in a same desktop ? Can you pls teach more?
This is a great demonstration! I've been wanting to see this in action for 10+ minutes.
A question to i3 users, though: what do you use it with that makes it more productive? Do you see a tiling wm like this being a benefit to some users or all users? Who would most benefit from this?
Nice video, thanks!
i3wm on Arch Linux and never going back to a floating window manager.
tru dat, tho i use manjaro + i3wm
I run Arch with gnome and have never really thought too much about the WM. What I'm seeing of i3 is starting to change that.
@@nilesoien4439 i3 is great like really! also have u tried xfce with i3wm?
resource usage will be like 0.000000001% 😂
@@dharmang That's interesting...
i3 has its own learning curve. Maybe someday, but not yet.
"Prodigies" Yeah, sure let's go with that. Nice wm tho.
Hello, Linux Mint 20 alpha male here. Here is why linux mint running xfce is just as good as i3 if not better. 1. I can have programs open on start up, just like i3. 2. I can tile my windows just like in i3 by setting a simple key bind in the options. 3. linux mint has workspaces. Conclusion, i3 is for people who want to be able to say "i3 is NOT for your average linux user..." in youtube videos like this. i3 sucks, stay alpha mint users. i3 is NOT difficult, it is TIME CONSUMING, there is a difference. Thanks for listening to my TED talk!
Exelent video. And, what do you think about awesome wm?
First off, I have limited patience. But an interesting first look, very nice.
I know i3 is a light-weight desktop environment, which is fast. But it's been years since I messed with it.
So, how does i3 Windows Manager work for gaming, aside from Rocket League?
And what other advantages have you found while gaming? Such as, is i3 easier to ALT+TAB out of games, etc?
I've played Rust, Rocket League, and Hollow Knight so far in i3. Way too much Rust. The ability to manipulate Discord and other programs while in a game is the main advantage and being able to switch monitors with a simple key combo is amazing. There is no minimizing of windows so you simply hit your super key and workspace and it will move your focus to a different workspace and the game stays up. If the game is on the same monitor as the workspace it simply stays fullscreen in the background until you switch back.
Hmm.... that could be a unique advantage. Such as using OBS in another workspace for recording. Which could also be a great idea for another video. :)
Oh btw....works well for steam, and also makes tmux ---- whatever. I have literally stopped using tmux because of i3.
I love tmux except its a pain in the ass to scroll with my mouse, definitely gonna try this out
Now this is what hacking _actually_ should look like in a movie! What a sexy layout! And it's fast too!
Great video. I have a question. I just installed this on my Dell XPS 13 which has a very righ resolution screen. Normally this is not a problem because the text is so sharp it is easy for me to read the text. On i3 the text at the very bottom of the screen and the very top are incredibly small. the rest of the text within the screen is fine. How does one adjust this?
Thank you.
That’s interesting, I would normally say scaling but if the top is different than the bottom that seems weird. This thread discusses scaling it maybe worth trying. unix.stackexchange.com/questions/267885/how-do-i-scale-i3-window-manager-for-my-hidpi-display
You can change the font type and the size using the config file, for both the bar at the bottom and the warning bar at the top.
I like i3 gaps so far , but I get frustrated with screen tearning , even with Compton it does nothing . Theres artifacting when windows stack vertically instead of horizontally where the background would turn into artifacts . Volume icon applet barley works and when it does it barley does. It's great when I'm writing code for spring boot or writing ionic code cause things can be scaled accurately and quickly in terms of app realestate .
I've already riced it and made all the shortcuts and installed rofi which is a game changer .
Hi Dasgeek, I don't whether this is the appropriate question. But I thought its worth a try. I have an Alienware 17 r5 with Nvidia GTX 1070. Now I wanted to know does manjaro supports Nvidia. if you have one, did your installation (Nvidia graphic) go smooth? The intention behind asking this is, I always end up killing my desktop whenever I install ubuntu with Nvidia.
