4 ms·

To me a huge selling point of linux is i3wm. If you haven't used this thing yet, you absolutely have to try it out! It is the best tool that I have discovered s

by rayalez 10y ago

To me a huge selling point of linux is i3wm. If you haven't used this thing yet, you absolutely have to try it out! It is the best tool that I have discovered since emacs. It allows me to easily and conveniently manage dozens of windows, and it's hard to describe how convenient that is until you get used to it. I usually have around 10 workspaces open: 1. Emacs with personal notes, goals, todo lists. 2. Emacs windows I use for development and code. 3. Terminals for all sorts of servers and processes running in the bg. Django, compass, webpack, stuff like that. 4. Terminal for "practical" tasks - updating git, ssh, all sorts of commands I want to use. 5. Nautilus. 8. Video player with tutorials and courses I'm watching. 9. Photoshop and other graphical/visual stuff. 10. Chrome. I can switch to any of those with one hotkey, and navigation is super easy and convenient. It is so awesome that I'm thinking that it's almost the main reason I'm not going back to mac. Oh, and also Ubuntu 16 is fucking great. Everything works pretty much out of the box, everything is easy to install, just perfect. The only drawback of linux is editing graphics and videos. At the moment I'm using Photoshop with wine for design and kdenlive for video editing. They are good enough to work, but do have bugs and inconveniences, not as great as you would want.

pritambaral 10y ago
Which version of Photoshop are you using?
toxican 10y ago
If Adobe supported linux, I could almost do my entire job without Windows. The only missing piece would be support for Exchange-based email. But for now I've got two machines, 3 monitors, and make great use of Synergy. I feel like a luddite though because I use and love linux, but have never taken the time to learn and use the workspaces feature. It would probably be cheaper to learn it than to keep throwing monitors at my space issues :P
- se6 10y ago
  For Exchange-based email you can use DavMail (http://davmail.sourceforge.net/ http://davmail.sourceforge.net/) At work I have the only Linux workstation and DavMail + Thunderbird + Lightning works a treat. I have pretty much all the functionality that my Outlook fellows have. (email, calendars, LDAP corporate address book, etc...)
  - toxican 10y ago
    Ah! That is seriously cool and it only took like 5 minutes to get up and running. I don't suppose there's a way to support Tasks?
draven 10y ago
My setup is similar to this except I use XMonad on Arch instead of i3wm. Each desktop is a "context". I have rxvt on the first one, firefox on the second, emacs on the third, the other desktops are for transient stuff. 95% of the time I use the fullscreen layout. It helps me focus. At work I use OS X and compared to my setup at home, it's passable at best.
virtualwhys 10y ago
Yeah, i3 for 4 years now -- great tiling window manager, straightforward config with performant and powerful set of features. The whole windowing system (layers upon layers upon layers), Finder, iTunes, spinning beach balls, etc. is just not in any way appealing from the Linux side of the fence. Sure, "It Just Works"; same with Windows, you get a lot of functionality out of the box, but you can't choose, it's the kitchen sink or nothing. Choose nothing ;-)
jontayesp 10y ago
Does Mac have anything comparable to i3? Unfortunately Linux is not an option for me.
- codecurve 10y ago
  Try kwm[0]. It's not perfect, but as someone who's just switched in the opposite direction, it's the closest thing I've found to i3. [0]: https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm
dghf 10y ago
Similar here, but with dwm r/than i3 (which I've not tried). Looks basic in the extreme, but I can get far more done far more quickly than in a Windows or OS X desktop.
contingencies 10y ago
Understand the sensation. 5 years ago I used to do something similar with xfce+compiz' "spin the cube" with a suitable hotkey (ctrl+alt+direction). I actually wound up preferring this greatly to the dual monitor thing as I didn't have to maintain my neck at unnatural angles, spend more money, or have a stupidly large desk. The last few years I have been mostly on console (similar alt+direction) or OSX (kinda fullscreen or bust traditional WIMPpery). As I have made my mind up not to buy another Mac (laptop hardware is nice but very overpriced, just dies and is too expensive to repair... and I no longer need a laptop, now that bluetooth keyboard+tablet is a strong option), I will probably join you soon. :)
- Veen 10y ago
  How are you using a tablet for dev work? I know there are some good terminal apps on iOS (Prompt), but I've never really found that a convenient way to go. Although, It'd be awesome if someone did an iOS port of Vim — I've always thought a modal interface like Vim's would be perfect for a tablet + keyboard combination.
  - contingencies 10y ago
    Check out the 'Linux Deploy' app for native, or just run a terminal to connect elsewhere. https://github.com/meefik/linuxdeploy https://github.com/meefik/linuxdeploy
arnoooooo 10y ago
Due to the drawbacks you mentioned, I switched to Xfce with a few hotkeys (for tiling left/right, switching directly to email/terminal/browser/emacs), and haven't looked back.
laumars 10y ago
I spend most of me waking hours inside a tmux session, often with multiple split panes, so I really should be at home in a tiling WM. But everytime I've tried to make the switch I get annoyed and switch back to KDE. I've tried several different WMs and even started to hack my own one together using WinGo as a template. But in the end I find KDE to be what I feel most at home with. The killer feature for KDE is the "konsole" (KDE terminal) integration in their GUI tools. Their file manager (Dolphin) and text editors (Kwrite and Kate) have a CLI built in so I can leverage the best of both paradigms from a single interface. Couple that with Krunner (I know every DE and OS has a runner these days) and Yakuake (a Quake-style drop down terminal) and KDE is actually a surprisingly productive desktop environment even for people who are command line orientated or running on platforms with limited screen real estate (eg laptop screen). But as much as we might intellectualise the productivity of different desktop environments and window managers, our personal preferences often just boil down to old habits. I've been using KDE since version 1 so when migrating to a tiling WM I was as much frustrated by having to rewrite muscle memory as I was by any personal preference with the UI design.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  I remember using KDE + bspwm for a short period of time before I decided to go without KDE. It required a couple special rules in the bspwm config but it worked just fine.
brudgers 10y ago
Now that 10 has separate desktops, tiling window managers -- I use xmonad -- are the non-negotiable that keeps me from considering a switch back to Windows. Most everything else I use is cross platform or has a replacement. Running my online life from the keyboard does not.

