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I used Mac and Windows alternately since 1997 until 2017 when I moved to Arch Linux with the i3wm Tiling Window Manager [0]. i3wm is easily one of the key thin

I used Mac and Windows alternately since 1997 until 2017 when I moved to Arch Linux with the i3wm Tiling Window Manager [0]. i3wm is easily one of the key things keeping me using Linux as my daily driver (personal + work). It's so simple yet deeply configurable. Sure, it takes a bit of time to tweak and get used to but IMO it has paid off massively. It has made using a computer just so much more of a joy. Whenever I use Mac and Windows I really miss i3wm. I spend barely any time moving Windows around - everything Just Works (with the caveat of some tweaking - but my config file is only about 100 lines of i3 declarations) and I've barely had to change it in 5 years. I do go around shilling i3wm here and there on hn, purely just because it has provided me actual joy and I want others to know about it! I know the Apple crowd are fans of everything Just Working, and i3 comes with sensible defaults to enable that. [0]: https://i3wm.org/ https://i3wm.org/

benniomars 5y ago
beepbooptheory 5y ago
It is extremely hard to go back to anything else after i3wm, even when I do wish I could have some more things taken care of for me in a full fledged DE -- mostly stuff like touchpad configuration, polkit, theming. Longing for a central settings manager like KDE/Gnome, but still not worth it to give up the i3 world. And yes, I know you can use KDE or Gnome as a DE to i3's WM, but the things you have to do to get it to work are very brittle and it feels very hacky, makes it not worth it. Haven't had enough money for a Mac in the past decade, but this article makes a good case that I could at least tolerate it coming from i3!
- curioussavage 5y ago
  You should check out the regolith project then. It’s pretty awesome, I just wish someone would start an equivalent project for sway.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- 12ian34 5y ago
  I think I'll be getting a Macbook for work soon so did investigate TWMs for mac and Amethyst[0] comes up a fair amount. It will for sure be the first thing I try. [0]: https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst
  - SxC97 5y ago
    For what it’s worth, I’ve been using yabai on macOS for a while now and I’ve quite enjoyed it. It feels a lot more like configuring a Linux twm then amethyst. I did find amethyst to be more stable, Yabai still has some annoying bugs on apple silicon but the extra features make it worth it in my books.
    - 12ian34 5y ago
      Cool - thanks for the tip! What are the most annoying M1 Mac bugs?
      - raarts 5y ago
        For me: you can't run Docker inside Windows inside Parallels. The M1 doesn't support nested virtualization. Rumor has it the M2 will.
        12ian34 5y ago
        Ah, to clarify, I was asking about what the most annoying M1 Mac bugs are there specifically with yabai
      - SxC97 5y ago
        This depends a lot on your workflow. I really like some of the features offered by yabai that depend on disabling SIP and installing the Scripting Addition. You can totally use Yabai without this though. The biggest issue I have is that by disabling SIP, you can't use Apple Pay or use iOS apps on MacOS. The only 2 apps I wanted to use were Overcast and Apolo, so it's not a huge loss, but I'm still disappointed. The second issue is that the Scripting Additions were written for x86 and need to be completely rewritten for ARM (not totally sure about this, I don't know much about low level OS programming). This also means that the scripting additions behave a little erratically. The additions also need to be manually updated for every version of MacOS, so if a new version of MacOS comes out with cool new features, you need to wait for a yabai update before you can update your OS otherwise you end up breaking your config. Right now I also have a bug that means that I can't grant Yabai accessibility permissions so I just have it disabled while I wait for a fix. All in all, you're running a window manager on top of a window manager, so you're obviously going to end up with some weird behavior. Personally, I've put in several months of effort to making these 2 window managers play nice together and also _feel_ more like my linux install with features like remapping keys with karabiner, launching terminal apps with alfred, having a UI that shows your window manager shortcuts, and a panel that queries info from yabai. Is it worth it? If my job depended on it I would probably just use macOS as default, but since this is all on my personal device and I enjoy tinkering, I think it's worth it.
mmphosis 5y ago
I used Mac since the 1980s, and been able to tile windows, stack windows, and overlap windows. The Mac would remember size and placement. IIRC, the Mac II could support windows spanning across up to nine monitors of various resolutions, shapes, and bit-depths. MPW had window splitting which was annoying. The Finder has/had Zoom which would resize the window to the smallest size with no scroll bars. I've wished there was an easy way to implement Zoom in other applications. With small screen phones, the screen is usually filled with only one app/mode at a time. I see a lot of the same use on Windows where there is only one maximized app/mode at a time, even though one can tile, stack and overlap multiple windows. Window's Multiple Document Interface (MDI) has somewhat morphed into "Tabs" which still present only one tab/mode at a time. No modes please. I am looking at the screenshots and videos for i3 and see a lot of scrollbars and wasted screen space. I don't see the advantage of i3 over Mac or Windows, or XFCE that I use in Linux. What am I missing? Maybe I'm good with what I've got.
- 12ian34 5y ago
  Sure, the tiling concept isn't new. It's easy to come across lots of overly done up i3 setups, often using "i3-gaps" which is a modified (fork, I think) of i3 which introduces gaps between all windows and the screen edge in the name of prettiness. This is common in the /r/UnixPorn community and frankly, I would never use it. Perhaps you're seeing a small subset of potential i3 setups. On scrollbars, I don't feel like I see any more scrollbars than in Mac or Windows. Probably less? The main benefit I see in i3wm compared to any other window managers in other OSes is actually the use of space, my windows are literally edge to edge. Apps don't have title bars unless you've got your windows stacked, and you can customise exactly how many pixels the title bars are. You can customise the colours of active, hovered and inactive window titles. You can add borders to windows, of any size and colour, you can have none. I also love the multi desktop feature which I use prolifically. I have 10 desktops named 1-10 but you can call them anything you want (emojis work too, thanks unicode). Certain apps always open in certain windows so I always know where everything is. This is all declared in a config file so it's never a guessing game - it just works. Also, I have 2 monitors and multi-monitor support for window management works a dream. It's not just the tiling - moving windows around is so easy, I can press $mod+Shift+5 to move a window to desktop 5, or $mod+Shift+Left to move it to the left, or even $mod+Shift+Alt+Left to move it to the left monitor. These are second nature to me now. Finally... the speed. Wow, switching between desktops, windows, monitors just happens incredibly fast. When I use a Mac or Windows I just can't stand all the animation and slowness. M1 macs included. This is in part helped by the picom compositor, with animation time reduced to being nearly negligible whilst being enough to "look nice".
TacticalCoder 5y ago
I'm using another tiling WM, "The Awesome WM", since forever. I'd really like to see a comparison of i3wm vs Awesome. My setup is working so great for me that I cannot see myself switching to i3wm, unless it's really that much better than Awesome. But I'm curious: you're not the only one to shill i3wm: obviously people using it love it.
HNHatesUsers 5y ago
adhesive_wombat 5y ago
I love i3, though I get a bit jealous when I see a shiny DE like GNOME, since I haven't added any beauty to it, other than making the highlighted window more obvious. I'm definitely not good at using it effectively: I usual end up with a stack of about 10 windows in one frame, but turning them to a tab frame would prevent me moving sideways to other frames (I often have them side by side). Probably I could make a command to do it, or use marks properly. Also not being able to maximise a window but keep the i3bar showing is super annoying.

