Install i3 window manager debian

You will have to separately install other utilities such as application launchers and wallpaper setters as per your requirements. And there you go. You're ready to start configuring the i3 tiling window manager. The next time you log in, you'll have an option to either use your old desktop environment or the i3 window manager. Switching to a tiling window could be your first step as a Linux power user to make yourself more productive and in control of your operating system.

Although the configuration process may seem tedious at first, the satisfaction of customizing everything just like you needed will be a worthy payoff. However, if you're not ready to jump ship just yet and still need a good desktop environment for your everyday needs, here's a list of some desktop environments that might be perfect for you. Choosing a Linux desktop environment can be difficult. Here are the best Linux desktop environments to consider.

It is available as a metapackage that includes i3-wm, i3lock, i3status, dunst, and suckless-tools. This key is the basis for all keybinds that the window manager will use. The Windows key is recommended because Alt is used by many other applications for other purposes. I3 will take precedence over other applications and other keybind-based functionality used by i3 will be lost. Once the configuration file has been generated, all required configuration is complete, but most users will do a lot of editing in the configuration file to customize their i3 instance.

With dmenu, the first recommended application to run is an editor or terminal so you can read and modify the configuration file. The configuration file is simple and quite intuitive. Other configurable options include window management keybinds, window border and title bar configuration, workspace naming, application assignment to specific desktops by default, i3bar management including autohide , startup applications and so on.

This will not cause any applications to close, but may occasionally cause them to move. Useful Scripts Setting Wallpapers There is no default way to set wallpapers in i3 and this is a feature many users switching from a desktop environment will miss.

A display manager , or login manager, is typically a graphical user interface that is displayed at the end of the boot process in place of the default shell. We will be using LightDM. Next time we boot up, this is what will greet us during login instead of the command line prompt. For i3lock, dunst and rofi I use the default configuration that comes out of the box but all of these are quite configurable. Restart the machine, and we should first be greeted with the drive decryption prompt, followed by the login manager.

Once we login, we should see i3 with the default configuration. My entire dot-config is available here and the i3 configuration is available here. It utilizes various scripts present in the bin folder at the root of the repository. It also references a few applications that I will be outlining in the next blog.