by rayalez 10y ago

pritambaral 10y ago

Which version of Photoshop are you using?

toxican 10y ago

If Adobe supported linux, I could almost do my entire job without Windows. The only missing piece would be support for Exchange-based email. But for now I've got two machines, 3 monitors, and make great use of Synergy. I feel like a luddite though because I use and love linux, but have never taken the time to learn and use the workspaces feature. It would probably be cheaper to learn it than to keep throwing monitors at my space issues :P

se6 10y ago
For Exchange-based email you can use DavMail (http://davmail.sourceforge.net/ http://davmail.sourceforge.net/) At work I have the only Linux workstation and DavMail + Thunderbird + Lightning works a treat. I have pretty much all the functionality that my Outlook fellows have. (email, calendars, LDAP corporate address book, etc...)
- toxican 10y ago
  Ah! That is seriously cool and it only took like 5 minutes to get up and running. I don't suppose there's a way to support Tasks?

draven 10y ago

My setup is similar to this except I use XMonad on Arch instead of i3wm. Each desktop is a "context". I have rxvt on the first one, firefox on the second, emacs on the third, the other desktops are for transient stuff. 95% of the time I use the fullscreen layout. It helps me focus. At work I use OS X and compared to my setup at home, it's passable at best.

virtualwhys 10y ago

Yeah, i3 for 4 years now -- great tiling window manager, straightforward config with performant and powerful set of features. The whole windowing system (layers upon layers upon layers), Finder, iTunes, spinning beach balls, etc. is just not in any way appealing from the Linux side of the fence. Sure, "It Just Works"; same with Windows, you get a lot of functionality out of the box, but you can't choose, it's the kitchen sink or nothing. Choose nothing ;-)

jontayesp 10y ago

Does Mac have anything comparable to i3? Unfortunately Linux is not an option for me.

codecurve 10y ago
Try kwm[0]. It's not perfect, but as someone who's just switched in the opposite direction, it's the closest thing I've found to i3. [0]: https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm https://github.com/koekeishiya/kwm

dghf 10y ago

Similar here, but with dwm r/than i3 (which I've not tried). Looks basic in the extreme, but I can get far more done far more quickly than in a Windows or OS X desktop.

contingencies 10y ago

Understand the sensation. 5 years ago I used to do something similar with xfce+compiz' "spin the cube" with a suitable hotkey (ctrl+alt+direction). I actually wound up preferring this greatly to the dual monitor thing as I didn't have to maintain my neck at unnatural angles, spend more money, or have a stupidly large desk. The last few years I have been mostly on console (similar alt+direction) or OSX (kinda fullscreen or bust traditional WIMPpery). As I have made my mind up not to buy another Mac (laptop hardware is nice but very overpriced, just dies and is too expensive to repair... and I no longer need a laptop, now that bluetooth keyboard+tablet is a strong option), I will probably join you soon. :)

Veen 10y ago
How are you using a tablet for dev work? I know there are some good terminal apps on iOS (Prompt), but I've never really found that a convenient way to go. Although, It'd be awesome if someone did an iOS port of Vim — I've always thought a modal interface like Vim's would be perfect for a tablet + keyboard combination.
- contingencies 10y ago
  Check out the 'Linux Deploy' app for native, or just run a terminal to connect elsewhere. https://github.com/meefik/linuxdeploy https://github.com/meefik/linuxdeploy

arnoooooo 10y ago

Due to the drawbacks you mentioned, I switched to Xfce with a few hotkeys (for tiling left/right, switching directly to email/terminal/browser/emacs), and haven't looked back.

laumars 10y ago

I spend most of me waking hours inside a tmux session, often with multiple split panes, so I really should be at home in a tiling WM. But everytime I've tried to make the switch I get annoyed and switch back to KDE. I've tried several different WMs and even started to hack my own one together using WinGo as a template. But in the end I find KDE to be what I feel most at home with. The killer feature for KDE is the "konsole" (KDE terminal) integration in their GUI tools. Their file manager (Dolphin) and text editors (Kwrite and Kate) have a CLI built in so I can leverage the best of both paradigms from a single interface. Couple that with Krunner (I know every DE and OS has a runner these days) and Yakuake (a Quake-style drop down terminal) and KDE is actually a surprisingly productive desktop environment even for people who are command line orientated or running on platforms with limited screen real estate (eg laptop screen). But as much as we might intellectualise the productivity of different desktop environments and window managers, our personal preferences often just boil down to old habits. I've been using KDE since version 1 so when migrating to a tiling WM I was as much frustrated by having to rewrite muscle memory as I was by any personal preference with the UI design.

mixedCase 10y ago
I remember using KDE + bspwm for a short period of time before I decided to go without KDE. It required a couple special rules in the bspwm config but it worked just fine.

brudgers 10y ago

Now that 10 has separate desktops, tiling window managers -- I use xmonad -- are the non-negotiable that keeps me from considering a switch back to Windows. Most everything else I use is cross platform or has a replacement. Running my online life from the keyboard does not.