benniomars 5y ago

beepbooptheory 5y ago

It is extremely hard to go back to anything else after i3wm, even when I do wish I could have some more things taken care of for me in a full fledged DE -- mostly stuff like touchpad configuration, polkit, theming. Longing for a central settings manager like KDE/Gnome, but still not worth it to give up the i3 world. And yes, I know you can use KDE or Gnome as a DE to i3's WM, but the things you have to do to get it to work are very brittle and it feels very hacky, makes it not worth it. Haven't had enough money for a Mac in the past decade, but this article makes a good case that I could at least tolerate it coming from i3!

curioussavage 5y ago
You should check out the regolith project then. It’s pretty awesome, I just wish someone would start an equivalent project for sway.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
12ian34 5y ago
I think I'll be getting a Macbook for work soon so did investigate TWMs for mac and Amethyst[0] comes up a fair amount. It will for sure be the first thing I try. [0]: https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst
- SxC97 5y ago
  For what it’s worth, I’ve been using yabai on macOS for a while now and I’ve quite enjoyed it. It feels a lot more like configuring a Linux twm then amethyst. I did find amethyst to be more stable, Yabai still has some annoying bugs on apple silicon but the extra features make it worth it in my books.
  - 12ian34 5y ago
    Cool - thanks for the tip! What are the most annoying M1 Mac bugs?
    - raarts 5y ago
      For me: you can't run Docker inside Windows inside Parallels. The M1 doesn't support nested virtualization. Rumor has it the M2 will.
      - 12ian34 5y ago
        Ah, to clarify, I was asking about what the most annoying M1 Mac bugs are there specifically with yabai
    - SxC97 5y ago
      This depends a lot on your workflow. I really like some of the features offered by yabai that depend on disabling SIP and installing the Scripting Addition. You can totally use Yabai without this though. The biggest issue I have is that by disabling SIP, you can't use Apple Pay or use iOS apps on MacOS. The only 2 apps I wanted to use were Overcast and Apolo, so it's not a huge loss, but I'm still disappointed. The second issue is that the Scripting Additions were written for x86 and need to be completely rewritten for ARM (not totally sure about this, I don't know much about low level OS programming). This also means that the scripting additions behave a little erratically. The additions also need to be manually updated for every version of MacOS, so if a new version of MacOS comes out with cool new features, you need to wait for a yabai update before you can update your OS otherwise you end up breaking your config. Right now I also have a bug that means that I can't grant Yabai accessibility permissions so I just have it disabled while I wait for a fix. All in all, you're running a window manager on top of a window manager, so you're obviously going to end up with some weird behavior. Personally, I've put in several months of effort to making these 2 window managers play nice together and also _feel_ more like my linux install with features like remapping keys with karabiner, launching terminal apps with alfred, having a UI that shows your window manager shortcuts, and a panel that queries info from yabai. Is it worth it? If my job depended on it I would probably just use macOS as default, but since this is all on my personal device and I enjoy tinkering, I think it's worth it.