Hi James, this is a great question. Nvidia does support Linux but with their proprietary drivers (same ones you would install in Windows basically) where as AMD open sourced their drivers so it works right on boot. So to mitigate this Manjaro has an option when you boot to USB to choose Non-Free Drivers as an option Once you do this it basically loads the proprietary driver set. If you're new to Linux I would recommend going with something a little more user friendly like an Ubuntu. There you would boot like normal but after install go to Additional Drivers in the menu and select the Nvidia driver. It will install them for you and you'll be on your way.
I can do the same on DEs, but with more flexibility on the windows size. i3 makes no sense to me, even after trying to like it. It seems like a lost of productivity more than a gain. Also I tend to hate those tiny little unusable windows. Give me full screen or go home.
Basic configuring is easy. Its the ricing/eyecandy that is hard for me
But it's so worth it.
I like i3 but I don't use it anymore. There are few reasons for that:
1) I didn't like editing config files manually, it was ok, but not fun for me, I prefer GUI and more "discover what that option does" approach rather than "google, read, open few windows and copy, paste or modify text files".
2) i3 has problems with screen tearing
3) i3 is a bit too rigid, I like to go to extremes with customization and i3 can't go so far
4) I'm not a sysadmin or IT specialist, so I don't use terminal too often and I think that i3 is made for workflow with terminal, in that regard it's brilliant!
On the other side, I loved clarity, intuitiveness, configurability, minimalism, and order of i3. It set boundaries and enforces to work in a very orderly, clean way - everything has its own place. i3 shortcuts are very intuitive and easy to learn.
So I can understand your excitement and fondness toward i3 (but not xfce - I don't like it and won't ever like it). Isn't it time to move to sway? Is it sway usable or not there yet?
What do you use today?
Well, the good think is that you have xfce as a DE and use I3 to manage the windows, you can check the archwiki page for more info.
@Sir Meme He never mentioned wanting to be a programmer.
QTile for me is cool!
Is that game running on window mode? Or you can move it even if is fullscreen ?
You can move it either way
Bloody hell. It’s almost as if wm and wm2 didn’t exist 25 YEARS AGO.
How do you do to move a workspace to another screen/monitor ?
You can set it to the key combo you want but default I believe is Super + Shift + Arrow key
This is just the old ass "dumb terminal" days with some screen splitting. Ass backwards in terms of technology.
(Been using Linux regularly since early RedHat days)
I know we nerds love looking nerdy and having things "our way" but the #1 problem with Linux adoption is the complexity. If we dumbed the shit out of the thing and made it accessible to the wannanerds, we'd have half a fighting chance.
Also; Repeatedly kicking nVidia in the reproduction-bits until they cough up open source drivers wouldn't hurt either.
Are there any wm for osx?
hello everybody actually I have one problem with Arch Linux with I3wm configuration ; I don't know how to manage WiFi networks , I tried nm-applet and netctl but don't know what's wrong in this ; please suggest me if you have any ideas . Thank You !!
you need the tray icon to do some things :)
thanks
Jesus fuckin christ I almost blew my brains out. Had to watch at 1.5x speed. Good info.
Heh. Imagine having to go through a config file and having to memorize endless key combinations before you can even open your tools and start working.
Then imagine you go an call that productivity...
Do you think it's better than wmii?
I've never used wmii so I can't really say if its better. I think it's what meets your workflow the best and what you get use to configuring. Give i3 a try and see if you like it.
I run i3 on a core i3 in a BMW i3
Is your config file available on github ?
I used Eric Dubois template here github.com/erikdubois/Archi3 with some slight tweaks but this is the base.
Can you add the link in the description ? It would be much easier for most people to find it instead of searching through the comments !!!
Done!
Cool thnx !!!
where can i get that wallpaper
fgelinas.com/uncategorized/foggy-lake-wallpaper/ i rly needed that wallpaper too, so i went to search it and found it ^^
Xmonad is for prodigies, I3 is for starters on the WM world.
Not even a little but glad you like Xmonad, it's pretty solid.
@@dasgeek don't get me wrong, I use both and I like them both the same but in my experience Xmonad requires more skill, some basic programming knowledge, Haskell is not for beginners in my personal opinion.
