"You need to know about i3"
Víctor Adrián
Feb 27
Originally published at lobotuerto.com on Feb 27, 2018
Power users rejoice
If you are a power user, you'll be happy to know that something like i3 (an improved tiling window manager) exists ---I know I was, very.
These are the three videos with which I initiated myself into this new world of productivity.
Of course, it won’t be too easy at the start (or, it might be, depending on your mental model and how you go about things).
But worry not, if i3 is meant for you, it’ll stay with you —or you’ll stay with it— for a long time to come.
Just have a look at least at the first video, you just need to watch the first two minutes of it to see if it's something you'll love for life or not. Dare to have a look? I double dog dare you!
What is i3?
From the official site:
i3 is a tiling window manager, completely written from scratch. The target platforms are GNU/Linux and BSD operating systems, our code is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) under the BSD license. i3 is primarily targeted at advanced users and developers.
Following videos were authored by: bookercodes.
i3wm: Jump Start (1⁄3)
Welcome to this three-part series on the i3 Window Manager. i3 is a sophisticated tiling window manager for Linux. In this tutorial, you’ll learn what i3 is; how to install it; and of course, how to use it. In the second video, you’ll learn how to configure it, too!
i3wm: Configuration (2⁄3)
Welcome to part two of my three-part series on the i3 Window Manager. In what turned out to be my longest screen-cast yet, I’ll show you how to configure various aspects of i3.
i3wm: How To “Rice” Your Desktop (3⁄3)
Welcome to the finale of my series on the i3 Window Manager. In this final screencast, I’ll teach you how to rice your desktop. “What does ‘rice’ mean?”, you might be asking.
‘Rice’ is a word that is commonly used to refer to making visual improvements and customizations on one’s desktop to better suit one’s tastes (source: /r/unixporn).
Resources
Here is a link to other videos and screenshots.
How do I get it?
Ubuntu
You’ll just need to:
sudo apt install i3
Then restart your machine, and select i3 before logging in with your user.
Manjaro Linux i3 Community Edition
Or you could try a Linux distribution that comes with i3 preinstalled.
Have a look in here: Manjaro Community Editions.
Enjoy!
Visit my blog, you might find other interesting stuff over there.
Víctor Adrián
Fullstack Developer — Specializing Generalist — UI Engineering ⚫ Elixir, Phoenix, Javascript, Vue.js, D3, Material Design, HTML, CSS ⚫ Gamedev/VR/ComputerArt hobbyist ⚫ Aspiring Zen Buddhist
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I use i3-gaps. It's a fork because i3 is all about maximizing usage of screen real estate so adding blank space between windows flies in the face of that goal, but the gaps add a lot of visual clarity.
Another interesting project is sway, a drop-in i3 replacement with a Wayland compositor. Unfortunately they don't plan to reproduce the layout save/load functionality of i3 so it'd be a bit difficult for me to make the switch.
I used to be an Ubuntu user and used plain i3, nowadays I've moved to Manjaro i3 Community Edition and it comes with all these goodies:
I switched from i3blocks to polybar a little while back. I use Arch so I have to put everything together myself :D
I bet that was lots of fun, I envy you. :)
My laptop screen isn't large enough for gaps. I'll take all of the screen I can get :P
But on a full desktop setup with a giant monitor, I agree that gaps is the way to go.
Gaps is what sells it for me. That little bit of visual breakup makes it just feel less cluttered
Best tool I've found in years. It's incredibly simple to use actually and makes everything so much faster, my OS became my IDE basically thanks to this window manager, plus it's incredibly lightweight.
Yes, that is fascinating how one can control everything as with the keyboard as if you're actually working inside of an IDE. And when you add Emacs to your daily workflow, your text-editor becomes the OS, which is exactly opposite but equally fascinating. :)
I've been using i3-gaps for about a year and a half now, and it has been absolutely amazing! For me, personally, it changed the definition of multitasking and showed me what true multitasking looked like. I've watched whole movies side-by-side with looking at my peers design something in Figma. I absolutely love i3-gaps :)
I love i3 and all its features, but I don’t like i3bar, so if you are like me, I recommend bumblebee-status as a replacement
I'm happy with i3bar so far, I'll post some screenshots of my current config at /r/unixporn someday or the other.
Also try polybar :)
This changed my user experience for ever Víctor!
Thanks so much for this article.
I'm using i3 for a month since I saw your post and I'll never use a regular interface anymore.
It's so easy to have flow in my work, I've learned so mutch about linux to handle easy taks on terminal, found awesome tools terminal-based and other great stuffs.
This fired up to continue learning shell script to do my tools to automatize tasks and do other things with much more ease.
For the record:
I'm using bumblebee-status, this is another nice status bar to have one.
Great job!
YES! You are welcome! :D
I started using i3wm on April 6th 2017, and well, that day I just felt like someone had given me a precious gift.
The experience was akin to the first time I found about version control systems (svn, then git). You know, when you ask yourself: "Why hadn't I heard about this before? It works so well!"
When i had linux installed on my machine (uninstalled due to school) i used i3 and i loved it but it's very hard to learn and get used to using a windows manager instead of a desktop environment like gnome or kde and almost 100% of your work and settings would be from the command prompt (even stuff like wifi or display setup).
Used your tut when I was first getting into configuring my own distro instead of using stock WM's. Fantastic series man!
Hey, thx! :)
No problem! Any plans on making any more Linux based videos? I love seeing the way other people work their distros and I always come out with a new technique to add to my work flow
Oh, wow, these are not my videos. These are some videos I found on the official i3 resources section that I found very informative. Sorry!
Oh hahahaha I should've read closer. But yeah those are some great videos
i3 ftw. I use i3 at work and on my laptop for years with simply i3status.
I use it on my desktop for daily dev stuff.
Also, I have it installed on my MacBook Pro, and it's the most productive laptop I have had, EVER! :)
Since I came across i3 a couple of years back, it has been the only window manager I have been using. Though recently I have switched to a MacBook Pro, I still have a Fedora VM to keep i3 around.
I tried to switch to OSX back in 2014, and got a MBP for myself... eventually couldn't leave Ubuntu and i3 behind so I did this:
lobotuerto.com/blog/how-to-setup-u...
Then this:
lobotuerto.com/blog/how-to-setup-m...
:D
Thanks for article! I tried i3 and loved it.
i3 FTW!
Does it run smoothly on portrait-oriented monitor? Last time I gave it a try the orientation drove it bonkers.
I think it should, or you can give it a try with a live USB (that's an easy, non-intrusive way to try it out).
Thank you, I will.
Just remember you'll need to play with
xrandrto get the settings for the display right. Theni3should just work.Man, I still haven't learned TMUX. I'd better rectify that before I try to adopt yet another GUI paradigm.
You can use i3 + Tmux if you want, but I haven't had the need to run Screen, Byobu or Tmux after getting to know i3.
The only valid use case I can think of for using Screen or the others is for keeping alive a remote session... aside from that i3 rules the local desktop!
i3 is great, but I have found myself enjoying awesomewm much more. It is a lot more configurable and flexible, at the expense of not working as well out of the box.
Videos (and i3) are indeed fantastic - give some love to their author: twitter.com/bookercodes
Done! ;)