mmphosis 5y ago

I used Mac since the 1980s, and been able to tile windows, stack windows, and overlap windows. The Mac would remember size and placement. IIRC, the Mac II could support windows spanning across up to nine monitors of various resolutions, shapes, and bit-depths. MPW had window splitting which was annoying. The Finder has/had Zoom which would resize the window to the smallest size with no scroll bars. I've wished there was an easy way to implement Zoom in other applications. With small screen phones, the screen is usually filled with only one app/mode at a time. I see a lot of the same use on Windows where there is only one maximized app/mode at a time, even though one can tile, stack and overlap multiple windows. Window's Multiple Document Interface (MDI) has somewhat morphed into "Tabs" which still present only one tab/mode at a time. No modes please. I am looking at the screenshots and videos for i3 and see a lot of scrollbars and wasted screen space. I don't see the advantage of i3 over Mac or Windows, or XFCE that I use in Linux. What am I missing? Maybe I'm good with what I've got.

12ian34 5y ago
Sure, the tiling concept isn't new. It's easy to come across lots of overly done up i3 setups, often using "i3-gaps" which is a modified (fork, I think) of i3 which introduces gaps between all windows and the screen edge in the name of prettiness. This is common in the /r/UnixPorn community and frankly, I would never use it. Perhaps you're seeing a small subset of potential i3 setups. On scrollbars, I don't feel like I see any more scrollbars than in Mac or Windows. Probably less? The main benefit I see in i3wm compared to any other window managers in other OSes is actually the use of space, my windows are literally edge to edge. Apps don't have title bars unless you've got your windows stacked, and you can customise exactly how many pixels the title bars are. You can customise the colours of active, hovered and inactive window titles. You can add borders to windows, of any size and colour, you can have none. I also love the multi desktop feature which I use prolifically. I have 10 desktops named 1-10 but you can call them anything you want (emojis work too, thanks unicode). Certain apps always open in certain windows so I always know where everything is. This is all declared in a config file so it's never a guessing game - it just works. Also, I have 2 monitors and multi-monitor support for window management works a dream. It's not just the tiling - moving windows around is so easy, I can press $mod+Shift+5 to move a window to desktop 5, or $mod+Shift+Left to move it to the left, or even $mod+Shift+Alt+Left to move it to the left monitor. These are second nature to me now. Finally... the speed. Wow, switching between desktops, windows, monitors just happens incredibly fast. When I use a Mac or Windows I just can't stand all the animation and slowness. M1 macs included. This is in part helped by the picom compositor, with animation time reduced to being nearly negligible whilst being enough to "look nice".

TacticalCoder 5y ago

I'm using another tiling WM, "The Awesome WM", since forever. I'd really like to see a comparison of i3wm vs Awesome. My setup is working so great for me that I cannot see myself switching to i3wm, unless it's really that much better than Awesome. But I'm curious: you're not the only one to shill i3wm: obviously people using it love it.

HNHatesUsers 5y ago

adhesive_wombat 5y ago

I love i3, though I get a bit jealous when I see a shiny DE like GNOME, since I haven't added any beauty to it, other than making the highlighted window more obvious. I'm definitely not good at using it effectively: I usual end up with a stack of about 10 windows in one frame, but turning them to a tab frame would prevent me moving sideways to other frames (I often have them side by side). Probably I could make a command to do it, or use marks properly. Also not being able to maximise a window but keep the i3bar showing is super annoying.