Not bad Ryan. But as much as I like keyboard commands, i3 is more than us old guys can remember I think. LOL Interesting setup though!
Ha! Never too late to learn =)> you could always try it in a virtual machine.
We aren't in that smart user group like those i3 or xfce users. Lol
lol
I wanted to chime in here in regards to age and computers:
Not only is it never too late to learn, but the older you are, the more you grew up with computers.
My grandfather was an electrical engineer, born in the early 20s. Most of his career after he got out of the Navy was spent at Seiko Instruments. I'm not exactly young myself, depending on who you ask. (mid 30s)
The person who has taught me the most about computers is a retired EE in his 50s. If my grandad were alive today he'd be almost 90, and I guarantee he wouldn't be complaining about being too old to learn something about computers.
Sorry if that seemed too emotional. The TL;DR is; you're never too old to learn. In fact the day you decide to stop learning is the day you start dying. Live by that now, or wait until it's too late and wish you heeded that advice sooner.
@Facey Neck. Thank you for your contribution to this discussion. Actually my comment to Ryan was a bit of sarcastic humor which I believe he got. As a young boy I found myself tearing apart transistor radios, tape cassette players, and such, then Frankensteining something together. I have always loved computers ever since my first one in the 90's. When a life changing medical procedure in 2015 altered my future @54, I decided to immerse myself deeper into computers. After building one for myself in 2013, it then became a business rather than just a hobby. I also firmly believe you are never to old to learn new things. My father early last year bought a used iPad at 84 years old wanting the ability to connect his great-grandchildren. I never thought I would see that day. Technology can be a love / hate relationship. That is how it is with Linux vs Windows vs OSX. Please never feel you shouldn't share an opinion, that's what makes this fun and interesting. I know Ryan would agree!
Floating windows in i3
Me: That's illeagle
whats the name of the game at end?
karkonoszek Rocket League
XUbuntu all the way for me. Rocco says he thinks XUbuntu is a really good environment if only it ran on his hardware.
Love Xubuntu, nothing wrong with that choice. Xfce is incredible.
Does this work with Windows 10?
you probably can if you do some hacky workaround with WSL, but it's only actually supported in linux
Gotta be the king of EMACS and VI to use i3
I hate emacs and vi with a passion , I'd rather use micro any day at least the shortcuts make sense there
Similak Child I use VS Code and Pycharm on i3 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@SimonWoodburyForget they're non intuitive as simple as that .
@@SimonWoodburyForget I'm happy that you found value in it , I can't really. I just need something that works out the box with familiar setup. I don't really want to be hindered by the interface I'm working on. I'd rather put my efforts on focusing on the code
Whats the OS?
Arcolinux
what is 'mod' key?
It’s any key you set in i3 that you would always press with another key to trigger an event. Usually people set the Super key AKA Windows key as their mod key. Example Super key + Enter key opens terminal.
Just wanted to let you know that "some" from the Telegram group does listen to your videos.....
XEmacs?
I3 is the only reason to use Linux over windows 10. 10 alt+tab became really nice in 2018 that it kills the crap that KDE gnome can offer. Xfce..I get why you like it it's a damn fine de if u don't need a lot.
Not it's security, privacy, performance on older systems, it's huge free software catalog or its affinity towards being an end all development environment. But because of a window manager. Haha
I3 is bloat use DWM!
what is ¨superkey¨???
karkonoszek the key on most keyboard with a Windows symbol on it. Also known as Windows key by some.
default i3 manjaro config = suck
i3 sucks. Awesome-wm is better.
Interesting idea I guess. It's still horridly ugly like most DE's (unity, mate, lxde, xfce) and therefore has no future. Deepin DE is the future of a unified, standardized Linux desktop environment.
It’s been around for 9 years and agree it’s for a specific use case - namely coders and server admins but it certainly has a future. In fact, it’s already been ported to Wayland. But it will never be mainstream. I like Deepin but I would put my money on Gnome for unification though I think it should be KDE. Just my 2c.
Yeah it's disgusting. It's only what everyone is running in /unixporn
Eg: www.pinterest.com/pin/506514289335170019/