Ask HN: How do I transition into i3/ awesome from Gnome? - yewenjie
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wilsonnb3
In my opinion, as someone who used i3 exclusively for years but switched back
to Gnome, don't bother.

You're not actually going to be more productive with a different window
manager. You may _feel_ more productive, but it's highly unlikely that how
quickly you switch between windows is an actual bottleneck in your life.

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bitshepherd
As a former devout Fluxbox user, I concur with this comment. I use a pretty
bog standard Gnome now. It's not really an active thought so much as something
that Mostly Just Works.

My productivity is about the same, since I use the same applications. The only
thing I don't have is an incessant need to fiddle and tweak.

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simon_acca
Kickstart your configuration by looking around on github for other users'
dotfiles, everybody needs to do some common things after all, like opening
programs, changing volume, brightness, suspending, etc.

My dotfiles repo is private but here is mine:
[https://gist.github.com/simonacca/425dad70526bcfd9c6af7ed5f4...](https://gist.github.com/simonacca/425dad70526bcfd9c6af7ed5f4679c61)

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prolikewh0a
In what way? Dive right in. Set your own shortcuts, and just use it. It's not
terribly different, you're just not dragging windows around and everything is
fully maximized unless you use some sort of gaps system. Check the i3
documentation, reddit i3 forums, and also /r/unixporn can be useful for
finding things that will assist you with tiling wm's.

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Topgamer7
Are you asking how to install it? Or how to become adept at it?

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yewenjie
The latter. Every time I install i3, I like the flexibility it offers for
first few minutes, and then suddenly I find myself unable to do some old thing
which is very easy to do in GNOME, and then get frustrated and revert back.
Also, the documentations are very long and complicated for a relatively new
GNU/Linux user like me.

~~~
switch007
Well, don't give up. Like anything in life!

Arch wiki is useful. Also [https://faq.i3wm.org](https://faq.i3wm.org) and
[https://www.reddit.com/r/i3wm/](https://www.reddit.com/r/i3wm/)

