5 ms·

My primary dev machine has been running KDE and i3wm for a while. I feel like I get a complete GUI experience while having all the benefits of a tiling window m

My primary dev machine has been running KDE and i3wm for a while. I feel like I get a complete GUI experience while having all the benefits of a tiling window manager. The author likes Gnome because of it's UI looking like Mac OS, and that's understandable. KDE did look different when I first switched from Macs. But at this point, the only things running in my dev machine is a whole lot of terminals and maybe 1-3 browser instances. So KDE is almost hidden at all tkmes.

gh02t 7y ago
I primarily just use i3, but I used to be a KDE guy. I used it for a while again just recently and I have to say, it's gotten really good. They've made it clean and tidy, while still being powerful and customizable.
- newman8r 7y ago
  I'm a recent i3 convert (been using it full time for the better part of a year now). It's one of those little changes that really brought me a lot of satisfaction. This is on my primary desktop (with a 4k display). I recommend it to anyone who's in a rut with their workflow (learn about all the mods, i3-gaps, etc.) - it takes about a day to properly customize and get used to, time well spent.
  - infiniteseeker 7y ago
    I have had a tough time getting my 4k ext display to properly scale with i3. I tried arandr but the fonts are too small. With scaling , Emacs, Firefox and alacritty seem to be ok but things seem sluggish on my x230. How did you do it ?
    - mises 7y ago
      Depends on the application for me. .Xresources is where you need the biggest tweak, but email me if you want more specific help.
    - newman8r 7y ago
      I'm on a pretty big monitor (~40 inches) for development, so I don't actually do any scaling for this display. I'm spoiled with a pretty good desktop rig, so I haven't had to do any optimization in a while.
- mises 7y ago
  The thing that originally got me to switch to i3 was using a serious potato for a few months. 2012 core i3 processor and 8g ram (upgraded) kind of potato. Plenty usable with i3, but had trouble with windows or heavier full desktop environments; i3 was great and snappy and I was able to use the computer just fine.
  - KozmoNau7 7y ago
    I use KDE on a ThinkPad X220i, so around the same specs as your potato (with an SSD, though). It absolutely flies, no slowdowns or issues at all.

gh02t 7y ago

I primarily just use i3, but I used to be a KDE guy. I used it for a while again just recently and I have to say, it's gotten really good. They've made it clean and tidy, while still being powerful and customizable.

newman8r 7y ago
I'm a recent i3 convert (been using it full time for the better part of a year now). It's one of those little changes that really brought me a lot of satisfaction. This is on my primary desktop (with a 4k display). I recommend it to anyone who's in a rut with their workflow (learn about all the mods, i3-gaps, etc.) - it takes about a day to properly customize and get used to, time well spent.
- infiniteseeker 7y ago
  I have had a tough time getting my 4k ext display to properly scale with i3. I tried arandr but the fonts are too small. With scaling , Emacs, Firefox and alacritty seem to be ok but things seem sluggish on my x230. How did you do it ?
  - mises 7y ago
    Depends on the application for me. .Xresources is where you need the biggest tweak, but email me if you want more specific help.
  - newman8r 7y ago
    I'm on a pretty big monitor (~40 inches) for development, so I don't actually do any scaling for this display. I'm spoiled with a pretty good desktop rig, so I haven't had to do any optimization in a while.
mises 7y ago
The thing that originally got me to switch to i3 was using a serious potato for a few months. 2012 core i3 processor and 8g ram (upgraded) kind of potato. Plenty usable with i3, but had trouble with windows or heavier full desktop environments; i3 was great and snappy and I was able to use the computer just fine.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  I use KDE on a ThinkPad X220i, so around the same specs as your potato (with an SSD, though). It absolutely flies, no slowdowns or issues at all.