[mbreedlove]

I used i3 for a while and really enjoyed it. Though, I eventually switched back to KDE. I didn't like having to fiddle with power management and configuring screen locking.

I was noticing that I was only using 1-2 tiles at a time and I could easily emulate that by just side-by-siding windows in KDE.

I think if I ever have the chance to use a Linux machine professionally, especially with multiple monitors, I'll definitely reach for i3 again.

[city41]

i3 couples with desktop environments rather nicely. I've used it with KDE and MATE, and others have used it successfully with XFCE.

My success with it with KDE was a little mixed, but I also didn't make any effort to resolve the little issues. With MATE though, it works flawlessly with no downsides or really any config needed. It's fantastic.

Here is how I set it up with MATE: https://www.mattgreer.org/articles/mate-and-i3/

[blaser-waffle]

Cheers for the MATE panel applet you put together (that's in the blog post): https://github.com/city41/mate-i3-applet

Also, got any pictures of the desktop?

[ppseafield]

I also run i3 and MATE. It's a great combo: powerful tiling window manager plus a DE that handles all the settings / control panel well (without me having to do much configuration myself!).

[mbreedlove]

This looks really cool, thanks for sharing!

[majewsky]

> I could easily emulate that by just side-by-siding windows in KDE.

I'm now on i3 (actually Sway), but when I was still using KDE Plasma, I extensively used the "quick tile" global shortcuts for KWin. They're not all bound by default, but you can set them up in System Settings (Global Shortcuts > KWin). I had it set up so that Win+S maximizes the current window (which by itself is quirky), and then every key around S is for a quick tile. For example, Win+Q moves the current window to the upper left quadrant. Win+D has the window occupy the right half of the screen, and so forth.

The only thing that I do miss from KDE times is the full KDE Connect integration. I have kdeconnectd running through some clever trickery, and the sshfs and MPRIS integrations work fine, but e.g. clipboard sharing doesn't work with Sway yet.

[zwayhowder]

I found i3 the most useful at two extremes, my 12.5" (1080p) Thinkpad screen and my 43" 4K screen. Both benefit immensely from the tiling and virtual desktop arrangement and especially on the smaller screen the scratchpad.

Yes setup is fiddly at first but on my daily driver I haven't touched the config file in months.