archcraft VS i3

try a few different ones that comes preinstalled with a window manager - window managers are all slightly different so it comes down to which one you prefer to use If you want to try Bspwm you can check out Archcraft - it comes preinstalled with bspwm and openbox and several themes

Website : https://archcraft.io

If you don't want to configure it yourself, use an already configured setup like Archcraft.

I'm using Openbox for the first time, it has been working wonderfully. I've decided to take some configuration from Archcraft, (mostly to make my base Arch install look a bit better) however the pipemenu seems to not work.

This might not be popular here, but archcraft could be a good starting point to get into WMs, as it's basically arch but with openbox and all the stuff you might want pre-installed. I don't have too much experience with it though, so I can't say how it compares to a custom setup in terms of performance.

Anyway, I want to install archcraft and I've been getting a black screen during live boot. Fortunately, the fix is well known and its documented in the official wiki... Unfortunately I don't understand the instructions:

👉 i3 window manager

I switched to the i3 tiling based window manager. Because it's a whole different environment and thinking, it was very different from what I was used to. The volume buttons were working on my keyboard, but I didn't get any visual feedback. Furthermore, the volume percentage could go down below zero and increase up to more than hundread percent. There were times when I was confused why the keys stopped working, but the actual hidden reason was that the volume's value was somehow -500 percent, so increasing it by 5 percent via my keys would have taken a little time.

While I believe Memory Saver was a great improvement, it only works if the tab is hidden or the window minimized. I recently learned the required state is not triggered if the tab is open but on another virtual desktop. At least this is the case with many of not all Linux window managers. Some of the many discussion threads on the topic:

https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/4353

This is partially why i use tools like i3 (/ sway). i like the tool; it works extremely well for me; the design has stayed the same for 20 years; there's no profit motive to come along and fuck everything up. it just works. it is boring in the best way possible.

I use MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid-2014) with Manjaro as OS using i3 as a window manager. It isn't perfect, but I'm thrilled with it. I have been a Mac OS user for the last 15 years and wouldn't change what I have now for a Mac OS because I don't need more than what I'm using for development.

Even though, we have moved the official i3 support channel to GitHub discussions, i3's biggest community is still on reddit and if things continue like that there is going to be a lot of helpful content on an increasingly closed platform.