Hacker News Reader

Comment by Zhyl | Hacker News Reader

If you're just looking for a DE/WM that's light on resources, I can definitely recommend tiling window managers like i3 [1].

I'm not sure what other changes would be in your sightlines given that you were happy with Ubuntu, but I usually go to the Arch wiki in those times to see what fat I can trim off of my setup.

[1] https://i3wm.org/

View on HN

Regolith [1] is the perfect i3+Ubuntu combo for me.

It comes with sensible default for a good i3 experience but you keep the Ubuntu "universality".

[1]: https://regolith-linux.org/

I cannot recommend this enough for those looking to dip their toes in tiling managers. I would have saved a lot of time and trouble if I'd gone to Regolith directly, which I only did after spending hours trying to get i3wm into a useful (for me) DE, and realizing that Regolith was what I'd been trying to do all along.

The good stuff from Ubuntu-gnome (easy-to-use common settings GUIs, utilities etc), + the good stuff from i3, well put together and simple to customize, i3-gaps by default, and easy to install.

It also led me to discover i3blocks/i3xrocks which I didn't know I needed.

here's an example of a i3xrocks script for bluetooth status in the tray.

    #!/bin/bash

    # how hard is it to find a bluetooth symbol in common fonts...
    # more icons at https://fontawesome.com/cheatsheet?from=io
    LABEL_ICON= #ᛒ # '' # #  # ᛒ
    LABEL_FONT="Material Design Icons"
    LABEL_COLOR=${label_color:-$(xrescat i3xrocks.label.color "#7B8394")}
    VALUE_COLOR=${color:-$(xrescat i3xrocks.value.color)}
    VALUE_FONT=${font:-$(xrescat i3xrocks.value.font)}

    PANGO_START="<span color=\"${LABEL_COLOR}\" font_desc=\"${LABEL_FONT}\">${LABEL_ICON}</span><span color=\"${VALUE_COLOR}\" font_desc=\"${VALUE_FONT}\">"
    PANGO_END="</span>"

    NCONNECTED=$(expr $(hcitool con | wc -l) - 1)
    echo ${PANGO_START}${NCONNECTED}${PANGO_END}

    if [ ! -z "$button" ]; then
        /usr/bin/i3-msg -q exec /usr/bin/gnome-control-center bluetooth
    fi

Long-time i3 user here, just getting ready to try Regolith when I upgrade to 20.04. Interested to see what I get from it, and what I need to override back to my current setup.

Any pointers for an i3 user moving to Regolith?

I enjoyed reading i3's landing page, thanks for linking.

So could you clarify for me, what's the relation between being a "tiling windows manager" and being light? Is it that for some technical reason one would expect tiling windows managers in general to be lighter than non-tiling? Or is it that orthogonally to the tiling aspect, i3 specifically aims to be light?

I don't think that there's anything inherent in tiling managers that mean they have to be light, but it's very common for them to be light. Ratpoison, xmonad, awesomewm and i3 are the most well known tiling managers (unless I've missed any out?) and all of them are very minimalist and resource light.

My non-expert take on this is that the sort of person who sees value in the efficiencies from using a tiling WM are also of a kind to use system resources efficiently too, even though they are orthogonal characteristics.

DWM, too.

It's a cultural thing. Most developers of tilling WM's seem to prefer less resource-heavy setups.

I have been using Openbox exclusively since about 2005. on both laptops and desktops. It is highly customizable, super light and floating window manager. Using wmctrl wrappers around launcher keystrokes or window management keystokes I can achieve the tiling functionality that I want without committing to tiling only workflow:

* space splitting for launcher * some sticky displays in multi-display desktops

Support for i3. Just don't give up even if it feels a bit awkward to use it the first day(s).

There is also https://swaywm.org/ if someone thinks they should run wayland.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com